`Civilization and Its Discontents` by Sigmund Freud

Civilization and Its Discontents

Civilization and its Discontents written by Sigmund Freud in 1929 was the result of the World War I and its aftermath effects on the psychology of people culminating in Freud to capture man 's intensity of aggressiveness between the man himself and the society and between his inner and outer self

At the outset , Freud takes us into the depth of our sensual feelings comparing it to the boundlessness of ocean and its relationship with so called civilized society . Person 's inner desires have conflicting tendency with

the society at large for e .g . his own sexual gratification . He started his essay by comparing his visionary thoughts with the Darwinian theory believing in the fact that despite of being violent in nature human beings have inherited progressive attitude from the nature and civilization around . He attempted to explain the evolution of the human race and the rise of culture in a historical context . The culture , he said , evolved around two basic traits of human beings--the taming of the fire and the slaying of the father . This implies that with the growth of civilizations , cultural societies came into being and as a result , human beings began to inflict sufferings on each other to attain their selfish motives . In other words , we human beings have developed civilizations but on the other hand , these very civilizations have become the very cause of our misery . He gave three historical events that resulted in such state of affairs and these are - victory gained by Christians over pagan religions , discovery and conquest of primitive tribes and the scientific discovery of identification of the mechanism of neuroses , caused by the forced demands of contemporary modern society over individuals

Further , Freud says that the ego of man has given him enough reason to develop a division between him and the world . This ego makes him feel his own individuality taking shape and resulting in psychological development . He also criticized religion on the ground that it makes the human beings to shift away from their own wishes and ambitions . We try to be happy and our behavior in the world is dependent on the pleasure principle , but on the other hand , this happiness and pleasure is very limited and often unhappiness makes a strong grip over our soul . We drive this unhappiness from three sources i .e . from our body , world and our relationship with other men and we intend to adopt various methods to come out of this unhappiness like , by taking into isolated life , by becoming member of any social organization or by changing our own behavior . Religion can also show us the way to happiness but for Freud , religion has far less benefits

Civilization has helped man to gain all successes in life yet on the other hand , this very civilization has posed hindrances in individual 's lives . Human beings individuality gets crushed under the collective interests of the civilized society , and human beings bound by love often find themselves in conflict...