Analysis Of Sigmund Freud Civilization And Its Discontents

Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud is known for his theories and works in the field of psychology, mainly, the subject of psychoanalysis. Nonetheless, some of his works became important in other social science fields such as his work entitled “Civilization and its Discontents,” which had a significant contribution in other fields like political theory, sociology, and anthropology. This contribution is mainly because of the ideas invoked by the book with regard to the permanent conflict between the individual and the social institutions that surround him. Through his psychoanalytic perspective, Freud presents another view of understanding human and social institutions by looking at the nature of humans through the structural theory

In addition to the aforementioned points of Freud about happiness and contentment in a civilization, I would further argue that one of the major reasons why the problem of unhappiness exists in the society is that because ‘happiness’ is hard to define. In here, I would agree with Freud’s point that “Happiness is something essentially subjective.” Therefore, happiness is impossible to realize as it would depend on the how the individual treat and view the feeling and concept of happiness. Furthermore, men are more likely to seek actions that would resolve the problem of unhappiness rather than to seek the attainment of true happiness. Nevertheless, he posits that the concept of true happiness lies on the attainment of pleasure or pleasurable experiences. This would, however, never be attained because of the threats from our own body, from the external body, and from our relations with other

However, despite the attainment of a “high civilization” based on this definition, humans are still discontented with what they have or what they have carried out. It is, on the other hand, based on the demands of the civilization and the factors that would contribute to the unhappiness of man./ In such cases, civilization would require man to conform with its demands, compromising man’s instinctual freedom which is eventually repressed leading to a prolonged and repressed pleasure. And as a result, the civilization imparts to humans a perpetual feeling of