The era post-World War I was a period of despair and disillusionment. The product of the war left everyone with feelings of letdown due to the inability of uniformity of opinions and expectations. Freud asserts in his text that civilized human beings are permanently unhappy biological instinctual beings capable of assuaging but never fully eradicating the alienating burden of communal life because every individual’s way of human adaptation he or she uses to secure happiness from the world varies; thus, society as a whole can never reach full contentment because individuals of the society are focused solely on tying to satisfy their own happiness. Sigmund Freud was a neurologist who developed and advanced psychoanalysis, a technique studying …show more content…
Freud’s observation that human beings essential boil down to being creatures with innate instincts, including aggressionn, which he call “an original self subsisting instinctual disposition in man…the greatest impediment to civilization” (Freud 118). In Chapter VII of Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud mentions and cultivates the concept of the superego—the embodiment of aggressive tendencies and tying it together with the ego and the result of guilt in individuals, which articulates the requisite to be punished, which Freud believes to the origins of …show more content…
Because of the fact he basically forgets about the social aspect, it makes it seem that we are driven significantly more by our biological instincts rather than our societal environment and our social needs. Freud does not closely examine the effects of humiliation and shame culture. He speak about the process a society must pass through in order for super ego to be fully matured and developed (85). There are multiple stages according to Freud, of which the first one being “social anxiety”. Social anxiety is the instance where individuals are consumed and controlled by the judgment by others and Freud views it exactly this way; however, he also states that society must surpass the point of social needs and anxieties to the internalization of authority. In all, Freud’s theory is guiding us to the view that behavior driven by social norms and conventions does not have as significant depth than one’s individual psyche acting as the
It can perhaps be inferred from the title that Freud’s work will have a languished tone. When describing the workings of civilization, Freud chooses words with negative connotations, such as “restriction” and “perversion” (Freud 49, 59). He ends the work by bleakly asking “may we not be justified that under the influence of cultural urges…possibly the whole of mankind—have become neurotic?” (Freud 110). He sees no feasible solution to the conflicts between human tendencies and civilization. In Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi outlook is despondent and fatalistic. His anecdotes focus solely on the horrible experiences he and his fellow prisoners must endure at the work camp. This tone changes, however, once he begins to form relationships with other men in the camp; he becomes focused on survival and abandons the forlorn tone to focus on survival. As Auschwitz is abandoned and the prisoners left are striving to survive, he recounts that he gave everyone nasal drops of camphorated oil “for pure propaganda purposes…I assured Sertelet that they would help him; I even tried to convince myself” (Levi 168). Instead of wallowing in their state as Sigmund Freud does, Primo Levi looks for ways to be optimistic and instill hope in his
In chapter 5, Freud tangentially discusses communism, and why he thinks that it wouldn’t solve the problem of misery. Freud states that, “The communists believe … man is wholly good and is well disposed to his neighbor; but the institution of private property has corrupted his nature… If private property were abolished, ill-will and hostility would disappear among men” (Freud 96-97). He counters the communist ideas by stating that, “In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression one of its instruments…but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness, nor have we altered anything in its nature” (97). To Freud, there isn 't an easy fix for human misery, and suggestions such as communism just serve to direct the problem elsewhere. It seems that Freud lacks a solution and, with World War II on the horizon, concludes with the suggestion that either Eros or Thanatos will need to assert itself, but none can foresee the
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
After reading this week’s readings, I decide to focus my attention on Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, and to briefly touch on pragmatic views. I can see the similarities between the two, were religion, philosophy and science all intertwines, as it relates to finding truth or should I say truth as it relates to achieving certain goals in order to support social values and needs. The implications that what is true, may not necessarily be true, and that any and all knowledge that contributes to human values, can be interpreted as truth. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics should be viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes and that knowledge can be evaluated from the goals that this knowledge is able to support
...e had thoughts of the ideal man stems coming from the anger about his society who treated humans as machines and animals. Freud was more like a therapist for giving every problem for the human’s unhappiness and frustration, solutions to have life that is more livable. Freud saw the inner struggle which was affected by the civilization and society, but believed that there’s potential ways to satisfy one’s self. Unlike Nietzsche who saw the outer struggle not the nature of the human, who focused more on what the society, religion who led to frustration
“Civilization and Its Discontents” is a book written by Sigmund Freud in 1929 (originally titled “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur” or The Uneasiness in Culture.) This is considered to be one of Freud’s most important and widely read works. In this book, Freud explains his perspective by enumerating what he sees as fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. He asserts that this tension stems from the individual’s quest for freedom and non-conformity and civilization’s quest for uniformity and instinctual repression. Most of humankind’s primitive instincts are clearly destructive to the health and well-being of a human community (such as the desire to kill.) As a direct result, civilization creates laws designed to prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and has severe consequences for those that break these laws. Freud argues that this process is an inherent quality of civilization that instills perpetual feelings of discontent in its citizens. This theory is based on the idea that humans have characteristic instincts that are immutable. The most notable of these are the desires for sex, and the predisposition to violent aggression towards authoritative figures as well as sexual competitors. Both of these obstruct the gratification of a person’s instincts. Freud also believes that humans are governed by the pleasure principle, and that they will do whatever satisfies or pleasures them. He also believes that fulfilling these instincts satisfies the pleasure principle.
Even in the early twentieth century, Freud was able to not only diagnose the “illness” of the society that he lived in, but was also brilliant in stating that civilization pays no attention to the happiness of the individual. This quote also demonstrates that an individual who believes that there is more “merit” in obeying rules that are hard to follow are actually at a disadvantage in contrast to those around him/her who may disregard those precepts. Overall, the two thinker’s analytical texts impact our perception of morality, even with our different modern values.
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Pribor in the Austrian Empire (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his education in the medical field, Freud decided to mix the career fields of medicine and philosophy to become a psychologist (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his research as a psychologist, he conceived the Structural Model Theory, which he discussed in his essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The theory states that the human psyche is divided into three main parts: the id, ego, and super-ego (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. pag). He concluded that the id was the desire for destruction, violence and sex; the ego was responsible for intellect and dealing with reality; and the super-ego was a person’s sense of right and wrong and moral standards (Hamilton, n. pag). Freud argued that a healthy individual will have developed the strongest ego to keep the id and super-ego in check (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. p...
In addition to Freud’s stages of development his best-known concepts are those of the id, ego, and superego (Crain, p. 268). The id personality called ‘the unconscious” is the personality that focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain through reflexes and drives such as hunger or bladder tensions (Crain, pp. 268-269). The id concept is impulsive, chaotic and unrealistic.
Freud believed that a human must go through certain stages in their lives or they will not socially develop to their full extent. He also made claims that a human is always struggling between their human, and instinctual nature. This was a very controversial topic because Freud concluded there was a lack of individuality of the human race. If Freud’s theory was the case then humans would have less of a choice in their life, and are truly slaves to their instinctual nature. While an intelligent figure of his time, I believe that Freud went in the wrong direction when approaching his theory. While humans do have a large amount of urges that he described, the person themselves can choose what to do based not solely on society, but their wants and needs as well. Had Freud been alive today I’m sure that his theory would have theorized much different things about the human nature. I think it is important to analyze the distinct cultural setting behi...
The methods he used to obtain his information and data raised questions by other scientists. His research on children was lacking, as was his use of empirical studies, his research was male-dominated and also lacked universality. The theory of the id, ego and superego develops from birth into childhood therefore the use of case studies on adults and the lack of empirical study does not seem feasible enough to have developed this theory. First of all there is no guarantee that the memories of these adults on their childhood would be accurate, there was not any factual, re-testable data so it lacked reliability and validity secondly each case and person’s experience is different and therefore cannot be use to determine the development of an entire population. Freud’s theory was further biased due to him overlooking social and environmental aspects, which prevent universality; he was a European man who researched other upper middle class Europeans whose everyday living and circumstances differed greatly from others in
Throughout time, many psychologists have had their own views about different theories. Theories direct and guide our perception of thinking. The similarities and differences can be broken down through different forms of development by Erik Erikson, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Bandura. Sigmund Freud emphasized the influence of the id, believing that the ego acts only out of borrowed energy and acts best as a commander. Sigmund Freud perceived aggression as a universal human behavior. According to Freud, we, humans are unaware of its presence because we are suppressed by the superego. In Erikson’s theory, he explains how the ego is the part of the mind that gives coherence to experiences, conscious or unconscious. Erikson agreed with Freud that the ego is responsible for human behavior and aggression. On the other hand, social learning theorist Albert Bandura suggests that behavior is learned through observation either accidentally or on purpose. This paper examines how Erikson’s psychoanalytic theory of the Ego compares and contrast to Bandura’s social learning theory.
In Sigmund Freud's observation, humans are mainly ambitious by sexual and aggressive instincts, and search for boundless enjoyment of all needs. However, the continuous pursuit of gratification driven by the identification, or unconscious, directly conflicts with our society as the uncontrolled happiness. Sigmund Freud believed that inherent sexual and aggressive power prevented from being expressed would cause our "society to be miserable and the forfeiture of contentment." Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic view of personality theory is based on the perception that greatly of human behavior is determi...
In examining the Freudian view of human development, the main characteristic of human development is one of a primitive and sexual nature. Freud defines the id as a unconscious part of the mind focused on the primitive self and is the source of the demands of basic needs. Freud explains that the mind of an infant consists only of the id, driving the basic needs for comfort, food, warmth, and love. In later stages of early development, as a child’s mind begins to grow, the ego is formed. The ego is defined as the connection between consciousness and reality that controls one’s thought and behavior. In late pre-school years a child begins to develop what is called a superego. At this stage values are internalized, and the complex connection between the id, ego, and supere...