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'''''[[Civilization ]] and Its Discontents''''' is a [[book]] written by [[Sigmund Freud]] in the decade preceding his [[death ]] in [[1938]]. It was first published in [[German language|German]] in [[1930]] as ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'' ("The Uneasiness in [[Culture]]") and is considered to be one of [[Freud]]'s most important and most-read works, though today it is usually read more as a "[[cultural artifact]]" than for its theories.

In this book he states his views on the question of man's [[place ]] in the [[world]], a place Freud describes as [[being ]] on the [[fulcrum]] between the [[individual]]'s quest for [[freedom]] and [[society]]'s [[demand ]] for [[conformity]]. As a result, civilization, or its culture, inhibits man's [[instinctual ]] [[drives]], which can (and perhaps must) result in [[guilt ]] and unfulfillment. Freud bases much of his [[analysis ]] on the [[theory ]] of the origins of civilization he first posited in ''[[Totem and Taboo]]'' and the [[idea ]] of a [[death instinct]] first developed in ''[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]''.

In this book, Freud maintains that [[human ]] beings are inherently [[aggressive]]. That [[love ]] for all of humanity is far from an inherent [[state ]] of the human [[mind]]. In [[order ]] to live in a [[civilized ]] society, [[humans ]] must take their [[aggression ]] and turn it on themselves in the [[form ]] of a [[conscience]] (or [[Super-Ego|super-ego]]) which takes the place of the [[father ]] as the [[child ]] matures.

[[Other ]] important [[concepts ]] of this book is the human [[instinct ]] of aggression towards each other, dichotomy of [[Eros ]] vs. the Death [[Drive ]] and the [[super-ego]].

This [[work ]] should be also [[understood ]] in context of contemporary events: [[First World War]] (1914-1918) and [[Adolf Hitler]]'s rise to [[power ]] have undoubtedly influenced Freud and impacted his central observation [[about ]] the tension between the individual and civilization. Under such [[conditions]], Freud develops his [[thoughts ]] published two years earlier in [[The Future of an Illusion]] (1927), in which he criticized [[organized religion]] as a collective [[neurosis]]. Freud, an avowed [[atheist]], argues that [[religion ]] has tamed asocial [[instincts ]] and created a [[sense ]] of [[community ]] around a shared set of beliefs, thus helping the civilization, yet at the same [[time ]] it has also exacted an enormous [[psychological ]] cost to the individual by making him perpetually subordinate to the [[primal ]] father [[figure ]] embodied by God.

"...admittedly an unusual state, but not one that can be stigmatized as [[Pathology|pathological]] .... At the height of being in love the boundary between ego and [[object ]] threatens to melt away. Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that 'I' and 'you' are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact."

"Civilization, therefore, obtains [[mastery ]] over the individual's dangerous [[desire ]] for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an [[agency ]] within him to watch over it, like a [[Garrison|garrison]] in a conquered city."

"One feels inclined to say that the [[intention ]] that man should be 'happy' is not included in the plan of 'Creation'."

"[[Happiness]], in the reduced sense in which we recognize it as possible, is a problem of the [[economics ]] of the individual's [[Libido|libido]]."

"The question of the [[purpose ]] of human [[life ]] has been raised countless [[times]]; it has never received a satisfactory answer and perhaps does not admit of one." ==More==Between 1928 and 1930, Freud devoted himself exclusively to Civilization and its Discontents—apart from a handful of prefaces and his acceptance [[speech]] for the [[Goethe]] prize. Dated 1930, the book appeared in December 1929. It was an immediate success, selling twelve thousand copies the first year, with the first [[German]] reprint in 1931. The book has remained successful over the years, generating a vast amount of commentary. There were translations into [[English]] (1930), Spanish (1936), [[French]] (1943), Italian (1971), and Portuguese (1974). Freud himself was less expansive about it: during the composition of the [[text]], Freud's cancer was painful and required care, and Max Schur became his personal physician in the spring of 1929. The first version of Civilization and its Discontents was written quickly, in July 1929. Freud wrote to Lou Andreas-Salomé on July 28, 1929 : "Today I wrote the final [[sentence]], the one that concludes the book. ...It's about culture, [[feelings]] of guilt, happiness and other elevated [[subjects]] and, it rightly seems to me, quite superfluous, unlike the earlier work, behind which there was always some [[internal]] drive. But what is there to do? One can't smoke and play cards all day long. . . . During the [[writing]], I rediscovered the most banal truths" (1966a [1912-1936]). Freud began with Romain Rolland's criticisms of The [[Future]] of an [[Illusion]] (1927c) concerning the "[[religious]] [[sensation]]" and the "simple and direct fact of the 'eternal' sensation (which may indeed not be eternal, but simply without any perceptible limits, and oceanic)" ([[letter]] to Freud, December 27, 1927). He replied to Rolland on July 14, 1929, indicating that his remarks [[left]] him little rest. Chapter one opens with a mention of the great man (Rolland) and explains the "oceanic" [[feeling]] through the [[concept]] of [[narcissism]]. Freud then develops the extensive [[metaphor]] comparing the [[unconscious]] to the archaeologist's Rome, which, like the initial ego, supposedly contains everything. It makes evident the preservation of [[memory]] traces, as if the various [[stages]] of the city since its foundation could [[exist]] simultaneously (as in the stratified spaces and multidimensional time of [[mathematics]]). Freud concluded that the [[oceanic feeling]] may exist as a memory trace, but stated that he would not pursue the investigation of the Mothers, which he mentions without elaborating. Instead, he maintains the supremacy of the religion of the Father. Like Group [[Psychology]] and the Analysis of the Ego (1921c), Civilization and its Discontents begins by circling around [[psychical]] questions, and claiming that culture is [[born]] from the religion of the Father, characteristic of European [[monotheistic]] [[religions]]. For several chapters Freud provides a fairly commonplace description of our relation to culture. Citing a [[number]] of European writers, Freud describes the [[impossibility]] of achieving happiness, the "[[essence]] of culture," the ambivalent relationships we entertain with it, and the opposition between culture and [[sexuality]]. For someone familiar with Freud's work, there is little to learn. But, using a frequent tactic, he outlines a broader scope of [[understanding]] before advancing his more incisive hypotheses, which are sketched in [[terms]] of the [[economic]], [[dynamic]], and [[topographical]] points of view. It is as if Freud were asking why the forms and dynamics of groups that he constructed in [[Group psychology|Group Psychology]] were necessary, considering the inhibitions of [[sexual]] drives, the [[alienation]] that accompanies [[identification]] with large groups and the submission it entails. The response was economic: mankind's aggressive drives endanger culture. Freud then inserts the economic hypothesis into [[mental]] dynamics. Recalling the theory of drives, he suggests that the [[development]] of culture illustrates the [[struggle]] between Eros and death, the [[life instinct]] against the destructive instinct, as it unfolds within the human [[species]]. Once the dynamic relation has been established, there remains the problem of [[identifying]] mental [[formations]], the correlative [[topography]]. The end of the book is devoted to a subtle study of the [[superego]], the [[moral]] conscience, [[remorse]], guilt, and the [[need]] for [[punishment]]. "I suspect that the reader has the impression that our discussions on the [[sense of guilt]] disrupt the framework of this essay . . . This may have spoilt the [[structure]] of my paper; but it corresponds faithfully to my intention to [[represent]] the sense of guilt as the most important problem in the development of civilization and to show that the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a [[loss]] of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt" (p. 134). Freud's principal [[thesis]] is that the culture of patriarchal religion creates a [[particular]] way of [[working]] for the [[SuperEgo|superego]], which turns its aggression against the ego and expresses itself in the [[Feeling of Guilt|feeling of guilt]]. This [[process]] is unregulated. Once it is triggered, it worsens and becomes aggravated, exhausting not only the aggressive drives but the sexual drives as well. Moreover, "since civilization obeys an internal [[erotic]] impulsion which causes human beings to unite in a closely-knit group, it can only achieve this aim through an ever-increasing reinforcement of the sense of guilt" (p. 133). Eros itself serves the [[death drives]] or aggressive instincts, which culture serves as well. This results in the death-driven and unregulated dynamic of the [[cultural]] process. Freud details the ontogenesis of the moral conscience and superego from the [[primitive]] [[social]] [[anxiety]] of the child—loss of the [[parents]]' love—to the erection of an internal [[authority]], which does not distinguish between [[acts]] and intentions and whose power is reinforced with every [[rejection]] of a drive and every [[real]] misfortune. He then claims that the origin of the feeling of guilt is the [[murder]] of the primal father, who alone is capable of provoking the [[conflict]] of [[ambivalence]] and generating the superego. In the last chapter Freud returns to the relations between the various terms discussed, while expanding the analogy between the origin of culture and individual development. He returns to the [[notion]] of the great man, who is likely to contribute to the development of the superego in a given cultural [[moment]]. Noting that [[psychic]] [[processes]] are sometimes more accessible in the group than the individual, Freud introduces the idea of analyzing the [[pathology]] in specific of cultural communities. Just as Group Psychology [[analyzed]] the ego, Civilization and its Discontents examines the superego, as distinct from the ego [[ideal]]. In both [[texts]], aggression and [[reality]] are integrated in a dynamic which [[links]] individual and collective psychology. To do this Freud simplified, identifying the [[death drive]] with the urge to [[destruction]], and culture with Eros ("civilization is a process in the service of Eros, 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" (p. 122). This is the text in which Freud best [[defends]] and illustrates the analogy, even the [[identity]], between individual and cultural development—the [[family]] always serving as the medium of [[change]].

*[[Freud, Sigmund]]; ''Civilization and Its Discontents'' W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition (July, 1989), ISBN 0393301583