Freud Civilization And Its Discontents

Freud theorizes that this oceanic feeling is a regression into an earlier state of consciousness before the ego had differentiated itself from the world of objects. Freud also theorizes that the religious oceanic feeling arises from “the infant's helplessness and the longing for the father” and “imagine[s] that the oceanic feeling became connected with religion later on.” In other words, the oceanic feeling is not a genuine religious experience, though people experience it that way.

...illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind . . . As

In his book Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud utilizes his method of psychoanalysis on religion by comparing the relationship between human and religion to that of a child and his parents. Freud effectively demonstrates that religion is a product of the human mind. After exposing religion as a an illusion, Freud concludes that humanity will be better off when it has forgone religion. This paper will argue that Freud's assertion that religion is an illusion is correct because of it's blatantly traceable evolution through the history of the human civilization and psyche.

Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers are two extremely renowned individuals who have greatly contributed to the history of psychology. Their contributions are the foundation for the tools, techniques, and methodologies used by psychologist today. Although, each psychologist is from different times and developed different methods, they shared a passion for the workings of the human mind. As a result, their drive and foundation has motivated and prompted new theories and research for the future. This paper will provide a summary of two articles highlighting the processes contemporary psychologists use to develop the theories of Freud and Rogers. It also explains their views of human nature and worldviews as

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

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud composes essentially to look at the relationship between the individual and society. Through Freud's examination of the relationship, a more profound comprehension of the intricacy of mental life is figured it out. Freud starts to add to the relationship ahead of schedule in the work by portraying the most primitive acknowledge of self and the most primitive acknowledge of the outside world. He further adds to this relationship through the pondering of sexual yearning and its associations with adoration, which he claims, lead to the arrangement of families and after that later gatherings of humankind that came to include development all in all. Through inquiries raised concerning society, society, history and the self, Freud has the capacity portray a kind of guide of the brain. This guide Freud delineates further empowers him to build up a comprehension of the relationship in the middle of human advancement and the person.

Freud mainly focuses on human nature and questions the desire, ideas ,and beliefs that shape a human, he then further analyses them. We see in his literature, Civilization and its Disconnect, that he questions religion and the belief in God. He himself does not believe in God, but wants to know why many people follow and trust something that they cannot see. He also questions the concept of human relationships. Knowing that a two person relationship and interaction is inevitable and that it is a part of life, but he does not know if a third relationship, and further on, is necessary. Regardless, human relationships are a part of society, and one of causes of civilizations, which Freud defines as “the whole some of achievement and the regulations which distinguish our lives” (Freud). With one of the achievements

In Mark Edmundson’s “Polemical Introduction” to his novel, Self and Soul, he analyzes how the modern world has lost the ideals held by the ancient world, such as the heroic ideal, the religious ideal, and the ideal of contemplation. Edmundson cites the loss of these ideals through modern writers, such as Shakespeare and Freud. Edmundson specifically calls Freud a “relentless enemy of the warrior ideal, the religious ideal, and the ideal of transcendent philosophy.” The truth in Edmundson’s analysis of Freud’s anti-idealist view can be seen in Freud’s novel, Civilization and Its Discontents. In this novel, Edmundson’s assessment is most evident that Freud sees a desire to follow ideals as a “fall to illusion, as well as Freud’s obvious

Some of Freuds Ideas that are accepted are his thoughts on the unconcious; cognitive therapists believe that the unconcious is huge and plays a significant role in processing information. However Freud belived that the unconcious mind was full of sexual and aggressive tendencies these thoughts have fallen away as David Myers states our unconcious is “cooler and processes information automatically”

Throughout chapter five of Civilizations and Its Discontents, Freud goes into detail about how he believes the suppression of some basic human instincts, such as aggression, have lead to a general unhappiness in the civilized world. In particular, he goes into detail about the faults he finds in the Christian idea of loving one’s neighbor as one loves oneself. Personally, I could not agree with his assumption that such an ideal is fruitless due to the differences each human being has from one another. Freud, though he makes some points I agree with when discussing his opinion, looses me by the sheer fact that he seems to ignore the complexity of love. He posits that if aggression is a natural instinct, and if love in return cannot be guaranteed,

Others make religion a mere projection of human wishes, a phenomenon that emerges at the

The super-ego functions as a self-regulating tool for the ego, “exercis[ing] the same severe aggression that the latter would have liked to direct toward other individuals.” Unlike the id or the ego, the super-ego is a result of society’s ideals and is what causes us to feel guilt, it is “an internal authority.” Society dictates what one should or should not feel guilty about, it is a learned, not innate aspect of human consciousness. This again similar to Nietzsche’s discussion on guilt, that guilt developed out of society and his ideas of conscience and morality to be a social construct. Although, Nietzsche explicitly puts the blame on the priests and religion, Freud seems to think it a naturally occurring aspect of

Freud referred to the Hobbes argument that humans are naturally hostile to one another, humans depend on their own man made devices and hostile nature, leading humanity into a war where a man will be against each other (Hobbes 1906, 96). Human civilization is an effort to set up limitations for man’s aggressive

This misery of the oppressed class arises from multiple factors. First, the people in this class are forced to submit to bourgeois greed through exploitation. Since the proletariat depend on wage labor for basic survival, they are forced into hard labor with minimal payment- no more than required to entice them to work. This system fulfills the capitalists’ greed, but subjects the proletariat to miserable living conditions, because they have no alternative. Marx is concerned with oppression, while Freud is concerned with repression. However, both reflect on the principle that this stifling of the individual creates misery and discontent in society. While Marx believes this misery can be overcome by overhauling the pattern of social order, Freud seems to believe that the maladies found in society are more or less unavoidable. In Freud’s view, suffering comes from three sources: “the superior power of nature, the feebleness of our own bodies and…family, state and society” (Freud 37). He believes that the first two causes of suffering are unavoidable. However, what he refers to as “the regulations which adjust the mutual relationships of human beings” (37) are avoidable. This is what he refers to as civilization, and we feel a “strange attitude of hostility toward civilization” (38). Citizens begin to harbor aggressive hatred

In this paper, I am going to criticize Freud’s critique concerning religion to be a satisfaction of individuals’ deepest desires for a father figure to a level of rendering religious belief as not true allegations. This will be reached by looking at some weakness associated with Freud’s theory. This will be followed by analyzing the counterarguments facts that have been presented to supporting the ideas from Freud, in other words, the strengths associated with the theory. Before concluding on the paper, there will be in-depth explanations of the theory and the ways it fails to explain the religious ideas that the author indented to pass