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The strength of Freud's view
The role of religion in our society
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Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
In his book Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud utilizes his method of psychoanalysis on religion by comparing the relationship between human and religion to that of a child and his parents. Freud effectively demonstrates that religion is a product of the human mind. After exposing religion as a an illusion, Freud concludes that humanity will be better off when it has forgone religion. This paper will argue that Freud's assertion that religion is an illusion is correct because of it's blatantly traceable evolution through the history of the human civilization and psyche.
The first argument that Freud makes in his assault on religion regards civilization. Freud argues that human civilization arose as a result of mankind's needs to protect itself from nature. "It was precisely because of these dangers with which nature threatens us that we came together and created civilization." (Freud, 19) As a result of the need for organization and manpower to prepare defenses against nature, the instincts of man had to be controlled. He furthers this argument by saying that two human traits, laziness and the unwilling nature of the masses to listen to reason, are responsible for the necessity of the rule of law. Freud then describes the various methods of oppression that can be employed by civilization to halt instinctual privation. The most important of which he points out as being religion.
The main reason that Freud ranks rel...
Introduction: In the essay America’s Most Overrated Product: The Bachelor’s Degree by Marty Nemko argues that attending college does not benefit most students. Many of us grow up believing that going to college is the best option to get good jobs, even if we did not do so well in college. In this essay, we explore statistics presented by Nemko to get a better idea if college is worth the time and money spent on the benefits of having a diploma.
Everyone knows that person from high school that just wasn’t cut out for college. It’s not a bad thing by any means, but if you’re thinking about heading off to college like many American teenagers often do, think about this: going to college can be a waste of both your time and your money. I’m not the first to say it, and I sure as hell won’t be the last. In Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill’s essay, Should Everyone Go to College?, the two authors take a strong economic approach to justify going to college. Owen, an ex- senior research assistant at Brookings’ Center on Children and Families and current research associate at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan center for research on the problems of urban communities, and Sawhill, the co-director of the Center on Children and Families and a senior fellow in economic studies at Brookings, claim that the return on investment (ROI) of a college education is overwhelmingly positive on average; However, they also bring light
While college may be initially uneconomical, evidence from a 1959 census shows a “three-fourths of earning difference” between those who graduated from college and those who merely received a high school diploma (Weisbrod et al 495). Weisbrod and Karpoff acknowledge the high cost of college in America, but assert the benefits of a college degree will more than reimburse a person in the long run, therefore the initial cost of attending a college is worthwhile. (Weisbrod et. al). Furthermore, this indicates only “one-fourth of the earnings differences are attributed...to non-schooling factors”, which proves the significant role college plays in determining the future earnings of an individual (Weisbrod et. al 497). College appears to be the most influential factor in regards to a person's earnings, therefore according to Weisbrod and Karpoff, college is necessary for a person who wishes to obtain a higher expected income. Even students who attend mediocre to below-average colleges will receive “a lifetime income that is [around] 10 percent lower ...than that which someone at one of the best schools can expect” (Weisbrod et. al 497). Weisbrod and Karpoff contend even low-tier colleges result in higher earnings, therefore a student should strive to attend any college regardless of the
...othing more than repressed contents, these contents being constellated around the figure of the father. (Palmer, 1997, 164). It would seem that Freud went above and beyond to dispel religion as a healthy essential practice for the growth of society but rather saw it as a weakness. That many of Freud’s theories have stood the test of time is tantamount to his title as the ‘Father of Psychoanalysis’ although many have been tweaked or adjusted to suit today’s conditions. It would be unwise to completely ignore Freud’s views on religion but I think we can conclude that they are somewhat flawed.
In conclusion, “Civilization and Its Discontents” by Sigmund Freud was a book that sought to explain both organized religion and civilization in general. The book was largely influenced by the hostile environment of post World War I Germany and was a widely read and widely influential book.
In the midst of his already successful career, Sigmund Freud decided to finally dedicate a book of his to religion, referring to the subject as a phenomena faced by the scientific community. This new work, Totem and Taboo, blew society off its feet, ultimately expanding the reaches of debates and intellectual studies. From the beginning, Freud argues that there exists a parallel between the archaic man and the contemporary compulsive. Both these types of people, he argues, exhibit neurotic behavior, and so the parallel between the two is sound. Freud argues that we should be able to determine the cause of religion the same way we determine the cause of neurosis. He believes, since all neuroses stem from childhood experiences, that the origins of this compulsive behavior we call religion should also be attributed to some childhood experiences of the human race, too. Freudian thought has been dominant since he became well known. In Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, religion becomes entirely evident as a major part of the novel, but the role it specifically plays is what we should question. Therefore, I argue that Freud’s approach to an inborn sense of religion and the role it plays exists in The Last of the Mohicans, in that the role religion plays in the wilderness manifests itself in the form of an untouchable truth, an innate sense of being, and most importantly, something that cannot and should not be tampered with.
Although a college education grows more and more expensive every year. People begin to question whether college is a good idea to invest in or not. “As college costs continue to rise, students and their families are looking more carefully at what they are getting for their money. Increasingly, they are finding that the college experience falls short of their expectations”(Cooper. H Mary). Many people believe that the cost of a college degree has outstripped the value of a degree.Studies show that a college degree will increase your earning power. A lot of people say that a college degree now is worth what a high school diploma was wor...
In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud writes primarily to examine the relationship between the individual and society. Through Freud's examination of the relationship, a deeper understanding of the complexity of mental life is realized. Freud begins to develop the relationship early in the work by depicting the most primitive realizations of self and the most primitive realizations of the external world. He further develops this relationship through the musing of sexual desire and its connections to love, which he claims, lead to the formation of families and then later groups of humanity that came to comprise civilization as a whole. Through questions raised concerning society, culture, history and the self, Freud is able to depict a sort of map of the mind. This map that Freud depicts further enables him to develop an understanding of the relationship between civilization and the individual.
Erich Fromm in his psychoanalytical approach to religion is distinct from the earlier works of Sigmund Freud. Fromm defines religion as “any system of thought and action shared by a group which gives the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion.” Fromm argues that irreligious systems including all the different kinds of idealism and “private” religions deserve being defined as a “religion.” Based on Fromm’s theory, it is explained that there is no human being who does not have a “religious need,” almost every part of human life reflects religious need and its fulfillment, in fact he states it to be “inherent” in man.
A college education costs a lot these days, but is a huge investment. The amount of money that the average college graduate earns is much greater than the money that the average high school graduate earns. Over the decades, the education pay gap between the educated, and the ...
College degrees have proven to be a valuable resource to achieve a higher pay. “Is a College Education Worth It” writes, college graduates with a bachelor degree earned on average $30,000 more per year than a person with just a high school education (1). This statistic shows that with just a four-year degree, someone can earn more than a person with just a high school education. This also proves that people with a college degree earn more in their lifetime than people with just a high school education. “Benefits of a College Degree” adds that in a lifetime, people with a bachelor 's degree earn $2.7 million. People with just a high school diploma earn about $1.3 million in their lifetime (1). Abel and Deitz claim that over the past four decades, people with a bachelor’s degree earned 56% more than high school graduates while people with an associate’s degree earned 21% more than high school graduates (1). This comes to show how getting a college education has benefited people for four decades. Mark Peters and Douglas Belkin propose that the cost of college for someone with a bachelor’s degree is on average 110,000 to 130,000 (1). This number can seem very large to most people, but people with a bachelor’s degree earn more money, so the amount of debt they have will quickly
“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.
The ability to gain a degree in any field of study is highly important in American society, possessing skills and knowledge over your job emphasizes the significance of higher education. Especially, for job promotions that would cause someone to make more than their fellow colleagues. In our increasingly competitive economic society, having the minimal of a high school diploma is not enough to provide financial stability nor will it help to compete in a workforce in which the best-educated are the ones that are rewarded the most. Therefore, higher education is a crucial necessity in order to move up the socioeconomic ladder and qualify for higher paying jobs. The rising costs of college, however, is making it harder for Americans to obtain
A diverse array of arguments concerning the costly price of college and its equivalency to the ultimate result of attending persists along a vastly debatable spectrum of economic and social influences. Those seeking a better standard of living by the means of higher education often find themselves in conditions that are more adverse than their lifestyle prior to attending college. Efforts to dwindle the expenditure of college education have potential to produce a heightened reality for the world, with intellectual knowledge as the pivotal key. The expensive cost and limitability of a college education has potential to invoke incentive to work harder in one’s studies; however, obtaining a college degree does not ensure employment, the cost can
In the currently bleak economy that students face after attending college has called for an open discussion to the policy of higher education. One of the many medians where this discussion is happening is in the wall street journal called “Do Too Many Young People Go to College?” written by Lauren Webber. The article takes form in a forum of higher educational policy experts and professors, addressing two major questions posed by the public (Webber). The first of which is whether the investment in attending college is worth its value financially (Webber). Not only is the argument of why college is worth it’s value is explored so is why the value of ...