Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Freud's theories about the mind, repression and aggression, dreams and civilization are reflected in his work, "Civilization and Its Discontents", originally published in 1929-30. The paper shows that the central theme of Freud's work is that without repression of the instincts there would be no civilization. Freud describes how, as human-kind moves historically from cave man to modern times, in order for them to survive in groups and communities, they have to learn to cooperate with each other. The paper describes how this evolving cooperation offers humans securities needed for survival, but it also causes them to repress or bury inside themselves many natural tendencies. This repression creates a tension between the inner self, or the subconscious and the outer world. The paper explains how, in "Civilization and Its Discontents" Freud further develops his theory, demonstrating how the subconscious mind, with it's three divisions - id, ego and super-ego - is in continual conflict, or discontent, with civilized society.

From the Paper:

"A main area of repression of instinct that causes one of the strongest conflicts with civilization is sex. According to Freud, man's main purpose in life is to seek happiness and the repression of his sexual instincts, as required by civilization, severely limits his opportunity to find pleasure and satisfaction in sexuality. Civilization demands that man not rush out in cave-man fashion to gratify his sexual instinct wherever and whenever the urge strikes. Rather, monogamous relationships established more for the purpose of propagating the race than for offering sexual pleasure are encouraged, and non-heterosexual urges are strongly discouraged (Freud 60-61)."

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