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Freud's Civilization and its Discontents How did Freud understand a man? He considered a man neither tabula rasa, nor inherently good or inherently evil. The concept of human nature, developed by Freud's theory, has become the most serious indictment of Western civilization and at the same time it has become its most reliable defense. Freud understood man's character as a continuum of behavior on an axis between mutually dependent and at the same time diametrically opposed parts of his rational and irrational nature. Interpretation of human nature given by other philosophers is also very interesting. According to some of them, the man is a sensible creature.
He is able to discuss and understand the moral ideas. Philosophers thought that people shouldnt be divided into governors and slaves. The concept of main human rights springs from these thoughts. In such a way, they tried to explain primary kindness and unlimited nature of man to constant perfection, because the man is guided by reason. The history of a man, according to Freud, is the history of his suppression.
Both his social and biological existence is subjected to the cultural suppression as well as separate parts of his being and structure of his instincts. However, such situation creates the necessary prerequisites for progress. The main instincts of a man, who wants to achieve his aims, are incompatible with any unions for self-preservation: they destroy at the same place where they unite. The uncontrollable Eros is as destructive as his twin the instinct of death. The destructive force of both instincts results from their aspiration for satisfaction.
The culture is not able to provide them with such satisfaction as an end in itself. Here comes the necessity to deflect the instincts from their aim. In such a way, the civilization starts refusing from the primary desire to complete satisfaction of needs. What is civilization according to Freud?
In Freud's theory, civilization is based on contradiction between the pleasure principle and the primary instincts. Freud based his conclusions on hypothesis that you can always find modified remains of the past in human psychic. The development of a man moves from supremacy of the pleasure principle to supremacy of principle of reality. The inherent instincts of human nature are the inherited history of human civilization. The achievements of civilization are not very great. Despite all prohibitions and totems, civilization is not victorious over the basically driven human instincts.
The principle of reality stipulates limits of satisfaction of instincts. According to Freud, people desire to achieve happiness. He interprets happiness as exclusion of pain and displeasure and getting pleasure. In such a way, realization of program of the pleasure principle is inverse aim of human life. As a result, the attempt to avoid sufferings prevails over the desire to get satisfaction. Freud tries to analyze the social source of sufferings, as far as he considers that civilization is the source of its considerable part.
Freud didnt examine progress of civilization in history due to the development of human reason (knowledge, sciences, enlightenment, etc). According to Freud, the progress of reason doesnt suppose the unity of truth, happiness and virtue (freedom and natural rights of a man). The progress isnt natural; it isnt subordinated to general rules of development that, in fact, are the rules of development of human abilities. Finally, the progress doesnt become the progress itself, as infinity of perfection. In accordance with Freud, civilization is synonymous to culture and consists of all achievements and rules that make our life different from life of forefathers. The civilization serves to two aims: to protect people from nature and to regulate their mutual relations.
Civilization includes all means used by people to protect themselves from all dangers and disasters that appear from the source of their sufferings. These means include conquering of nature, acknowledgement of order, respect and adoption of intellectual, scientific and creative achievements, the replacement of individual power by power of society, etc. At the same time civilization brings stringent restrictions to satisfaction of individual desires. According to Freud, civilization is a step, where a man has to "exchange a portion of his possibilities for happiness for a portion of security" (Freud 73). Freud didnt consider civilization as the certain stage of development.
He also didnt like the idea that all societies which have ever existed on the Earth, have passed through the number of social stages from the epoque of barbarism toward the progress of universal enlightenment. As far as we can notice, Freud considers the irrational impulse to be the more powerful and productive force in civilization. He treated the irrational as the potential danger, because he considered that the irrational is the potential source of aggression and, therefore, the war. By his opinion, civilization is a thin crust over the ocean of primary instincts and, what we call our civilization is largely responsible for our misery, and that we should be much happier if we gave it up and returned to primitive conditions (Freud 33).
According to his thought, the destiny of civilization depends on whether the development of culture will be able to suppress primary instincts of aggression and destruction. The war is the most disgusting form of human collective behavior. This aggression aimed at the individuals doesnt have any prohibitions. People always swear that this war will be the last one The ancient philosophers considered the war as natural feature of the mankind. We draw such pessimistic conclusion due to different reasons. However, such point of view has become unpopular during the Age of Enlightenment and humanism.
Einstein has asked Freud in his letter shortly before the World War I: Has the war, probably, some irrational, subconscious roots? Really, Freud considered the World War I to be the total triumph of destructive instincts. In fact, it meant to come back from popular geopolitical and economic explanations of phenomenon of the war to the point of view of the ancient authors. According to Freud, the ancient instincts of aggression and destruction lay in the basis of the phenomenon of war.
Hence, all its forms racial, national, economical, ideological, religions, etc are only different forms of one thing. The man has to suppress these instincts during the peaceful time; the demonstration of these instincts is subject to punishment. Speaking about instincts and suppression, I want to tell about Freud and the influence the war and civilization made on him. Although Freud saw in repression of natural desires the main source of neurosis, he didnt idealize the life of primitive tribes. Freud saw inevitable progress in development of science, technique and social institutions. Each culture is based on prohibitions.
The violence often is a tragic necessity. The desire to aggression is very strong and the mankind that possesses strong technical weapons is able to destroy itself in the war. He examines sexual instinct together with instinct of death. Freud considered that a portion of the instinct is diverted towards the external world and comes to light as an instinct of aggressiveness and destructiveness. In this way the instinct itself could be pressed into the service of Eros, in that the organism was destroying some other thing, whether animate or inanimate, instead of destroying its own self. (Freud 66).
All living creatures are the bearers of specific vital energy. According to the second rule of thermodynamics, the systems with high level of organization are inclined to chaos of death they incline to come back to their primary starting-point. In such a way, the psychical life is also inclined to the zero level. The second rule of thermodynamics becomes psychological desire the instinct of death and destruction. The war allows realizing instincts of aggression and destruction more openly; moreover, it makes such behavior heroic.
In such a way, the opponents of future war have few chances to prevent it. However, Freud considered that the probability of war will decline with progress of culture. He considered that human instincts can change under influence of environment: they can become stronger because of exercising and weaker because of non-exercising. He also considered that civilization makes us unhappy and the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness (Freud 81). He says that civilization provided the mankind with conveniences but deprived the people of happiness. Civilization, according to Freud, suppresses sexual instinct and limits the inter-family, blood sexual relations.
This ban exists in all civilizations. The instinct of polygamy is the evidence of desire to make all the women belonging to one man. In such a way, civilization is synonymic to culture. Freud examines the source of sufferings and discontents and considers civilization to be the main reason of its considerable part.
Civilization includes all means and methods used by people to protect themselves from possible threats resulting from the source of sufferings. On the other side, civilization limits satisfaction of individual desires and freedoms existing in the egoistic human nature. Freud considers that human conflicts occur because of contradictions between the desires and freedoms of human nature and cultural demands of social groups (civilizations). Therefore, civilization becomes the reason of human sufferings and makes us unhappy. Freud considered the most important question for the whole mankind to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction (Freud 92).
However, who can foresee the result? Bibliography: Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and Its Discontents. Trans. and Ed. James Strachey.
Intro. Peter Gay. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
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