Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

I. Background Information

Freud was born in 1856 and grew up in Vienna, where he went to college and remained as a psychologist for almost all of his life. By the 1890s, Freud was developing a new approach to the treatment of mental disorders, called psychoanalysis, in which techniques such as hypnosis, the interpretation of dreams, and the patient’s free association of ideas are used in order to help the patient to discover aspects of his or her mind of which the patient has previously been unconscious (such as repressed memories or desires). The approach holds that discovering and confronting such memories or desires may often be the key to the solution of the patient’s problems. Later, Freud replaced his simple division of the mind into the conscious and the unconscious with his division of the mind into the id, the ego, and the super-ego.

Eventually, Freud turned his attention to social commentary, publishing The Future of an Illusion in 1927. As his career neared its end, he found himself still motivated to work. “What should I do?” he asked rhetorically. “One cannot smoke the whole day long and play cards; I no longer have staying power for walking, and most of what one can read no longer interests me. I wrote, and I passed the time with it quite agreeably.” The result was the publication in 1930 of Civilization and Its Discontents, one of Freud’s most influential works. When the Nazis invaded Vienna in 1938, Freud fled to London. He died in 1939.

for July 13:

II. Reading Assignment

• chapters I–V

III. Study Questions

1. What does Freud claim is the “one state” in which a person’s ego does not maintain its distinctness from the world outside his or her self?
2. Why, according to Freud, does the ego disengage itself from the external world?
3. What is the one assumption that Freud says underlies his view that nothing in a mind’s past ever completely vanishes?
4. What three ways of coping with pain and disappointment does Freud identify?
5. What does Freud say people’s behavior shows to be the purpose of their lives?
6. What are two of the ways of avoiding suffering listed by Freud?
7. What is the source of suffering that Freud says people refuse to recognize?
8. What is the “astonishing” statement that Freud encounters when considering the sources of suffering?
9. What is one of the reasons Freud cites for people tending to believe this statement?
10. What does Freud identify as the two purposes of civilization?
11. What feature does Freud say characterizes civilization as much as any feature does?
12. What does Freud say is “the decisive step of civilization”?
13. When Freud says, “It does not seem as though any influence could induce a man to change his nature into a termite’s,” what urge is he referring to the impossibility of getting rid of?
14. What feature of civilization does Freud say is lacking in the primitive family?
15. What are two of the ways in which, according to Freud, civilization restricts love?
16. What is the main idea of Freud’s reaction to society’s demand that one love one’s neighbor as oneself?
17. Does Freud think humans are aggressive due to instinct or due to the constraints imposed upon them in society?
18. What trade-off does Freud say people make by living in civilization instead of as savages?

IV. Suggestions for Further Reading

1. Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988) (Langley circulating BF173 F85G378 1988), particularly chapter 11, “Human Nature at Work,” section entitled “Civilization: The Human Predicament” (pp. 543–553).
2. Anthony Storr, Freud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) (Langley circulating BF173 S836 1989).
3. Donald C. Abel, Freud on Instinct and Morality (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) (Langley circulating BF685 A24 1989).

V. Reaction-Paper Topics

If you want to write a reaction paper on this reading assignment, choose one of the following topics (or think of another topic and get me to approve it) and respond to it in a paper of about 2 pages. Your paper should conform to the instructions provided in “Guidelines for Writing a Philosophy Paper” and will be due at the beginning of class on July 13.

1. chapter II: Freud spends much of chapter II discussing what he considers to be “the most interesting methods of averting suffering[:] . . . those which seek to influence our own organism.” Summarize Freud’s account of these methods.
2. chapter III: After addressing the question of whether people living in “an earlier age” felt happier than people do in present-day civilization, Freud spends most of the rest of chapter III indicating what he thinks the characteristic features of civilization are. Summarize what Freud says on this topic.
3. chapter V: Freud comments at length on the demand that one love one’s neighbor as oneself. What does Freud say about this demand?

VI. Outline of Topics to be Covered in Class

1. Who was Freud?
1. a psychologist in Vienna
2. the founder of psychoanalysis
2. the main idea of Civilization and Its Discontents
3. Freud’s view of human nature
1. psychoanalytic theory
1. the unconscious
2. the three parts of the mind
2. what motivates people: happiness
3. how people become and remain happy
1. by satisfying instincts
1. love
2. aggression
2. by coping with pain and disappointment
1. changing how the world feels to you (getting intoxicated)
2. changing how you see the world (substitutive satisfactions)
1. religion
2. repression
3. changing what you want from the world
1. taming your instincts
2. deflection, displacement, or sublimation
4. Freud’s view of civilization
1. characteristics of civilization
1. achievements
2. regulations
2. inconveniences of civilization
1. possibly the worst that humans experience
2. but not readily acknowledged
3. due to humans’ instincts
1. love
2. aggression
4. not worth tolerating?
5. or outweighed by the benefits?
5. connections
1. with Rousseau
2. with Hobbes

for July 20:

VII. Reading Assignment

• chapters VI–VIII

VIII. Study Questions

1. With what pair of mutually-opposing instincts does Freud replace his initial antithesis between ego-instincts and object-instincts?
2. In the service of which of these two mutually-opposing instincts does Freud say civilization is a process?
3. How does Freud say the aggressive instinct is related to the death instinct?
4. What does Freud refer to as the most important method by which individuals’ “desire for aggression” is rendered “innocuous”?
5. What does Freud say determines what acts and intentions one learns to regard as good or bad?
6. To what part of the mind does Freud say conscience and a sense of guilt are due?
7. What is the “great economic disadvantage” Freud finds in the formation of a conscience?
8. What does Freud identify as “the final conclusion of our investigation”?
9. What function does Freud characterize conscience as serving?
10. Under what condition, according to Freud, would the creation of a great human community be most successful?
11. What does Freud say happens when “the cultural super-ego . . . does not trouble itself enough about the facts of the mental constitution of human beings”?

IX. Suggestions for Further Reading

See the suggestions for further reading for July 13, above.

X. Reaction-Paper Topics

If you want to write a reaction paper on this reading assignment, choose one of the following topics (or think of another topic and get me to approve it) and respond to it in a paper of about 2 pages. Your paper should conform to the instructions provided in “Guidelines for Writing a Philosophy Paper” and will be due at the beginning of class on July 20.

1. chapter VII: According to Freud, the formation of an individual’s conscience is an important phenomenon. Why is it important (according to Freud), and how does Freud say it happens?
2. chapter VIII: Freud compares and contrasts the development of the individual with the development of a civilization. Summarize Freud’s remarks on this topic.

XI. Outline of Topics to be Covered in Class

1. chapter VI: Freud’s previous account and revised account of the instincts
1. the previous account
2. the revised account
3. the difference: primarily one of emphasis
2. chapter VII: how civilization limits aggressiveness
1. through the development of the individual’s conscience
1. how it happens
2. why it happens
2. possible objections to this account
3. replies to these objections
4. the account restated
5. the inevitability of feelings of guilt
3. chapter VIII: conclusion
1. the sense of guilt
2. guilt perceived as malaise, or discontent
3. individual development, social development
1. super-egos
2. individual happiness vs. social unity
3. “an eventual accommodation”

for July 27:

XII. Analysis-Paper Topics

If you want to write an analysis paper on this author, choose one of the following topics (or think of another topic and get me to approve it) and respond to it in a paper of about 6 pages. Your paper should conform to the instructions provided in “Guidelines for Writing a Philosophy Paper” and will be due at the beginning of class on July 27.

1. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud articulates a particular understanding or characterization of civilization on which some of his most important conclusions are based. Part of this understanding is a view about the demands that civilization places on individuals. Evaluate this part of Freud’s understanding of civilization by explaining what demands he thinks civilization places on individuals and by critically examining whether Freud’s claims in this regard are justifiable.
2. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud argues that civilization inevitably inflicts unhappiness on people by frustrating the satisfaction of some strong urges that they instinctively have. Evaluate this conclusion by explaining how, according to Freud, the individual’s instinctive urges get frustrated by civilization and by critically examining whether Freud’s account of this phenomenon rests on a justifiable view of human nature.