“Civilization and its Discontents” – Sigmund Freud

Abstract
In questo saggio sociopolitico, Sigmund Freud propone il suo punto di vista mettendo in luce la tensione
fondamentale tra la civiltà e l'individuo. L'attrito principale, afferma, nasce dalla ricerca, da parte
dell'individuo, della libertà istintiva mentre la civiltà tende a richiedere l'esatto contrario ovvero una
limitazione della libertà istintuale degli individui che la compongono. Molti istinti primitivi e per nulla sopiti
degli esseri umani quali: l'aggressività, il desiderio di appagamento sessuale ecc. possono diventare
pesantemente dannosi per gli equilibri di una comunità umana. Perciò la società crea leggi che mettono
severamente sotto controllo l'uccisione, lo stupro e l'adulterio, e prevede punizioni anche molto severe per
chi viola tali norme. Questo processo, sostiene Freud, è una caratteristica intrinseca e necessaria della
civiltà che inevitabilmente però genera sentimenti di insoddisfazione perpetua nei suoi cittadini.
La teoria esposta da Freud nell'opera si basa dunque sull'affermazione secondo cui gli esseri umani sono
spinti ad agire da certi istinti caratteristici che sono innati ma che devono essere messi sotto controllo. La
repressione di tali istinti permette una vita sociale equilibrata ma genera frustrazione nei singoli individui
poiché essi tendono a seguire il principio di piacere, e tale principio è soddisfatto dagli istinti.

Analysis

Sigmund Freud begins his long essay, Civilization and Its Discontents, by describing his inability to
understand what he calls “religious feeling.” Freud is not religious himself, though he believes that religion
is central to how societies function – even societies that no longer consist of orthodox believers. Freud
attempts, in his essay, to understand how people relate to their societies, how societies are formed, and
how individual psychic forces interact with larger, group-level forces. Freud isolates the
individual’s ego, superego, and id – the self, the regulating self, and deep, base desires – as the three forces
inherent on the personal level. He wonders how these forces are manifest on the social level.

Freud’s essay moves organically by association of related ideas. Freud wonders how religions function in
society, and sees in religion a kind of generous, selfless love – at least, this love as an ideal. Freud wonders
whether societies are held together by this selfless love, and by its related religious feeling, but states that
these instances of generosity alone cannot constitute a society.

Freud then addresses how human beings come to join themselves to others. They do so, Freud argues, by
means of sexual love within family groups. Men and women couple and produce children, and these
children have “interrupted” sexual relationships with their parents, which cannot be consummated. These
relationships depend both on the love-drive (eros) and the death-drive (thanatos) – a combination of deep,
powerful sexual attraction, and a desire, too, to destroy that which is closest and most important to us.

Freud believes that, because societies are groups consisting of smaller groups, the family unit, that societies
themselves must behave according to the love- and death-drives. This means that societies are held
together both by selfish desires for liberty, on the individual level, and selfless desires for protection and
group stability, on the broader social level. Freud believes that other methods of explaining social
organization, like the Christian Golden Rule, only explain part of the problem – the group part. Freud’s
model accounts also for the individual liberties of society’s members – who wish to both be free to live as
they choose, and also desire the help, protection, and love of others.

At the end of the essay, Freud relates his work, indirectly, to the political conditions of the time of its
writing. In Europe in the 1930s, the oncoming threat of Communism and Fascism – of different forms of
“collective” society – cause Freud to wonder whether civilization is in fact in decline. Freud concludes the
essay with an open question: whether societies, like people, can be “neurotic,” or overcome by an excess of
anxiety regarding their base impulses to love and destruction.

Chapter 1: “Oceanic Feeling”

 Transcendent vs. Reality Principle

 Complex Striatum
Chapter one talks about how mankind is deluded by “oceanic feeling” of eternity and the transcendent, and
that this stops us from considering the reality principle, whereby it justifies the need for psychoanalysis to
assess the hidden striatum of the mind, similar to how Rome was built, developed with more and more
additional levels of complexity.

Chapter 2: Reality Principle

 Realization of current situation/suffering. Focus on Ego.

 Realized through meditation, yoga, work, art, creativity, imagination, etc.
 Sublimates/Displaces libidinal desires into acceptable activities.
 Consequence: too much reality/realization of suffering could cause one to reject reality/world
 Lead to madness or hermits who escape the world.
Chapter two talks about the reality principle, which is the realization of the current situation, and this
regulates both the SuperEgo and the libido. It’s basically an emphasis on the ego, which is the regulation of
other two systems. We come to develop this realization of the reality principle through meditation, yoga or
work, art, creativity which manifests the imagination or through displacing our libidinal desires, sublimating
it into tangible reality, as in putting it into other usage. As a consequence, we may want to accept or reject
the world due to experiencing the problem of suffering, and the reality principle. The rejection of the world
includes people becoming insane, turning into mad men, developing psychosis, or people turning into
hermits or mystics.
 Religion people from their suffering reality
 Presupposition; Freud assumes ultimate aim of the Reality Principle is the “Pleasure Principle”, seek
pleasure, reduce pain
 Religion is a “Psychical Infantilism”.
The premise of this chapter is that religion is a mass delusion to shield people from the suffering reality.
This however presupposes and assumes that the ultimate aim is the pleasure principle, to seek pleasure
and flee harm. Religion is a psychic infantilism according to Freud.

Chapter 3: Products of Civilization

 Individualism vs. Collectivism

 Noble Savage vs. Legalism, Rule of Law, Machiavellianism, the State
 Orderliness & Cleanliness
Civilization has produced great many things, such as the arts, sciences and technology. However, there are
dichotomies, such as individual freedom versus the mass collective, ideas such as the Noble Savage versus
the oppressive rule of law and social structures and dictates that govern the lives of a civilized man. Freud
brought up orderliness and cleanliness, compared to disorder, which was another product of civilization,
because when you look at the animals or pre-civilized man, they were not so concerned with keeping order
and cleanliness. Though it could also be that cleanliness is a much later development, possibly arising due
to domestication of animals and being exposed to more and more viruses, bacteria, pathogens.
 Chapter 4: Sexual Repression

 Civilization can modify environment (external) and control sexual desires (internal)
 Heterosexual led to psychological illness and repression
 Cleanliness connected to purity, controlling libido, punishing sexually immoral who waste time,
energy and resources
Freud believes that civilizations that developed were based on the realization that men can modify the
environment through work and to control their sexual desired into narrowly defined areas such as within
the bounds of heterosexual monogamy, which Freud believed was what led to societal development and
also simultaneously sexual repression. This premise that various psychological illnesses have resulted from
sexual repression forms the main basis of Freud’s argument for civ and its dis. He also linked that
cleanliness may be connected to notions of purity, proper rules, to control libidinous desired that keep
chased the sexually immoral whom could harm society by wasting its resources and time.

Chapter 5: Sexual repression & Aggression

 Thanatos – “Death drive/instinct”

 Critiques Christianity’s Golden Rule (love thy neighbor/enemy) as impossible and “Credo quia
absurdum” (I believe it because it is absurd)
 Communal Libido leading to Thanatos: e.g. Antisemitism, Communist vs. Bourgeoisie, “Psychical
Counterforces”
Freud finds civilization having sexual repression and a propensity towards aggression or what he calls the
Thanatos or death drive. He critiques Christianity for the golden rule, “love thy neighbor as thyself an to
love thy enemies”. Freud calls it “Credo quia absurdum” (I believe it because it is absurd). He cites examples
in history where this form of communal libido leads to ironically more Thanatos. He cited examples such as
anti-Semitism, or Communist fighting against the Bourgeoisie, as examples of psychical counterforces.

Chapter 6: Thanatos/Sex Drive

 Explicitly mentions “Death instinct”

 Psychological neuroses result from ego/self-preservation suppression libido which helps cope with
reality/suffering
 Narcissism is excess of ego, where self is libidinal and pleasurable
 Sadism and Masochism as Libido and Thanatos direct on self/ego or object/others
 Civilizations like the ego, can create and destroy is a mere description and not a causal explanation
Freud explicitly introduced the death instinct or Thanatos. Psychological neuroses are believed to result
from the ego or self-preservation suppressing libido, which is necessary to realize and cope with suffering
and reality. Narcissism is perceived to be an excess of ego, where it becomes libidinal and pleasurable in its
own right. Freud talks about sadism and masochism as libido and Thanatos directed either on the self or
ego, or on the object or others. He then separates out the libido to highlight the existence of Thanatos.
Freud, in reality, however describes that civilizations, like the ego, have a propensity to create and destroy.
It is a mere description and not a casual explanation.

Chapter 7: Societal Control and Conscience

 Society controls libido and aggression through developing the super-ego

 Conscience tells us we are guilty of bad thoughts/deeds
 Internalization of The Father, Fate or Societal pressure, lead to anxiety, social or otherwise
  Reduces hedonism
 Oedipus Complex to kill father leads to more guilt; psychically internalized and extended to society.
Is dubious
Freud explains how society controls the libido and aggressive instincts through the development of the
SuperEgo or the conscience which tells us that we are guilty of bad thoughts and deeds, and thus it tells us
that we need punishment. Freud believes this is an internalization of the father, or of fate or societal
pressures, which could lead to social anxiety or other forms or anxiety developing. The superego instills
within us guilt and readily amplifies in times of crisis to stop man from indulging hedonically. Freud talked
about it originating from the Oedipus Complex in wanting to kill a strict or even leaning father, which leads
to guilt.

Chapter 8: Guilt & Suppression

 Guilt could be conscious/unconscious

 Produces anxiety, suppresses libido
 Ethics is civilization’s super-ego, attempt to control individual super-ego
 Civilizations are extensions of individual’s super-egos and their greatest aims and desires, such as
“To love thy neighbor as thyself”
 “Impossibly” attempts to link “Libidinal ties” with everyone else/community
 Leads to conflict between collective and individual, libido and super-ego, guilt and aggression
 Social neurosis
 Economies of guilt, repression, Thanatos of civilization and continual struggle
This family dynamic is extended to the community and society. There is something about the internalization
of morals from the father that could be true, but the Oedipus Complex is completely dubious. Chapter eight
tells that discontents in civilization stem from remorse and guilt, according to Freud. Guilt could be
conscious or unconscious and can lead to anxiety and supreme suppression of libido. Freud believed that
ethics in civilization IS civilization’s superego, an attempt to control and change individual egos to conform
the will of the society or the community of the nation. Civilizations are extensions of individuals with their
SuperEgos embedded within the ethical structures of a society: they are the greatest aims such as to love
thy neighbor as thyself, which Freud saw as impossible, but also an example of the ultimate attempt that
civilizations use to forge libidinal ties with everyone else and their community. This leads to conflict where
the individual and the collective, the libido and the superego guilt an aggression playout, and influence the
whole civilization organism, which could lead to social neurosis. Social neuroses are impossible to treat and
assess, because they are dependent on entire economies of guilt and as a result could lead to Thanatos for
the entire civilization experiment as a whole. Freud makes an interesting assertion that at the heart of our
struggle is repression and guilt, and that society or civilization in general suffers from excessive guilt that as
a result suppresses the libido, props up the SuperEgo and leads to internal conflict for all, whether
consciously or unconsciously.

Themes

Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious

Sigmund Freud was a psychologist, therapist, and intellectual concerned with the forces at work in the
human mind. His theory of “psychoanalysis,” which he developed over the course of his lifetime, has many
aspects—but can be summed up, primarily, as the descriptive study of a system of internal checks and
balances that regulate emotion and action.
Freud believed that the mind could be divided into the ego (the “I”), the id (deep, sometimes perverse,
desires) and the superego (the warden or overseer, keeping id and ego in check). In Freud’s theory of mind,
humans generally are aware of the desires that drive their behaviors, but oftentimes they aren’t—and that
makes these latter impulses unconscious. Freud argued that unconscious drives shape human beings’ lives
—who they are and why they do what they do.
Civilization and its Discontents is a thought-experiment by Freud: an essay attempting to determine
whether the same unconscious impulses that Freud saw as driving individual’s behavior could also be used
to describe the formation of human civilization. Freud puzzles out whether civilization is itself a “good” or
“progressive” thing: whether it makes human beings happier, healthier, and freer than an ideal “state of
nature” before, or outside, civilization.
Freud concludes that the very same processes and antagonisms operating in the individual mind are the
forces shaping whole civil societies. Thus Freud argues for—though he does not use the term—a “social
psychology,” or a way of explaining society based on the accumulated effects of individuals’ minds.

Individuality vs. Social Bonds

Civilization’s primary conflict, which Freud outlines in the essay, is that between the will of
the individual and the will of the group, the society in which that individual lives and works. Freud notes
that all individuals, even those in prehistoric civilizations, exist in societies. Thus their freedoms, or
supposed freedoms, must be understood in the context of what a society allows them and requires them to
do. Freud argues that, in the past, more “primitive” societies had weaker central governments, and allowed
greater personal latitude for certain kinds of acts. Sexual acts, or instances of violence, tended to be
handled within families, which were ruled by powerful father-figures.
But Freud complicates this picture by “fast-forwarding” to Western society of the past several hundred
years. He notes that outright critics of “civilization” as such, who claim that society impinges on their
individual freedoms, neglect the fact that societies also keep humans safe—which is itself a kind of
freedom. The “deal” brokered between the individual and the society, then, is one of exchange. Individuals
give up a certain amount of autonomy, and as a result, they gain the protection of the group.
This set of arguments is not necessarily psychoanalytic, however. Freud makes the above theory his own by
connecting it to his ideas of the ego and super-ego, which, Freud states, create the same “structure” within
an individual as exists within a society. That is, the “ego” accepts an internalized, government-like
“monitor” in the form of the super-ego, which keeps the ego from merely gratifying every wish, desire, act
of aggression, or instance of satisfaction it craves. The super-ego thus similarly keeps the ego from being
totally free, by placing checks on it. But the super-ego also protects the ego, by ensuring that a person
recognizes the desires of others. In other words, people’s super-egos stop them from being utterly selfish,
thus enabling cooperation and reciprocal benefit within a society.

Love, Sex and Happiness

Freud outlines a complex and interrelated system of love, sex, and happiness, based on a drive he calls
Eros. Eros is one of two fundamental drives—the other is Thanatos, or death. Eros is also understood, in
psychoanalysis, as a manifestation of the Pleasure Principle—quite simply a desire for self-gratification, for
what “feels best.” Eros, however, goes beyond the “minor” definition of the Pleasure Principle (an
avoidance of pain), and becomes, instead, more active—the seeking, in another person, of a love-object, of
the satisfaction of physical and mental desires. In other words, we love because we want to have sex, and
we love, too, because we want to be loved, to be protected, desired, and respected.
Love, in Freud’s conception, is not always connected to sex. But Freud believes that sex is a powerful
component of love, and that, in relationships where we say we love but do not have sex, we have in
fact sublimated (essentially, “pushed down”) the desire for sex and transformed it into a different aim—
that of friendship, or family attachment. This is one of Freud’s more controversial theories, and he argues
for it implicitly in this book, and more explicitly elsewhere.
The upshot of all this is: for Freud, love and sex often lead to happiness, but need not necessarily do so.
Love begets happiness when the love-relationship is strong and productive, but when it ends, it results in a
deep despair. Similarly, sex includes within it the forms of aggression that cause us to want not only to be
joined to another, but also to defeat, overpower, or master another. Thus, for Freud, love/sex/happiness
might be seen, together, as part of an erotic drive—one that exists, always, in concert and opposition with
Thanatos (the death drive).

Suffering, Aggression and Death

Freud acknowledges that the death drive is one of the most difficult aspects of psychoanalytic theory to
understand. Humans naturally feel that they want to continue to live, and to feel pleasure (Eros). The death
drive, then, is an urge in human beings to destroy an object outside the self. The death drive is manifest,
therefore, in what might be termed the “love-hate” relationship. Freud claims that these relationships are
actually quite common—that humans frequently wish to destroy, to overpower, and to master another.
Freud believes that the death drive manifests itself both in individual and in social terms. In the individual,
the death drive forms part of the regulatory mechanism of the super-ego, which seeks to master the ego,
the self, especially those parts of the self that seek to love, or to have sex with, another person. Thus the
super-ego causes the individual a great deal of suffering—making the love-relationship a complex one,
since it is connected with pain and the prospect of more pain, should the love not last.
Within a society, the death drive causes social groups to assert dominance, and aggression, over and
against other social groups, especially those that are geographically nearby. Geographic nearness is often a
reflection of cultural or social nearness, in Freud’s system—this is something he calls the “narcissism of
small differences.” In other words, societies, too, have super-egos, and when they see another society close
to “themselves,” they wish, like the individual super-ego, to control and master that other group.
Freud essentially concludes his essay by arguing that societies use the death drive, on the individual and the
group level, to create guilt, which then manages people’s actions—“keeps them in line”—controls them.
Freud offers up the possibility, too, that because societies have egos and superegos, just like individuals,
then societies might also be able to become psychologically “sick,” or “neurotic,” like some individuals—
that their egos and superegos might be out of balance. Freud merely poses this as a mode for further
inquiry—he does not answer his own provocative question in this essay.

Religion, Delusion and Belief

Freud believes that religion, belief, and delusion (or misplaced belief) play an important role in individual
and social regulation. In essence, religion helps individuals to feel guilty about certain things, and codifies
this guilt in different ways as a means of regulating human actions for the good of larger social groups. The
ultimate example of this, as Freud sees it, is the Christian “Golden Rule,” which is found in similar form in
many other cultures and religions. Freud believes that the Golden Rule is fundamentally illogical, because
humans have little reason to “love a stranger as oneself,” and even less reason to “love an enemy as
oneself.”
This Rule has become a part of individual and social moral codes because it is a socially-advantageous
formulation, however—it allows individuals and societies to regulate human aggression, and to direct that
aggression inward, into a sense of guilt for failing to live up to an impossible moral ideal—rather than
outward, against another person or group of people. Freud argues that all religions channel human
aggression inward, into the position of the super-ego, which mimics the kind of control the state wishes to
have over people—in order to manage individual wants and prevent people from killing each other, having
sex with each other indiscriminately, or otherwise destroying society.
Thus civilization and its development are utterly bound up in the development of the super-ego, and the
guilt that the super-ego wields over the ego. Without these psychological forces, there can be no society,
and without society, there can be no psychological forces. Freud argues that the two arenas, individual and
social, are entirely intertwined. In summation, it would make no sense to say that religion—or civil society
—is “good” or “bad.” Instead, one can only describe these phenomena as outgrowths of the forces of
regulation at play within the human mind—forces Freud believes to be natural, “built in” to humans at the
biological level.

Symbols

The Golden Rule

Although not always a symbol in itself, in general usage, the Golden Rule is, for Freud, an indication of the
errors of the Christian value system, and of Western morality in general. The Golden Rule, as Jesus
formulates it in the Gospels, says that one ought to “do unto others what one would want others to do
unto oneself.” This forms the basis of a communal and selfless moral and social system, at least in its ideal
religious conception. But Freud, throughout Civilization and Its Discontents, believes that societies are not
founded on this kind of generosity alone. Instead, all “civilized” groups of men and women are bonded by
the competing impulses of the individual (the selfish) and the social (the selfless). In addition, societies
must wrestle with the competing human desires of love (eros) and death (thanatos) – the first of which
causes people to join in sexual and romantic relationships, and the second which spurs people to destroy
those relationships, and the social structures surrounding them. This theory of drives, which underlies
Freud’s system of psychoanalytic social psychology, is, according to Freud, a more accurate representation
of human behavior than the demanding and ultimately impractical Golden Rule.

[from Chapter IV]

Perhaps St. Francis of Assisi went furthest in exploiting love for the benefit of an inner feeling of
happiness.

[from Chapter V]
Not merely is this stranger in general unworthy of my love; I must honestly confess that he has more
claim to my hostility and even my hatred. He seems not have the least trace of love for me and
shows me not the slightest consideration.

Glossary

Ego: English translation of Freud's term das Ich, or "the I." One of the three components of the psyche, it is
the part of the psyche that deals with reality.
Id: English translation of Freud's term das Es, or "the It." One of the three components of the psyche, it is
responsible for instinctual urges and is completely unconscious.
Libido: Psychic energy derived from the sex drive.
Neurology: The field of medicine concerned with brain disease and brain injuries. Distinct from
neuroscience (the scientific study of the brain) and neuropsychology (the study of psychological disorders
and impairments caused by brain dysfunction).
Neurosis: A mental disorder that involves distortion, but not outright rejection, of reality. Neuroses include
anxiety disorders, "hysteria," "neurasthenia," and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
The Oedipus complex: A persistent set of unconscious beliefs and desires that results, according to Freud,
from the childhood repression of the desire to sleep with one's mother and kill one's father.
Pleasure principle: The principle obeyed by the id, which attempts to accomplish infantile wishes such as
the wish to have sex with one's mother and kill one's father.
Psychosis: A mental disorder that involves outright rejection or denial of reality. Psychotic conditions
include schizophrenia, very severe depression, and manic- depressive disorder.
Reality principle: The principle obeyed by the ego, which attempts to reconcile the id's desires with
reality.
Repression: The process by which the ego prevents unwanted desires from emerging into consciousness.
According to psychoanalysis, partially-successful repression is the cause of neuroticism.
Sublimation: The use of psychic energy generated by an unwanted or inappropriate desire, such as the
desire to have sex with one's mother, for an acceptable activity such as art, science, good works, etc.
Superego: English translation of Freud's term "Über-Ich", or "over-I." One of the three components of the
psyche, the super-ego represents internalized social rules. It is partly conscious, and it enforces rules and
imposes guilt.