Comparing the Views of Socrates and Sigmund Freud's 'Civilization and Its Discontents'

“Civilization and Its Discontents” is a book written by Sigmund Freud in 1929 (originally titled “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur” or The Uneasiness in Culture.) This is considered to be one of Freud’s most important and widely read works. In this book, Freud explains his perspective by enumerating what he sees as fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. He asserts that this tension stems from the individual’s quest for freedom and non-conformity and civilization’s quest for uniformity and instinctual repression. Most of humankind’s primitive instincts are clearly destructive to the health and well-being of a human community (such as the desire to kill.) As a direct result, civilization creates laws designed to prohibit

In the beginning of its development the libido (all erotic tendencies, all capacity for love) in each individual is directed towards the self…It is only until later that, in association with the chief natural functions, the libido flows over and beyond the ego towards objects outside the self, and it is not until then are we able to recognize the libidinal trends as such and distinguish them for the ego-instincts. (Freud, "One of the Difficulties to Psycho-Analysis," 3)

that humans have often paid a great price for civilization; this price, he believed, was

Freud proposed the psychological structure of personality to include three systems called the id, the ego, and the superego. At birth, the id is the original system of personality and is ruled by the pleasure principle. It is driven towards satisfying instinctual needs. The ego can be described as a mediator between ones instincts and their surrounding environment. The ego is ruled by the reality principle, using realistic and logical thinking to formulate action plans for satisfying needs. The superego includes a person’s moral code and strives for perfection, not pleasure. Psychic energy is distributed between these three systems creating dynamics of personality. This psychic energy is what determines behavior (Day, 2008).

Freud’s theory of personality examined the interplay between the primitive, instinctual urges—the ‘id’; the practical and rational ‘ego’; and the morally attuned ‘superego’; ‘object relations’ refer to the "object" of an instinct”, which is “the agent through which the instinctual aim is achieved”—most often a person and, according to Freud, most often the mother (Ainsworth 1969, p. 1). The psychosexual development theory that Freud launched reduces our behaviour to mechanistic responses to an instinctive need for pleasure fueled by the ‘libido’ and barriers or distortions to the gratification of the libido at various delineated stages of development were responsible for later problems in life (Kail & Zolner 2012, p. 5). Erik Erikson later added depth to the approach by including more humanistic elements to Freud’s stages and including more periods of development (p.

Freud primarily subscribed to the idea that there are two energies that drive human behavior. These two energies are sex – the pleasure principle and aggression. The human mind is comprised of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. Within the realms of the mind, the human personality is controlled by the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is driven by the pleasure principle. The superego is the instinctual moral good, which aims to please the ego ideal, or the magnified moral values. The ego interacts with both the id and the superego and aims to please both components (Connors).

In chapter 8, Freud analyses the relationship between civilization and individual further. In his view, personal fulfillment still can be achieved under the community culture. He explains, “ Here by far the most important thing is the aim of creating a unity out of the individual human beings. It is true that the aim of happiness is still there, but it is pushed into the background”(Freud 105). In other words, community formed with every single individual and forming a community is the most important objective in the process of society development. Personal satisfaction can be achieved maximize if it is assumed that personal development is independent. However, the fact is not that simple. Individuals were born in community and they grow up in the environment that surrounded by their families and friends. They developed themselves along with the improvement of community. Individual and society are inseparable. So when individual considers about achieving personal fulfillment, the community culture is the first and the most primary restriction because they live in the community and they must obey community rules first. That is why Freud writes that personal happiness is always people pursuing but it is pushed into background when it intersects with community culture. For this reason, individual

pursuit of happiness but also required by the Laws of Nature and Nature's God to

Freud attempted to explain how the unconscious functions by dividing it into three structures, the id, ego, and superego. The id holds our primitive instincts that demand immediate gratification, because it operates on the pleasure principle (McLeod, 2010). Similarly, the ego also seeks pleasure. However, instead of seeking immediate gratification, the ego acts realistically in order to avoid potentially negative consequences that may arise. On the other hand, our superego represents our conscious. It encompasses the morals and values we learn by society and our parents as we go through the stages of

Freud argued that an individual’s instinctual drive was sexually orientated. In the same way that “hunger seeks nutrition,

Freud saw this gratification to be one of the basic human needs. In much the same way, Golding portrayed the hunt as a rape with the boys ravenously jumping on top of the pig and brutalizing it. This alludes to Freud's explanation of the pleasure drive, he called the libido. The term serves as a dual intent in its psychodynamic and physically sexual sense.

lifestyle affords humanity, from both the dangers of the natural world and from ourselves.  Before the advent of civilization, mankind dwelt in the wild in small bands, and according to Freud even these small bands were only created in order to provide even minimal order (Freud 63).  Such a lifestyle naturally afforded little in the way of protection or enjoyment when much of mankind’s time was spent trying to fight just to

The three different levels of consciousness that discussed in his study were the conscious, preconscious, and the unconscious state. Conscious is a thought that is currently in the awareness. Preconscious is a thought that is also from part of the memory process, which is currently not at awareness. Unconscious is a thought that cannot be voluntarily brought into the awareness. Freud explained that during the id stage, it is completely unconscious, thus only to be present at birth where it acts accordingly by the pleasure principle. A pleasure principle means of seeking an immediate pleasure, despite of understanding the formal reason, logic, safety, and morality to avoid the pain, and also in satisfying of a person needs. Hock (2009) pointed out that id stage consists of “basic human biological urges and instincts such as hunger, thirst, and sexual impulses” (p. 236).

Freud proposes the Principle of Satisfaction when aiming to be happy, in other words "a problem of satisfying a person's instinctual wishes (Freud 263)." Consequently, he concludes that because our "appetite" can never be fulfilled, the attainment of happiness will be nothing else than pessimistic. Also, he notes, that not all pleasures or wishes can be satisfied as soon as they are conceived. Freud presents the example of a baby, who, initially, believes that all his/her wishes should be gratified, and only later learns, form the Reality Principle, the harsh truth, that the wishes can not be satisfied instantaneously. More than that, life teaches men that in order to experience happiness one must sacrifice the instant gratification of his/her desires in order to achieve happiness in future. A simple example would be when a businessman decides to work overtime in order to receive more money and, thus, receive more pleasure, of course temporary and in future.

He argued the human mind or ‘psyche’ is split into three parts; the id, which contains basic and primitive, desires e.g. hunger, thirst and lust; the ego, which involves perceptions of the external world that makes us aware of the ‘reality principle,’ one’s most outward aspect of our personality, and the super-ego, which contains the conscience that punishes bad behaviours with guilt, and the ego-ideal that praises good actions. Freud reasoned that in order for the psyche to be healthy there must be balance between the ego and the super-ego, hence Freud claimed