Freud didn't discover anything. The study of sex and aggression has been around a long, long time. What Freud 'discovered' is that there isn't anything such as Love, Beauty, Goodness, Justice, Wisdom or Art. Rather than add Freud subtracted. 'Civilization and It's Discontents' documents the Freudian subtraction. Freud lopped off large parts of human nature. By and large psychoanalysis has never been of assistance to the individual qua individiual. What psychoanalysis does though is fill people with a boundless aggression as regression is the fact of psychoanalysis. There is no successful 'analysis' unless the boundless aggression brought forth by psychoanalyis, can be directed in a global way, global because of the boundlessness of the aggression. The 'Freudian climate' isn't one where dreams are finally understood or the unconcious explored, of course, a concious unconcious is nonsensical but rather where aggression is unleashed globally but hidden amidst a civil demeanor. This is the Freudian climate of today which was grounded by 'Civilization and It's Discontents'.

Freud didn't discover anything. Sex and aggression have been around a long, long time. Freud's eros has zip to do with the eros of antiquity, of course. What Freud 'discovered' is that there isn't anything such as Love, Beauty, Goodness, Justice, Wisdom or Art. Rather than add Freud subtracted. Except for the very rare case, there might be one or two counterexamples, psychoanalysis has never been of assistance to the individual qua individiual. What psychoanalysis does though is fill people with a boundless aggression as regression is the fact of psychoanalysis. There is no successful 'analysis' unless the boundless aggression brought forth by psychoanalyis can be directed in a totalistic way, totalistic because of the boundlessness of the aggression. The 'Freudian climate' isn't one where dreams are finally understood or the unconcious explored, of course, a concious unconcious is nonsensical but rather where aggression is unleashed but hidden amidst a civil demeanor. What to do after psychoanalysis? Deconstruct the West while being very civil. Only the deconstruction of the West is able to satisfy the 'death drive' brought forth by psychoanalysis. Many people are on board for this now. Such is the Freudian climate of today.

Freud gives his pessimistic take on human nature and expands this formula to society as a whole. I am not sure if his argument is sound based on the fact that he went from the micro-individual to a macro view of society, but his argument was quite convincing based upon the amounts of aggression seen throughout world history, such as constant war, greed, slavery, genocide, the inquisition, scape goats, etc. etc. If anything this book made me rethink and revise my views on society and politics as a whole. It is a short read so I strongly recommend it.

i got this book 2nd i ordered 3 at the same time. i was so happy to get it. the book arrived promptly and in good condition.

For all the celebrated shortcomings of his theories, Sigmund Freud remains, even in retrospect, the most influential thinker of the 20th century, a giant among the giants of that now by-gone era of late modernity. He still must be regarded as the most perspicuous among positivistic and systematic students of human nature and the most devoted, at least in the consistency of his ideas. His rubric for the self-referential category, "ego", is used almost universally, regardless of culture, language, or learning. Who among us hasn't used the term? Very few thinkers in any age can claim such rapid and profound widespread assimilation of their ideas as Freud. He was also first among the moderns, really the first since Montaigne, to formally prioritize self-knowledge among all types of knowledge, and, reverting to a very ancient idea, perceive the telos or fruit of the attainment of knowledge as therapeutic. While James and other contemporaries focused on elaborating the principles of the new science of human nature, founded on behavioral rather than traditionally metaphysical grounds, Freud undertook the project of their application, in a simple and accessible manner on as broad a scale as possible. Nowhere in his oeuvre is this delineation of the explanatory power of the application of psychological theory to central social problems or queries more transparent than in Civilization and Its Discontents.
Surprising to many coming to Freud for the first time, is that his writing, for the most part, exhibits such clarity that it can be read and understood, within the limits of their comprehension, by children. I remember reading a bit of The Interpretation of Dreams at age fourteen and getting something out of it. But more than accessibility accounts for the impact of Freud's ideas. If a science of human nature is in its infancy, in his nascent structuralist model, Freud gave it a language if not a new paradigm that could be universally acquired. But personally, exclusive of Totem and Taboo, I find his later works, The Future of An Illusion, Civilization and Its Discontents, and the vastly underrated, Moses and Monotheism, to be far more interesting and relevant than the better known early works where he develops his psychological theories.
The quintessential late modern (an era that begins philosophically with publication of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the incendiary works of Tom Paine), Freud appears to write The Future of An Illusion as a defense, an apologia, if you will, of his atheism. He begins by designating Civilization and Its Discontents an extension of this argument. He cannot be merely, tritely arguing didactically for atheism. What he is saying in the preliminary stage of the argument amounts to this: Up to now, traditional religion has been our primary lense for viewing human, thus social, action. But what if, and one must grant at least the possibility, God, Christ, et al, is a mass delusion or rationalization? Could not a science of human nature, a systematic inward scrutiny, provide a more productive perspective on our problems? Is not the human project something other than, even more than, a divinely ordained, fatalistically fulfilled apocalyptic end? And, looking at the human condition (he writes in 1930), there is no denying a new way looking is desperately needed, for perhaps our very survival.
The next claim in the argument is that all societies promise justice. Yet, as individuals, we inevitably protest the "civilizing" process a society takes to deliver some degree of justice to its members. Freud claims that this process necessarily does violence to the individual. The individual is bound by civilization to his/her fellows and, in this process, the natural desires are limited, restricted, and bent by the whim of an external, collective will, " . . . which aims at binding the members of a community together in a libidinal way as well and employs every means to that end." We are naturally resentful. We want it all. Especially sex, with whomever we deign to mount or be mounted by. But Freud buys further into psychological egoism: " . . . men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness." "Man's natural aggressive instinct, the hostility of each against all and of all against each, opposes this programme of civilization . . . whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind."
Hobbesian as a social theorist, he's absolutely Nietzschean when he debunks the Socratic "Archimedian Point of Good" and Agape or Christian Altruism as ideals of civilization which can never be happily achieved, sources of frustration, guilt, despair, and worse yet. "We may reject the existence of an original, as it were natural, capacity to distinguish good from bad. What is bad is often not at all what is injurious or dangerous to the ego; on the contrary, it may be something desirable and enjoyable to the ego. Here, therefore, is an extraneous influence at work, and it is this that decides what is to be called good or bad." The "civilizing programme" thus sets itself up as a sentinel within the individual psyche, in opposition to the natural tendencies to self-gratification. [Then] " . . . the sense of guilt is clearly only a fear of loss of love, `social' anxiety." "Civilization has to use its utmost efforts in order to set limits to man's aggressive instincts and to hold the manifestations of them in check by psychical reaction-formations. Hence, therefore, the use of methods intended to incite people into identifications and aim-inhibited relationships of love, hence the restriction upon sexual life, and hence too the ideal's commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself - a commandment which is really justified by the fact that nothing else runs so strongly counter to the original nature of man."
Abiding by the Amazon rules, I won't be a spoiler. What I wish to point to is how Freud acted as a conduit for some of the most influential and disturbing modes of thought, general acceptance of which the popularity of the `psychological' approach he spearheaded encouraged. A few of his conclusions thus call for review. " . . . may we not be justified in reaching the diagnosis that, under the influence of cultural urges, some civilizations, or some epochs of civilization - possibly the whole of mankind - have become `neurotic'." "The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their extent their cultural development will succeed is mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction." The continuing influence of these pioneering insights renders Civilization and It's Discontents a must read for any who wish to come to grips with structures of thought which have crucially contributed to current malestorm.

Freud has some interesting and possibly somewhat valid ideas but behind it all I fear that it is more one man's opinion of how the world works than what things are really like in actuality. The perennial problem with Freud is that a lot of what he says cannot be proved scientifically. The most important things in life like love and God aren't scientific but they (usually) never claimed to be, unlike Freudian theory. As someone who knows a bit of history and politics, I find Freud's analysis of civilization to be more about what his own inner urges projected upon the world than what is actually out there. His treatment of the sexual instinct as being something tamed and frustrated by civilization may be true for him and others but is probably not true generally. There are males who really don't want unlimited sex with everything. The problem is that Freud over-generalizes his own experience and ancedotal evidence into a universally applicable theory.

His treatment of religion is particularly superficial and reductionistic. In essence, he elavates the irrationality of the id in man to the point where if one took him seriously, one would doubt both Freud's supposed rationality and his or her own. The great error is modern psychology is that people can be known fully the same way chemicals or animals could be known. The truth is that people cannot be known this way. One has to geto to know them. They are not generalized objects but unique subjects.

Freud continued writing into his old age. The three books* of this period are highly suitable for the general reader, that is, every seeker of knowledge.In 1930 when he was 74, He wrote "Civilization and Its Discontents" which, in its first words, scolds us gently. Our judgments are faulty. We fail to recognize and respect greatness; we allow ourselves to be misled--our oceanic, sensation of eternity to be misdirected. The subject matter in this book touches such diversities as the world's problems, religion, happiness and guilt with the deft hand.
Louis Menand's introduction contains valuable information on Freud's work, and Peter Gay's "Brief Life" tells of the author's origins and life. This book may be called "popular" in the best sense of that word.
*The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and Its Discontents & Thomas Woodrow Wilson a Psychological Study

I am officially in love with Freud. He doesn't write from a philosopher's point of view, so his work doesn't have the dry, didatic tone to it. Freud is direct and concise, his vocabulary is relatable; and he even has some comic undertones. Once you get into this piece, you'll finish in no time, no doubt with a new appreciation for Doc Sigmund : )

These days there is talk of the collapse of civilizations. For example, Jared Diamond's massive tome "Collapse." It is therefore timely to see what an influential thinker like Freud said on the subject of civilization. Freud thought that mankind was over-sexed and innately aggressive. He favored civilization as the way to curb these instinctual drives. The sublimated energy can be channeled into the creation of (high) culture and scientific "progress." Freud does admit that the repression of instincts is a problem of civilization, but it is the price we have to pay for order, culture and "progress." Further, he advocated psychoanalysis in order to manipulate people so they would accept the discontents of civilization. But Freud bases his defence of civilization on false premises. There is nothing wrong with healthy outlets for the sex drive. Culture can be created without sublimation. Repression causes more problems than it is worth. Man is not innately aggressive.This is a fallacy propounded by the patriarchy to justify its aggression and repression. On the last page Freud questions his own assumptions about man's aggression. He states that man's power over nature gives him the ability to destroy himself. We can't avoid the fact that that civilizations promote devasting weapons and wars. By exploding Freud's ingenuous arguments we can see civilization as a tool of patriachy for dominance and repression. Civilizations collapse because they are inherently corrupt. Just a bunch of agggressive men who want to screw the world for power and profit.

I am reading this book for a THIRD time. It's a required book for an introductory composition class I'm taking. The fact that my teacher asks his students to read this book AT LEAST three times should have been a clear warning sign. It is the most round-about, long-winded and dense book or writing I have ever come across. I'm shocked that it's such a popular book, a landmark they say. Although Freud does have many interesting ideas, they could be stated MUCH more simply. What a HEADACHE!

Nevertheless, those who enjoy convoluted, intricate and time-intensive reading are likely to seriously appreciate this book. HOWEVER, for those who prefer simple sentences and straightforward writing, like myself, this is NOT the book for you.

`Civilization and its Discontents' is Freud's miniature opus. It is a superficial masterpiece that stretches further than any of his other works; he is reaching for an explanation for human nature in terms of the id-ego-superego structure of the individual as he exists in civilization. For Freud, human beings are characterized by Eros (Sex Drive) and Thanatos (Death Drive), which remain in opposition to one another. This small book is filled with as many interesting ideas as any work of modern philosophy. Freud adopts (perhaps a bit hastily), a Nietzschean position with regard to the role of religion and institutions of social morality which curb and shape primordial human drives. As a result, human beings, and civilizations as a whole remain unsatisfied and suffer from neuroses. He concludes with a discussion of human aggression, which manifests itself in the form of communalized human aggression. He wonders as to whether or not human beings will be able to overcome this drive. It seems to me that this question remains the most important for human beings in the 21st century. Will we be able to overcome our Thanatos and survive the destructive powers that we have created? I suspect that Freud will be better remembered as a thinker and philosopher than as an analyst or doctor precisely because he asks the questions that remain relevant for civilization today, and are likely to remain imperative in the future.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities.
Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," written in 1930, was his attempt at using his theories of psychoanalysis to observe and critique the psychological affect Western civilization had on the human subject. In his book, Freud sets the stage for his analysis by comparing the development of Western civilization with the development of the individual. In a sense, Freud is using Darwin's evolutionary theory to link social constructs and psychic constructs (Freud 3-9).

In essence, Freud postulated that the history of Western civilization is part of our unconscious mental history as well. Since Freud had an extensive classical education, it is no wonder that his works were replete with classical analogies. In this book, Freud relied on the city of Rome to represent the historical birthplace of society, and to explain the ill effects civilization had on the human psyche. Rome has been destroyed and rebuilt, in situ, numerous times since its founding. Rome contains ruins from all its previous eras, which allows one to observe every stage of its developmental history and character. Thus, Freud uses Rome as a metaphor for the observation of the developmental process in the human psyche. Similar to Rome, our unconscious psyche possesses ruins and traces of the past, which make up the structure of the mind as well. The mind is the repository for all of its earlier stages of development and it allows them to coexist with the latest stages of development. By using Rome as his metaphor for psychic development in both the subject and humankind, Freud is answering the criticism that was often leveled against psychoanalysis. Freud's psychoanalytical theories often came under criticism for depending too heavily on the psychological traits of the individual without taking into account the interaction of individuals within society.

Freud believed that the individual would always find it hard to feel content with life in civilization, because unbeknownst to the individual, the individual was under tremendous pressure from their unconscious guilt. Thus, civilization acted as a kind of superego; its conscience, repressing the individual's unconscious desires manifested by their id (Freud 86). What Freud theorized, was that in a sense, civilization, had a life of its own and that it had to control and punish the individual's two great primal instincts in order for civilization to survive and flourish (Freud 69). The two primal instincts are: 1) the death instinct, which in Greek is Thanatos, where one's aggressive impulses reside; and 2) Eros, which is his name for the life instinct or sex drive, also known as the libido. Both Thanatos and Eros reside within an individual's unconscious id and are in a constant state of struggle with each other. In fact, Freud believed that the history of civilization was a struggle between Thanatos and Eros (Freud 80-82). Thus, civilization acting as a superego and protecting itself from destruction, represses humankind's death instinct towards each other through the implementation of authoritative agencies, religion, and by enacting laws (Freud 36, 69, 73-74). Thus, aggression is turned inward towards the individual's ego and forms a person's "conscience," giving the individual their sense of guilt and frustration with life in civilized society (Freud 82-84). Therefore, civilization, acting as the superego, subdues the individuals death instinct; "...setting up an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city" (Freud 84).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in psychology, philosophy, and history.

Although many of his ideas have now been refuted and/or are seen as far-fetched, it is worth taking a look at if one is interested in reading first-hand what Freud has to say.
Very intellectual material. Definitely not a bedtime read.

Freud's 'Civilization and its Discontents' has stood tall as a brightly burning lamp for the better part of a century. It has helped to illuminate our 'age of extremes,' an age of genocide and perpetual war. It proves that the Enlightenment was not and will not always be a kind of 'mass deception.' As a few reviewers have already noted, one cannot consider oneself educated if one has not yet read this book.

Freud's 'Civilization and its Discontents' has stood tall as a brightly burning lamp for the better part of a century. It has helped to illuminate our 'age of extremes,' an age of genocide and perpetual war. It proves that the Enlightenment was not and will not always be a kind of 'mass deception.' As a few reviewers have already noted, one cannot consider oneself educated if one has not yet read this book.

This was a very short, yet very fun read. Freud proposes some pretty far fetched and strange concepts, yet I can see some appeal in them. I didn't agree with a lot of what he said, but I enjoyed this book greatly and it did have some good points.

This was a very short, yet very fun read. Freud proposes some pretty far fetched and strange concepts, yet I can see some appeal in them. I didn't agree with a lot of what he said, but I enjoyed this book greatly and it did have some good points.

"Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis, simultaneously a theory of personality, a therapy, and an intellectual movement. He was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Freiburg, Moravia, now part of Czechoslovakia, but then a city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the age of 4, he moved to Vienna, where he spent nearly his entire life. In 1873 he entered the medical school at the University of Vienna and spent the following eight years pursuing a wide range of studies, including philosophy, in addition to the medical curriculum. After graduating, he worked in several clinics and went to Paris to study under Jean-Martin Charcot, a neurologist who used hypnosis to treat the symptoms of hysteria. When Freud returned to Vienna and set up practice as a clinical neurologist, he found orthodox therapies for nervous disorders ineffective for most of his patients, so he began to use a modified version of the hypnosis he had learned under Charcot. Gradually, however, he discovered that it was not necessary to put patients into a deep trance; rather, he would merely encourage them to talk freely, saying whatever came to mind without self-censorship, in order to bring unconscious material to the surface, where it could be analyzed. He found that this method of free association very often evoked memories of traumatic events in childhood, usually having to do with sex. This discovery led him, at first, to assume that most of his patients had actually been seduced as children by adult relatives and that this was the cause of their neuroses; later, however, he changed his mind and concluded that his patients' memories of childhood seduction were fantasies born of their childhood sexual desires for adults. (This reversal is a matter of some controversy today.) Out of this clinical material he constructed a theory of psychosexual development through oral, anal, phallic and genital stages. Freud considered his patients' dreams and his own to be 'the royal road to the unconscious.' In The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), perhaps his most brilliant book, he theorized that dreams are heavily disguised expressions of deep-seated wishes and fears and can give great insight into personality. These investigations led him to his theory of a three-part structure of personality: the id (unconscious biological drives, especially for sex), the superego (the conscience, guided by moral principles), and the ego (the mediator between the id and superego, guided by reality). Freud's last years were plagued by severe illness and the rise of Nazism, which regarded psychoanalysis as a 'Jewish pollution.' Through the intervention of the British and U.S. governments, he was allowed to emigrate in 1938 to England, where he died 15 months later, widely honored for his original thinking. His theories have had a profound impact on psychology, anthropology, art, and literature, as well as on the thinking of millions of ordinary people about their own lives. Freud's daughter Anna Freud was the founder of the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic in London, where her specialty was applying psychoanalysis to children. Her major work was The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936)."--chapters.indigo Canada

With his culture theoretical documents Freud had essentially share at the development of the philosophical self-determination of mankind. After the Christian conception of the world had shattered, and human beings lost their feeling of being in security, after philosophers like Kierkegaard told, that only the fight for a pure individuality (and no common religious feelings) would be a help in the future, after Immanuel Kant had recognized the one-sidedness nature of academic scientifical points of view - a Nietzsche became famous, hammering out, that the power of will and lust (like Dionysos) should be focused - since the contrary, the Apollonian world of law and order had surpressed too much of important emotional horizons. Freud delivered more details of this conflict between sex and aggression and - on the other hand - sublimation, the capability to listen to the routes of correctness: a "super-ego" (like an inner police, living in every human being) is fighting against an ego, wishing childishly to love or to fight, often in the wrong moment and at the very wrong place. While an Arthur Schopenhauer still constituted the will as driving force of the world, but assigned only a role of an onlooker to the intellect, Freud drilled in greater detail: The destruction strength of human beings, their desire to meet death, their lust of aggression is the core of all driving inner-forces (Freud's opinion). This driving energy arduously sublimes in good behaviour, but then often dumps in self aggression or in an outside aggression. It is Freud's contribution to have made us examine an anthropological basic constant: the perpetually endangering human aggression instinct. Freud is therefore completely congruent with Schopenhauer, concerning the pessimistic prevailing mood. So he does not share the naiveté and enthusiasm of the at that time current "life philosophy" or the optimism of the existentialism starting with Henri Bergson's "elan vital": It is not very astonishing: Sigmund Freud was powerlessly hemmed in between two World Wars. He suffered (emigrating to London) under the Nazi-oppression. Long before any Islamic fundamentalism ruled the daily news, he clearly analyzed how much efforts we need, to calm down the global attacks of a so-called "death instinct". Therefore his culture theoretical documents perhaps are still much more meaningfully than the gloomy approaching area of his sick individual person stories...

Hegel wrote " The Owl of Minerva does not take flight until the shades of night are beginning to draw" Freud wrote this work when the shades of night the darknest night the Nazis were casting their shadow over all Europe. He also wrote it when he was on the verge of his own personal going down into darkness. So the Destructive and Death- bringing aspect of human character and human civilization are very much on his mind when he writes this work. And he writes in a work in which he sees the forces of death and destruction as inside the gates from birth. Like original Sin for the Christian the power of Thanatos threatens to take the soul down forever. It threatens to make all of human life a hell of constant, ongoing conflict. To this the Mind and Eros its more positive side respond with a power of sublimation, a capacity to transform those evil instincts into constructive building powers, and this as in Judaism the ' yetzer hara' evil urge is ideally transformed into constructive action of the 'yetzer hatov' As I understand it and I do not understand it fully I admit for Freud the dark powers cannot be fully contained or sublimated but always exist at the threshhold of consciousness and History, waiting to manifest themselves again in terrible violence.
Who would have believed that little more than half a century after the Allied Forces led by the United States vanquished an enemy which threatened to turn Mankind as a whole into a totalitarian concentration camp, there would emerge a new threat from a different part of the world ( Islamic fundamentalism) in which the darkest powers within us again threaten to make all the light of civilization into an unending desert night?
Freud saw something true about the human condition, and this is the perpetual recurrence of Evil. And its perpetual transformation into new forms which may threaten us again and again.
Can we contend ? can the other positive forces prevail ?
Let us pray so lest we go into a night of nights, in which no books will be read and reviewed on Amazon, no freedom of the individual will be allowed, and all of us will be subject to a narrow dictatorial agressive dominating force which represents the worst in us at this historical moment.

I have to admit to being a little prejudiced before starting this book. I had read a lot of negative criticism of Freud, so finally I decided to read something for myself and find out what all the fuss is about. A person who creates such polar views must be saying something that touches the core. This slim book is a good place to start.

Freud clearly had a deep understanding of the human condition. When you consider he was a born in the 1800s, it is clear he was many years ahead of his time. This book discusses how the individual is inevitably subjugated by his society to become civilized. That is how the social order represses our desires. He discusses both the positive and negative aspects of this on personal development. I found it quite a difficult read as there are extensive footnotes throughout the book that are sometimes pertinent and at other times not, which I found disrupted the chain of reasoning at times.

A worthy read that has encouraged me to read more of his work.

I agree with much of prior reviewers (lloannna, Yan and Jason.) If this is the only one of Freud's books you read, you may wonder why his ideas draw so much attention. Especially if you have read the Pantanjali Yoga Sutras, which, both systematically and lucidly, address human suffering, etc.,as well as providing clear guidance for coping with this suffering. While this offering of Freud can be a quick, at times engaging and charming read, I was too often thoroughly annoyed by a 'shallowness', or worse, actual deceitfulness, in stating positions he must have known had already been exposed as untenable. Like me, you may have trouble getting past his penchant for presenting the weakest opposing argument and gently, sweetly, knocking it over in favor of his musings thinly disguised as 'fact'. And, if you've been around the block a few times, (college, grad school, law school, Hotel Earth resident for half a decade), you may find yourself astonished by his seeming lack of awareness, and/or reminded of the endless debate over the number of teeth in a horse's mouth, without simply counting them. Fortunately, the Yoga Sutras (thousands of years old) provide excellent guidance in answering for yourself the myriad questions raised by Freud.

ps if you have no deep-rooted issues with skipping ahead (or walking out of a movie that's going no where, and slowly at that), read the last 3 to 5 pages first, to get a sense of where he's headed.

There isn't much I can add to previous reviews of Civilziation and Its Discontents. My own reaction (after 2 cracks at it, one in college, and one post-) is one of bafflement and boredom. With academic, convoluted language, Freud discusses the role of the individual with his neuroses and his conflicts with socialization and civilization. Many of his jumbled sociological observations are better recorded by previous thinkers--Rousseau, for example. His psychological conclusions have more or less been explored at length in his previous works. Therefore, the redeeming value is found, perhaps, in Freud's closing passages, eery portends of Europe's ugly years.

Sigmund Freud, whatever the variations in his posthumous reputation, remains the most compelling, daring, and persuasive analyst of the human condition we have. His psychoanalytic theories of sexuality, sublimation, repression, etc., offer original insights that profoundly influenced the course of Western consciousness in the 20th century. In addition to his gifts as a thinker, Freud was a master stylist, a man whose luminous prose and skillful argumentation make reading him a genuine pleasure.

"Civilization and Its Discontents," one of Freud's last works, remains one of his most vital and important. Don't be fooled by its brevity; this is a deeply complex and wide-ranging examination of Western civilization and its tensions. Freud speculates about the origins of our modern societies, the difficulties of assimilating ourselves to them given our own individual psyches, and ends the book with a rather pessimistic look forward. Clearly, Freud felt that civilization's "discontents" were an unresolvable fact of life.

What makes "Civilization and Its Discontents" so fascinating is Freud's application of psychoanalysis to Western society as whole. He examines how the factors at play in our own psyches--family conflicts, sexual desire, guilt, the "death instinct," and the eternal battle between our own self-interest and the interests of the human species at large--cause the problems that human beings encounter on a daily basis. As always with Freud, his ideas are put forward not as a final statement, but as a tentative first step.

This is one of Freud's indispensable texts, and its accessible and absorbing style make it an ideal introduction for those who are seeking to discover this colossal mind for the first time. A must read.

Freud's Civilization and its Discontents could arguably be one of the most compelling books you will ever encounter, if read properly. The problematic posed by Freud is a fundamental one. Freud argues that the demands of civilization and demands of our instincts are out of sync. He posits that humans are haunted by an assortment of powerful unconscious needs. These hardcore "needs" range from sexual fulfillment to a release of aggression. These primal needs for sexual fulfillment and aggressions were once the tools we used to survive. With the dawning of a new age, we no longer need to use these tools. We turn inwards. See, juxtaposed and interconnected is the other side of the coin, is civilization - a phenomenon that inhibits these primal drives. But we need civilization to give us a different sense of security. It is a catch-22. Throughout the ages, then the constant tug of war between these two forces has caused ruptures in our history was the tension is expressed in frustration.

Freud is really informative when he posits that we turn this aggression inward. Perhaps it is how civilization has configured good and evil that is turning this mechanism out of sync. In an almost sado-masochistic move, the superego is now torturing the ego. It is the collision rather than the confluence that is ruining this forced marriage. I am not certain that Nietzsche really had this sort of impact on Freud but I am reminded of Dionysus and Apollo from The Birth of Tragedy.

Nietzsche was trying to convey a partnership between them more than a countering or perhaps better, a "healthy tension." To be human is to be stretched between these two domains. The Dionysian is the raw impulses, chaos, and absurdity of existence; the Apollonian is the ordering impulse that seeks order, the eternal (in logic, religion, or morality, etc.) and beauty. As a particular existence, we are comprised of the raw stuff that is life in its very heart. We are contradiction, passions, chaos; but we cannot live in this domain alone, because it is ugly, terrifying and absurd. Thus we are wont to make it beautiful, to create from it a habitable and beautiful world (and self). Without the Dionysian, there can be no Apollonian. Without Apollonian, life would not be bearable. Hopefully, Nietzsche (as does Freud) does not advocate a return to our "bestial natures." However, Nietzsche declares that it is better to be a Cesare Borgia than a Christian, for at least great things are possible with the raw power and nobility of the beast. The Christian, to him, is enfeeblement and brutalizes the nobility and power inherent in humankind. To be capable of greatness, one must be capable of evil and good. The Christian, however, esteems everything that is meek, pitiful and weak. Action is evil, the world is evil, and we must quietly await a better one. Nietzsche, and the existentialists, would resist any attempt to ascribe a "nature" which predetermines us. We are flux. We are change. We are in a constant state of becoming and there is no prior nature that determines what we will become.

Although Freud was a champion for the recognition of these primal urges, it cannot be said that he advocated a free for all. What is really powerful in Freud is that civilization is not seen to be purely an external thing and it has real consequences on the inside. Our superego - civilizations handmaiden on the inside - is now calling the shots. As we internalize what the external is telling us to do, how to act - like gnawing guilt it invades our psyche to the extent that no matter how we wish to transgress, we become and need the very thing that causes our frustration.

If you peg the most basic response to fight or flight, then civilization can be seen to have removed that which was causing all sorts of anxiety - as we no longer express and remove sexual needs and aggression "in the wild." Freud it could be argued is saying that the superego now attacks the ego denying out most elemental needs. Those needs though, because of the reconfiguration of civilization are suppressed. The two forces - the superego and the ego, instead of working together are working against each other. If perhaps there is a hope for a sense of a new humanism, that this might be the answer - finding a way for the superego to work with rather than against the ego, that is of course if you have bought in on the duality. The debate rages on.

Miguel Llora

Many people today believe that Sigmund Freud was obsessed with sex. However, most of these assumptions are based upon what another person said of Freud and almost never upon a careful reading of Freud's work. These people do not see the fact that Freud writes on more than sexuality, he also analyzes and researches the study of mankind. Sigmund Freud attacks the question why we do things the way we do head on and answers to the best of his reason. Therefore, Sigmund Freud was truly a man of his time and his debate on mankind was a very innovative method to answer mankind's most serious issues.
Man is an aggressive being and civilization is the means which humanity withholds its primal urges in check. At least Freud believes so and shows support for this thesis by referring to mankind's constant need to restrain its inherent passions despite all of the controls placed by society. I believe that Freud was definitely on to something with this point. He is right when he states that man is essentially an anti-social, anti-cultural being. One could look down through the pages of history and see war after war, violent act after violent primarily as a result of the inherent greed for power and a passionate thirst for more than one's own. This is one of the many reasons why communism is impossible, man is a selfish being and always desires more than he possesses. He will do what is necessary to increase his holding at the expense of his fellows. I believe that Nietzsche and Freud are in agreement at this point. However, Nietzsche believes that the masses attempt to quell this passion and label that as noble. I believe that Freud does not think it is possible to restrain this aggressiveness and mankind is only able to cover it up in a semblance of control which we label civilization. Though I see merit in both men's argument, my reaction is that there is another solution. I believe in Christian perspective that "by beholding we become changed" and with a personal relationship with Christ one is capable of achieving victory over that aggression. Freud argues that the need for self-preservation is often disrupted by a "social anxiety". This anxiety is a state in which individuals are controlled by the opinions of others towards them. Freud contends that the majority of society is ruled by this anxiety. His solution to this is a "higher stage" attainable by rising above the need to care about how others perceive one's conduct. This implies that behavior controlled by social conventions is more primitive than behavior controlled by the individual. According to Freud, morality is not an issue of socially determined shame, but a matter of internalized primal guilt. This guilt is the basis for beliefs such as an original sin and is the main catalyst in mankind's aggression. I doubt that this is the most flattering perspective to look upon our own nature, but Freud's argument does contain a lot of merit.
We read earlier in Walden that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" and I believe Freud saw this desperation as a direct result of the affects of social anxiety. We see this today in the pop culture where in order to fit in an individual must conform to the trends in fashion. We see it in the work environment where the worker flatters his boss. We see it in the political world where politicians say and do what is necessary to keep public opinions high. We are so drawn into the belief that the opinions of others matters that we spend the majority of our time and money on things we don't need to impress people we don't care about.
After reading Civilization and Its Discontents I am not under the impression that Freud is correct about everything. However, I am able to respect his writing as an important critical look at society which still has merit even today. Perhaps our world would be a better place if all of its inhabitants stop to think of why they do the things they do and what are the effects of their actions. Perhaps mankind would improve if we learned how to control our inherent aggression and to not worry about other people's opinions. Perhaps this is merely wishful thinking on my part.

I would have to definitely say that this is one read that has helped change my perception on reality, as well as give me deeper insight. Although one must be patient with Freud (his writing can, at times, rather sleep inducing), this book can open up a great deal of understanding about current literature and film. My essay I wrote for school comparing Civilization and it's Discontents and Fight Club recieved an A, and I have also been able to identify similarities from here in books such as Brave New World and Island both by Aldous Huxley.

I must say this is a recommended read that you should definitely look into!

No, you don't have to agree with Freud. But this is one of those books that a person who wants to be, or to be seen by others as, well educated does need to know.

Freud's works, although lavishly praised as a giant advance in human understanding, have proved themselves no more useful, verifiable or objective than the horoscope section of a small town newspaper. This book is exemplifies the irrational foundation of psychoanalysis above all others. Poorly reasoned arguments and absolutely fantastic assertions fill this rather rambling volume from cover to cover. Another rather disturbing aspect to this book is it's reliance on Lamarckian evolutionary theory which was completely discredited long before Freud began his writing. Freud certainly knew about this, so is he being deceitful?

However, Freud's prose is something to be admired. I suspect his writing ability (and the bizarre but energetic cult of personality that surrounded Freud during his life) was the main reason for the success of the psychoanalysis movement. It certainly wasn't the arguments for they simply lack intellectual merit.

Once you peer behind the psuedo-scientific veneer of his theories, you cannot help but to feel Freud was yet another nihilistic hedonist attempting, not only to rationalize his degeneracy, but also foist his error onto a civilization that he found so dispicable. If you read this book with a sharp analytical mind, it will go a long way in helping to destroy the cult of psychology's greatest fraud. Otherwise, Civilization and Its Discontents remains strictly a historical curiosity, not unlike the idiotic screeds of Karl Marx.

This book was a short one, but a difficult one. This book gives one the oppurtunity to start taking a critical look at where one's life is and the people around it. I would reccommend this book to anyone who is interested in Freud or wants to get an introduction in how the people in the world really think.

There have been times in my life when I doubted that the ability to convince people that they are crazy was ultimately of any benefit. A few ancient Greeks thought mania could be great, and many times I have felt that a person really shouldn't have to be crazy, but it takes a wacky guy to say anything. Freud would have a hard time justifying his existence as a doctor if doctors didn't have a long history of convincing people that they were crazy. Religious fanatics have been able to practice their frenzies when it could be done as a form of harmless exhibitionism, but the idea that human beings exist primarily as components of a society makes the ability to decide which element is ultimately the most catastrophic a serious question, and how seriously Freud treats this stuff is indicated by how Heine's great joke on a topic which Freud considers a forbidden form of humor makes it into a footnote, anyway. Maybe Heine was dead by the time Freud wrote this book, so Freud thought it wouldn't really hurt if we all had a laugh at Heine's expense, but some people might not think it was as funny if Freud had been talking about Osama bin Laden. Fortunately, Freud is dead, so a little fun at his expense shouldn't be too deadly, but this book doesn't exactly establish where this will all end. Best wishes.

If you can find another translation of this seminal book (see my review of Freud's Gravida), then do so. Strackey translates "kultur" (culture) as "civilization," "I" as "ego," and in general makes Freud seem so lifeless and cold-blooded that it's nearly impossible to get an accurate feel for his thought.

Without defending Freud's obvious reductionism, it needs saying that it was he who prompted us to ask: do the demands of modern life encourage or pathologize our innermost strivings? What do they do to our eros, our capacity for loving and feeling solidarity? And how do they stimulate our frustration and aggression?

While I disagree with Freud's conclusion that the total psychic repression of powerful passions is a necessary evil for the existence of culture, I do think he challenges us to wonder about just how high a price we pay for what we believe to be the "higher" and "nobler" achievements of the mind.

Utopian and dysutopian thought pervade modern culture. Freud here wrote a book that attempted to bisect the horns of this dilemma by preserving a commitment to the Enlightenment while rejecting both horns. A fundamental text of the modern age. One can not consider oneself educated if one has not read this book.

While I agree that Civilization and Its Discontents has some kernels of truth within it, I cannot recommend it either as a persuasive piece or as an introduction to Freudian thought. I do not know if, in his longer works, Freud actually supports any of his statements with more than the weak ancedotal proofs he gives here; nor do I know if he actually works through his arguments to a logical conclusion instead of relying on sensationalistic statements with no basis in his evidence. Suffice to say he does not meet the minimum requirements, in my opinion, for philosophical or scientific excellence, in this book. Furthermore, the rambling, vague, and disorganized nature of this book makes its usefulness as a mere introduction to Freud extremely weak. I would only suggest using it as a companion to such other works as Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis, or as an immediate overview and introduction to The Future of an Illusion (which, though written earlier than Civilization, more fully elucidates many of the principles Freud touts here). As a long-time student of classical thought, philosophy, and ethics, not to mention the fundamental principles of logic, I found myself highly unimpressed with this work, and saw no great haven of Truth within it. Further, having been raised by Secular Humanists, I am less than convinced of the practical merits of Freud's ideas. Read it if you like, but don't expect to find salvation or much enlightenment out of these few pages...

To whoever is interested in Freuds "Civilization and It's Discontents" I SAY READ IT! An excellent book which depicts civilization for what it is. In this book Freud discussed a varity of topics such as religion, sex, happiness and human suffering (listed in no particular order). I think that the entire purpose of the book was to show humans that civilization is not any better than times before it occured. We tend to think of ourselves better than pre-civilized times however, nothing has changed because reality is constant. Human nature is focused on beauty, instinct and will.

As a staunch member of the class of people Freud addresses, I recommend this work to anyone on the path of self-realization, man or woman. Admittedly, I was once a Freud-basher, before I learned the art of forgiveness (stemming from psychological insight). In the end, I am personally indebted to Freud for this particular book, not for all its contents, but for one single, solitary phrase (believe it or not), a phrase that changed my life forever, and for the better; that one phrase being "Writing is the voice of an absent Person." Capitalization mine, for the Person is not a human, but an Inner Figure, which is to say, my Anima (Jung), and deeper still, my Soul (Hillman). For what it is worth, that has been my Path, my Journey to -- not Wholeness -- but Togetherness. This from one of my guiding dreams: Mandorla, not mandala; togetherness, not wholeness.

Freud's point of view on humanity and its inhumanity is summed up in this dissertation. Written late in his life, C and its D is a good primer to show an extreme viewpoint for the starting psych or philosophy student.

This was the first book by Freud that I've read, and now I see why he was so successful. He had a brilliant mind and was a very effective writer.

Frued discribes the human animals (primarily males) reason for action within a society constructed to maintain order as the quid pro quo for supressing sexual desires (this is Frued). In this topic Frued sticks to his topic without getting too wacky with unsupported assertions (except in the footers). His arguments are mostly sound and should provide food for thought for those who are interested in discovering what makes them tick. A good Frued primer and also a must for true Hesse, Maugham, and Nietzche fans. Not too abstruse or confuted.