"Civilization and Its Discontents"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, in his volume, "Civilization and its Discontents", Sigmund Freud tackles no less than the broad and ambitious concept of man's place in the world. It discusses how Freud looks at culture from his unique psychoanalytical perspective and touches upon a number of important concepts, including aggression, civilization and the individual, organized religion, the death drive and Eros, and the super-ego and conscience. It also looks at how "Civilization and its Discontents" was written a mere decade before the great psychoanalyst's death and how it is, in many ways, an important compilation of many of his most renowned theories on the mind, human nature, and the structure of human society.

From the Paper:

"Freud suggests that culture's repression of aggression may ultimately be more damaging than unrestrained aggression, man's natural state. Freud is generally pessimistic about man's ability to maintain civilized life indefinitely. He argues that man's ability to tame the aggressive instinct will determine his ability to live within the boundaries of civilization. However, he argues that man's recently gained ability to destroy each other through modern warfare creates less hope that man will be able to live peacefully. He notes, "Men have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would have no difficulty in exterminating one another to the last man."

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