In Civilization and its Discontents, the Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, diagnosed three sources of human discontent, “the superior power of nature, the feebleness of our own bodies and the inadequacy of the regulations which adjust the mutual relationships of human beings in the family, the state and society” (Citation). It is Freud’s main thesis that the first two sources of misery are mitigated by civilization, but the third source comes from civilization. Thus, Freud avers it is quite possible that human beings would be happier in a more primitive state. Freud builds his dissertation on the proposition that although society has come a long way in allowing human beings to become more and more like the mythic gods they once envisioned …show more content…
Once I have expounded Freud’s arguments in full, I will juxtapose his conviction with that of my own. Lastly, I will conclude this essay by encapsulating the perspectives and sentiments that have been presented. First, when speaking on the topic of the primordial human urges that are vexed by society, Freud chiefly focused on the instinct of Eros (libido/sexual love). According to Freud, “Reality shows us that civilization is not content with the ties we have so far allowed it. It aims at binding the members of the community together in a libidinal way… it summons up aim-inhibited libido on the largest scale so as to strengthen the communal bond by relations of friendship. In order for these aims to be fulfilled, a restriction upon sexual life is unavoidable” (Citation). In essence, Freud is explicating that civilization forges the …show more content…
Freud builds his entire argument around the specious notion that civilized society draws upon and restricts the libido of the individual as a way of promoting the necessary social affections for society to function. The fallacy in this claim lies in the fact that although they are closely associated with one another, sexuality and love are two psychological functions that can exist independent of each other; this idea will become quite apparent upon analysis of where the capacity for love and the drive for sex come from. The drive for sex is a biological urge that is extremely ancient. Organisms as primitive as reptiles have the drive to breed with each other, and one would have to go back hundreds of million before finding a common ancestor between humans and reptiles. Yet despite their desire for sex, reptiles are far from social creatures, quite the opposite. Their brains are incapable of experiencing any sort of love or affection. In fact, the only organisms that appear to be capable of love, affection, and social behavior are mammals, thus love is a relatively new phenomenon since the evolution of mammals took place quite recently (when compared to the amount of time that reptiles have been around). Interestingly, the very fact that other animals are capable of social behavior disproves Freud’s argument. If Freud was correct about society drawing on libido to promote cooperative behavior, it should
Freud states that women feminism are similar to the male that both causes a problem between language and the boundaries in expression. According to these problems it heavily reflects womens position in the patriarchal society. Freud is able to discuss many different varieties of the male and female role. He begins with the female infatuation to be masculine is ego-syntonic. This phase is called ‘phallic’. The clash between both female and male wanting to gain the upper hand. The motive source of sexual life is called the
According to Freud's theory, in the beginning of sexual development of both boys and girls, the mother is the first desired object, seen as almighty and capable ...
Abel, Donald C. Freud on Instinct and Morality. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989. Print.
“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.
Numerous advances led to Sigmund Freud’s inspirational Stages of Psychosexual Development, and it was Freud that introduced a clear theory explaining the process by which infants develop into adults. The transition from the Oral, Anal and Phallic stages begins to help us understand some of the processes that might lead to understanding attachment issues. Freud argued that humans are born “polymorphously perverse,” the idea that any number of objects could be a source of pleasure. While relief from stress observed in a child might be interpreted as simply the absence of emotional pain, on a deeper level, re-attachment and physical closeness to a caregiver after prolonged separation should result in a pleasurable experience. Setting aside for the moment the sexual aspects of Freud’s theory, the basis of his premise remains one of the human connection that is gained through some form of physical contact, be it obtained from others or themselves. (Stevenson, 2001)
Freud has multiple known theories all describing the unconsciousness, the human defense mechanism, the clinical conversation between patients and psychoanalyst, and most prominently he discussed about sexual desire. He explained sexual desire as the key motivating energy for humans, and he discussed about its magnitude. On the same topic of sexual desire, Freud also discussed about homosexuality and how it’s acquired (Freud’s View of Homosexuality, 2013). Sigmund Freud discussed the concept of homosexuality as deterministic. According to Feud, human beings are born with unfocused sexual libidinal d...
The psychoanalytic perspective grew out of subsequent psychoanalytic theories (1901, 1924, and 1940) following decades of interactions with clients with the use of an innovative procedure developed by Sigmund Freud that required lengthy verbal interactions with patients during which Freud probed deep into their lives. In a nutshell, the psychoanalytic perspective looked to explain personality, motivation, and psychological disorders by focussing on the influence of early childhood experiences, on unconscious motives and conflicts, and on the methods people use to cope with their sexual and aggressive urges. The Biological perspective on the other hand looks at the physiological bases of behaviour in humans and animals. It proposes that an organism’s functioning can be described in terms of the bodily structures and biochemical processes that cause behaviour. This paper attempts to examine the similarities and differences between the psychoanalytic perspective and the biological perspective with the key focus on the core assumptions and features of these perspectives as well as their individual strengths and weaknesses.
of sexual urges. Freud did note however, that social agents such as parents should be
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...
Freud wrote that loving and being loved can be utilized to achieve a sense of true happiness and fulfilment in this life. He describes love as “a method that takes a firm hold of its objects and obtains happiness from an emotional relation to them” (p. 7). Freud also theorizes that love does not strive to avoid pain, but instead passionately attempts to reach a positive fulfillment of happiness. Freud specifically mentions sexual love, which “gives us our most intense experience of an overwhelming pleasurable sensation and so furnishes a prototype for our strivings after happiness” (p. 8). By placing love at the center of everything, happiness can easily be found, but at the same time love comes with a certain vulnerability within an individual and can make a person susceptible to a very painful amount of suffering
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...
Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson are two theorists that “believed the major determinants of personality are not conscious…[and] are the result of conflict through the various stages of development” (Cloninger 2013). Both theorists described different stages a person goes through during development. Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development were greatly influenced by Freud’s psychosexual stages of development. “Erikson’s theory builds on that of Freud, presuming hat biology provides the motivation of personality through the psychosexual stages that Freud outlined. However biological sexual energy is not the only consideration.” (Cloninger 2013). Rather than focusing on a person’s libido, also known as the person’s sexual-psychic energy, as the driving force behind personality, Erikson described how social influences could have an affect on a person’s personality.
“Psychological - or more strictly speaking, psychoanalytic -investigation shows that the deepest essence of human nature, which are similar in all men and which aim at the satisfaction of certain needs... [are] self-preservation, aggression, need for love, and the impulse to attain pleasure and avoid pain...” At its simplest form, this quote perfectly explains Sigmund Freud’s theory on human nature. Human beings, according to Freud, are in a constant state of conflict within themselves; trying to satisfy their animalistic instincts, while also maintaining a socially appropriate life. Freud termed these animalistic tendencies that we have, the Id. The Id is essentially our unconscious mind, it is the part of us that has been there since the day we were born and is what drives our life’s needs and desires. The Id simply aims to satisfy our sexual or aggressive urges immediately, without taking into account any further implications. On the other hand, Freud used the term, the Superego, to describe man’s conscience and sense of morality. It is the Superego’s job to keep the Id in check by combatting the desire to satisfy urges with the feeling of guilt or anxiety. Finally, the Ego, is the conscious representation of the constant battle between the Superego and the Id. It must work to satisfy human’s instinctual tendencies while taking into account their conscience and doing what is rational and acceptable. Freud argues that these internal process that are constantly at work in our mind are what shape humans to do the things that they do. Thus, he believes, the goal of human nature is to satisfy our basic aggressive and sexual desires while adhering to cultural and social standards.
From a Freudian perspective, human development is based on psychosexual theory (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). Psychosexual theory indicates that maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development (Shaffer et al., 2010). It was Freud’s perspective that there are three components of personality (the id, ego, and superego) that become integrated into his five stage theoretical model. The id was the biological or drive component that is innate from birth. The sole purpose of the Id is satiate an individual’s internal drives (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). The ego is the conscious portion of our personality that mediates between our id and superego. Throughout development the ego reflects the child’s emerging ability to...
Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his multiple case studies, Freud managed to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control (Guerin 127). One of Freud’s most important contributions to the study of the psyche is his theory of repression: the unconscious mind is a repository of repressed desires, feelings, memories, wishes and instinctual drives; many of which have to do with sexuality and violence. These unconscious wishes, according to Freud, can find expression in dreams because dreams distort the unconscious material and make it appear different from itself and more acceptable to consciousness. They may also appear in other disguised forms, like in language (sometimes called the Freudian slips), in creative art and in neurotic behavior. One of the unconscious desires Freud believed that all human beings supposedly suppress is the childhood desire to displace the parent of the same sex and to take his or her place in the affections of the parent of the opposite sex. This so-called “Oedipus Complex,” which all children experience as a rite of passage to adult gender identity, lies at the core of Freud’s sexual theory (Murfin 114-5).