Question on Freud

[amale]

According to Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its discontents-- what is the discontent in civilization?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I am not sure this should be in Philosophy.

I am sending it to Learning.

[JazzRemington]

I think it refers to the idea (posited by Freud) that people are naturally anti-civilization and will always want to satisfy their own sexual desires at the expense of civilization itself.

[Dean]

According to Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its discontents-- what is the discontent in civilization?

The discontent lies in the satisfaction of internal drives, primarily Ego, which conflict with the goals, norms and laws of civilization. It is NOT primarily a sexual conflict (though it often is), because at the time of writing Freud had become much more broad in his theories, rejecting the notion that all drives were productive (sexual) and contending that certain destructive drives were common in man. He felt that man is constantly at odds with civilization, not because he hates it and seeks its destruction, but because it stifles his ability to act without restraint, and therefore satisfy all his drives.

This is a very bourgeois sentiment which assumes that human beings are primarily conflicting rather than unifying actors, and this was no doubt influenced by his victorian outlook. I would also add that his obsession with sexuality as the driving force of man was a result of the victorian stigmatization of sex. You could compare this to his penis envy theory: because he has initially been stripped of his ability to speak freely about sexuality, he finds an urge to have that ability - he finally got it, through professional means, and it became his focus.

I should note that I don't agree with Freud's penis envy theory. One could just as quickly assert that men become fat because they unconsciously envy the female's possession of breasts. However, there are cases where men have grown breasts as a result of psychological factors ("motherhood envy" it could be called), and many women certainly have irrational envies of males in positions of power, sometimes indeed manifesting in the creation of a phallus power symbol and subsequent envy of those who have it. This is certainly more an exception than a rule, unlike what Freud indicated.

From Freud yo ucna learn a great deal. He was a great thinker, pioneer and helped pave the way for analytical psychological studies. However, he must be understood in his historical and social context. He was part of a suppessed victorian bourgeoisie which valued masculinity over feminity - a culture obsessed with the tabu of sex.