Importance Of Veterinarian

In Civilization and Its Discontents, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud asserts that individuals seek comfort in life by striving to separate themselves from things that are not pleasurable in life. Yet, in most cases, human being rely upon civilization in order to survive and must compromise their desire to completely avoid the suffering that is brought through participation in the external world. The necessity to sacrifice pleasure for the collective benefit of society especially applies to veterinarians. While civilization has often valued the service of caring veterinarians, individuals who seek to help animals must often conflict with the priority that civilizations place upon exploiting animals and nature. Through Freud’s theory, it can be understood that the desire to escape the mundane and painful elements of life through connecting with animals and avoiding humans. However, because civilization has little use for art that deviates from cultural values, the caring veterinarian must often subdue his own ego to the superego in order to engage in an occupation that will be accepted by members of society.

The motivations of the veterinarian can be understood through Freud’s theory on the formation of the ego. As Freud states, “Normally there is nothing of which we are more certain than the feeling of our self, of our own ego” (Freud 12). As the basic building block of the self, the ego is described as a part of human consciousness that is “autonomous and unitary, marked off distinctly from everything else” (12). While Freud believes that infants have no distinct barrier between their ego and the world, he argues that infants begin to develop a sense of an independent self in response to stimuli in their external environments...

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...iety by suppressing his own ideals. By applying the super-ego to his own career goals, the veterinarian is sacrificing his ability to bring his own interior desires into existence and thus must endure the reality that others impose upon him through the disapproval of others.

As Freud discusses in Civilization and Its Discontent, participation in society requires members to sacrifice their own happiness for the benefit of society. While society enables collective security through technological advancement, it also requires individuals to conform to the practical goals of society so that civilization can continue to exploit nature. As a result of this tendency of society, caring veterinarians who wish to devote their lives to serving animals at the sacrifice of profit will often struggle as they are forced to cooperate with the reality that is imposed by society.