How Does the Thought of Freud Differ from that of the Democratic Socialists/Social Democrats?

There are many factors as to why the thought of Freud differs from that of the democratic socials/social democrats, and although they both have differing ideas, they both were being written during the twentieth century. Freud focused on the human mind and how the separate segments of it affected mans role in society. Social democratic thinkers however focused on the nature of the state itself and how man was able to create a better society for the future. The key writer of social democratic thought was Bernstein and his revision of Marxism. He can be said to greatly differ from Freud. These differences will now be reviewed to prove that the thought of Freud does differ from that of the social democrats.

The thought of Freud has a total focus on an individual’s mind and how this internal struggle effects how humans interact within society. Freud argues that every human has three functional parts of their personality that exist within the mind itself: the id, super-ego and the ego. Thurschwell describes these three layers as how they relate to each other. The id is the deepest level of the unconscious, which is dominated by the pleasure principle and has no concept of time except for the present, demanding instant gratification of sexual and aggressive (Eros and Thanatos) urges. The superego originates through identification with the individuals parents, functioning as an internal censor witch represses the dangerous urges of the id. The ego starts as part of the id but is more sensible as it has knowledge of the outside world. Unlike the id, the ego is dominated by the instinct to protect oneself. Although these three layers cannot be physically mapped out in the mind they do show how Freud constantly focused on the internal mind...

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