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In <i>[[Civilization and Its Discontents]]</i>, [[Sigmund Freud]] defines [[civilization]] as follows:
<blockquote>"The [[word]] 'civilization' [<i>Kultur</i>] describes the [[whole]] sum of the achievements and regulations which distinguish our lives from those of our [[animal]] ancestors and which serve two purposes—namely to protect men against [[nature]] and to adjust their mutual relations."<ref>1930a, p. 89</ref></blockquote>
In <i>[[The Future of an Illusion]]</i> [[Freud]] provided a more extended definition of [[civilization]]: <blockquote>"[[Human]] civilization, by which I mean all those respects in which human [[life]] has raised itself above its animal status and differs from the life of the beasts—and I scorn to distinguish between [[culture]] and civilization—presents, as we [[know]], two aspects to the [[observer]]. It includes, on the one hand, all the [[knowledge]] and capacity that men have acquired in [[order]] to [[control]] the forces of nature and extract its wealth for the [[satisfaction]] of human [[needs]] and, on the [[other]] hand, all the regulations necessary in order to adjust the relations of men to one [[another]] and especially the distribution of the available wealth."<ref>1927c, p. 5-6</ref></blockquote> These definitions, however, leave out many aspects of the [[concept]] of civilization that Freud had mentioned in other works, including "Civilized [[Sexual]] [[Morality]] and Modern Nervous [[Illness]]" (1908d). These themes include the [[relationship]] of civilization to the [[SuperEgo|superego]] and to sublimation, its consequences for [[neurosis]], the origin of civilization, and the different attitudes of individuals toward civilization, especially as a function of their sex. Freud's conflation of civilization and culture here is surprising, especially when we consider that the [[distinction]] is clearly [[present]] when he discusses the force deployed by civilization (<i>Kultur</i>), on the one hand, and the "spiritual heritage of culture" used to "reconcile mankind" with that civilization, on the other, namely, the "spiritual heritage of culture" (1927c). Le Rider (1993) has pointed out that this opposition between culture and civilization had behind it a [[philosophical]] [[tradition]] of which Freud was a part. Immanuel [[Kant]] (1724-1804) saw civilization as a ceremonial aspect of culture, and saw culture as achieved by means of a sustained effort (<i>Bildung</i>) and as culminating in the great achievements of art and [[thought]]. In a more radical perspective, Friedrich [[Nietzsche]] (1844-1900) saw civilization as subjugation and saw culture, in contrast, as the artistic and [[intellectual]] flowering of intact natures. The period between 1920 and 1939 saw the rise and spread of the [[idea]] of [[popular culture]] and the [[notion]] that culture is a means of fulfilling human life (Le Rider, 1993). It is also arguable that Freud rejected this tradition and deliberately ignored the distinction between culture and civilization because of his [[theory]] of the [[birth]] of civilization and its link with [[sexuality]]. His theory might be considered an example of the cunning of civilization, in the [[dialectical]] [[sense]] in which G. W. F. [[Hegel]] (1770-1831) speaks of the "cunning of [[Reason]]" (Mijolla-Mellor, 1992). The cunning lies in the fact that humanity creates civilization by transforming and sublimating individuals' [[instinctual]] aims and [[objects]] and sublimation simultaneously enables individuals to realize those aims and attain those objects in another [[form]]. Yet in doing this, humanity consolidates a [[cultural]] edifice that weighs upon individuals and imposes restrictions on [[them]] by dint of [[suppression]]. <blockquote>"There will be brought home to you with irresistible forces the many developments, repressions, sublimations, and reaction-[[formations]] by means of which a [[child]] with a quite other innate endowment grows into what we call a normal man, the bearer, and in part the [[victim]], of the civilization that has been so painfully acquired."<ref>Freud, 1910a, p. 36</ref></blockquote> Freud thus found himself once more in thrall to his concept of sublimation, whose shortcomings led him to confuse the coercion of institutionalized education with the [[process]] of [[individual]] learning (<i>Bildung</i>), a creative force and source of [[pleasure]] (intellectual pleasure) for the [[subject]]. The [[dialectic]] in which the sublimation of one group can become the source of suppression for another group that does not participate in the process of [[self]]-education without [[doubt]] constitutes a cunning of civilization, whereby a devitalized culture dons the mantle of civilizing norms. Civilization appears as an entity in and of itself, a given for [[The Subject|the subject]] on whom it is imposed: <blockquote>"The [[development]] of civilization appears to us as a peculiar process which mankind undergoes, and in which several things strike us as familiar. We may characterize this process with reference to the changes which it brings [[about]] in the familiar instinctual dispositions of human beings, to [[satisfy]] which is, after all, the [[economic]] task of our lives."<ref>Freud, 1930a, p. 96</ref></blockquote> As Freud pointed out in "Civilized Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness" (1908d), civilization, by imposing sexual [[frustration]], has a direct effect on the genesis of [[neuroses]]. Freud repeatedly claimed that sublimation should not be a norm, since it is possible only for some [[people]]: <blockquote>"Mastering it by sublimation, by deflecting the sexual instinctual forces away from their [[sexual aim]] to higher cultural aims, can be achieved by a minority and then only intermittently, and least easily during the period of ardent and vigorous youth."<ref>1908d, p. 192</ref></blockquote> For the [[others]], submission, especially to sexual morality, has [[negative]] consequences ranging from neurosis to a degradation of sexual objects (1908d). Of those who [[sublimate]], some are heroes, like Prometheus, whom Freud analyzes in "The Acquisition and Control of Fire" (1932a), or Hercules, about whom he writes: <blockquote>"The prevention of [[erotic]] satisfaction calls up a piece of [[aggressiveness]] against the person who has interfered with the satisfaction, and that this aggressiveness has itself to be suppressed in turn. But if this is so, it is after all only the aggressiveness which is transformed into a sense of [[guilt]], by [[being]] suppressed and made over to the superego."<ref>1930a, p. 138</ref></blockquote> The process of civilizing is [[divided]] among ideals: coercion from the superego, cultural creation, and the resulting admiration from the ego [[ideal]]. <blockquote>"The satisfaction which the ideal offers to the participants in the culture is thus of a [[narcissistic]] nature;it rests on their pride in what has already been successfully achieved."<ref>Freud, 1927c, p. 13</ref></blockquote> Here too the civilizing process reveals its unstable nature, for by reinforcing [[nationalism]], the "[[narcissism]] of minor differences," and the cultural ideals of a people, it can become a pretext for a [[return]] to the most savage form of [[struggle]]: war. Civilization appears as a [[separate]] entity, albeit one produced by humankind. It is necessary, though it is always excessive in its [[demands]] and premature in its [[anticipation]]: <blockquote>"It is an ineradicable and innate defect of our and every other civilization, that it imposes on [[children]], who are driven by [[instinct]] and weak in intellect, decisions which only the mature intelligence of [[adults]] can vindicate."<ref>Freud, 1927c, p. 51-52</ref></blockquote> Alongside the writings in which Freud directly addresses the question of civilization, there are a [[number]] of anthropological [[texts]] in which, starting from the [[primitive]] [[horde]] and the [[murder]] of the [[father]], he retraces the genesis of the matriarchy, the band of brothers, and the return to [[patriarchy]]. Yet these two perspectives are relatively dissociated in Freud's [[work]] to the extent that his [[ideas]] on civilization, with a few digressions to discuss ancient Rome or Louis XIV, the Sun King, in [[France]], are for the most part related to the twentieth century. Abram Kardiner (1977) and Ruth Benedict (1935), writers on culture and [[psychoanalysis]], would later make use of Freud's interest in [[anthropology]].Freud's views on the genesis of matriarchy, however, are totally dissociated from his writings about [[women]]. Women, Freud wrote, "come into opposition to civilization and display their retarding and restraining influence" (1930a, p. 103). Here too the cunning of civilization is on display: Women form the basis of civilization, "[[represent]][ing] the interests of the [[family]] and [[sexual life]]." They are betrayed, however, by the fact that men sublimate to their detriment. "The [[woman]]," Freud concludes, "finds herself [[forced]] into the background by the claims of civilization, and she adopts a hostile attitude toward it."<ref>1930a, p. 104</ref> ==See Also==* [[Civilization and its Discontents]]* [[Cultural transmission]]* [[Darwin, Darwinism, and psychoanalysis]]* [[Future of an Illusion]]* [[Incest]]* [[Law and psychoanalysis]]* [[Marxism and psychoanalysis]]* [[Moses and Monotheism]]* [[Politics and psychoanalysis]]* [[Primitive horde]]* [[Religion and psychoanalysis]]* [[Sublimation]]* [[Superego]]* [[Transgression]] ==References==<references/># [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1908d). Civilized sexual morality and modern nervous illness. SE, 9: 181-204.# ——. (1910a). Five lectures on [[psycho]]-[[analysis]]. SE, 11: 7-55.# ——. (1927c). The [[future]] of an [[illusion]]. SE, 21: 5-56.# ——. (1930a). Civilization and its discontents. SE, 21: 64-145.# ——. (1932a). The acquisition and control of fire. SE, 22: 183-193. 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