The book Civilization and its Discontents was written by Feud. The piece was created in 1929's summertime. It primarily contrasts the way of life of those who appear to be part of the current society and those who appear to be leading a savage lifestyle but still find enjoyment in what life has to offer. (Freud). The author provides an ambient reflection on the general definition and what civilization entails in the process of contrasting the two ways of living. The author presumably brings up some of the psycho-sexual theoretical concepts he wrote in the earlier years of his career life in an effort to make his case. Mainly, the topics revolve around the sexual impulse theories, sublimation, displacement and the Oedipal conflicts (Germer et al.). In his previous works of literature, the author might have mainly concentrated his writings on neurotics but then in Civilization and its Discontents he has an entirely different point of view and approach towards things in general. This is because he majors on the expansion of neurotics and the identification of the societal aspects that pertain to neurotics. Earlier he might have been running his research on a single man, but then he made advancement and came to the elevation of man in general. Most of the Civilization and its Discontents find it rather dreading that he alludes to the aftermath of what partook in the First World War in his text. This is because they feel that his work mainly has a pessimistic tone which links it to the experience they find dreary and allusive to what they hate to remember of their past and unforthcoming events.
The course of humanity and human life, some events are quite horrible and cause hitherto devastating experiences to them. Most people prefer to keep such memories behind the backs of their minds knowing how hard it would be for them to recall them back. However, Freud puts the events in plain sight for them, and this does nothing more rather than infringe their emotions and disturb their peace (Freud). On the contrary, the real picture that Feud was trying to bring to the surface is that of the manner in which the humanity is cruel and violent in nature. The latter gives a justification of the horrible conflict that Freud is envisioning to be taking place when reality meets the genuine humanity in the same containment.
Most of the Civilization and its Discontents gives an immediate extension into the human future in which they are taken over by their cruelty and forget their emotional attachments towards each other. In his vivid description of the future, Freud alludes to religion as being is part of a play in the performance of civilization services since it is a feeling of collective neurosis to him. Religion is used as the path by which the taming of antisocial instincts is done to create a sense of community within which the containment of shared set of beliefs is practiced. In the actual sense, the individuals involved become subjects to huge psychological costs since they are made perpetually insubordinate to their father figure who is God.
Human beings have the weird desire for erotic fulfillment which renders them targets for destruction desires. This is in line with the theory of “death drive” by Freud (Gabbard. He managed to formulate the theory while the First World War was half way through. The theory has broader application in the civilization context in Civilization and its Discontents (Freud). In his theoretical concept, Freud argues that all human beings have particular weaknesses that make it easy for them to be driven around by desires that lead them to destruction. The destruction that the author talks about in this context is one that results in death. Freud reasons in the line that human beings can receive the same treatment as an object that can meet its sad end upon destruction.
The article was published in 1930, and since then, the book has never been out of prints (Germer et al.). This directly implies that a vast multitude of people took their precious time to read it making it one of Freud's most read articles. In the line of institutions and studies, it is among the top reviewed since most professor's find it rather influential to the students they are tutoring. Authoritatively, it contains a profound analysis of human civilization and culture in general. Just to be specific, the critical nature of humanity within the book explains the relevant atrocities that took place in the history of humanity (Germer et al.); Stalinist genocides, Nazi Holocaust and the nuclear bombs that found their way on the civilian populations in Japan causing the dead of many (Gabbard).
While others stand to critique the author and his article, others stand to point out the prophetic nature of the observations that Freud made and spoke of through his literary appreciation. They found it imperative to note the fact that Freud's article was an eye opener for them in the way in which destructive current has been running through the whole of human civilization. The psychoanalytic terms that the author was trying to make the people understand were seen under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and the cruel nature in which his citizens were maltreated and oppressed (Freud). This is a personal historical witness that the readers of the article Civilization and its Discontents would attest that Freud bore witness. This is because it was a phenomenon that he tried his best to account for in his writing.
In the introduction of Civilization and its Discontents, Freud gives the implication that he has problems comprehending the “Oceanic feeling.” This is a spiritual phenomenon that he mentions in his book and has the ill luck in establishing a connection between it and the humanity. It is through this feeling that there is a link between the outside world and the egoistic emotions that most people often seem to have in carrying out their daily roles. The phenomenon points out the religious sentiments in human beings and purely subjective feeling of allegiance to a specific religion.
To achieve the highest perspective of ego, a person has to maintain bright and sharp demarcation lines that appear to be simple boundaries to the outside world (Anttonen). This is because psychological development can only be achieved through the establishment of a clear distinction between the outside and the world within them. This, in turn, allows ego to come to a conclusion that it may or may not recognize the reality in which the person is living in at that particular moment. However, Freud finds it rather unconvincing that most of the individuals who have religious beliefs draw them from oceanic feelings within them and the connection with the outside world. He feels that the fear for protection that a child feels while still young is the same feeling that catches up with them when they are of age and forces them to believe in the superiority of a higher power that determines the outcome of their destiny.
God and Goddesses
The common man has a pre-occupation with God that not everyone may understand more so when they have never been through the same feeling like ever before. Freud feels that it is rather absurd for human beings to be utterly placating at the recompense of a higher being because most of those who have the belief continue with it for the rest of their entire lives. The human race does g through pain in the course of living their lives but have different ways of getting through their painful moments. According to Freud, these means are mainly three; The deflection of disappointments and pain through distraction that is planned, replacement of reality for art to achieve substitutive satisfaction and lastly, use of substances that are intoxicating to both the mind and the body. Freud arrives at the conclusion that religion has no apparent categorization ion the current schema (Freud).
The actual question that the author feels is vital for human beings to ask themselves is what they want to achieve in the course of living their lives. Everyone has the simple wish of living their lives in a manner that only suggests happiness and in line with the pleasure principle. However, the fundamental problem is that both pleasure and happiness in life has their limits. Where happiness is the factor to be put into consideration, other factors hinder one from being truly happy in their lives; their bodies, their relationships and their external worlds. This just implies that human beings have the choice at their disposal to either be happy or sad. They can employ the strategies they feel can be better in making them avoid moments they deem may be of displeasure to them. The latter may be arrived at through becoming a member of the human community by isolating oneself from themselves on a temporary basis. It helps them to achieve a common endeavor and influence their organs to follow suit. Notably, religion is known to be a dictating factor to happiness.
Medieval Catholicism and Paganism
There is a presentation of a new extraordinary spectacle that mainly encompasses religion through medieval Catholicism. In the latter, there is a proclamation that seems to be ostensibly monotheistic in nature. This is because the claim states that there is a sole God that is in three and in His surrounding, there are also three pantheons. There was the first group that brought the news about the Mother of God and they were known as the Saints. Also, other than just making the people cling to empty information, they came along with the Mother of God and stood at their pinnacle for the people to see for themselves. The perception that most of the people have was that the group was chiefly polymorphous.
However, the cultural presence of both the Mother of God and the saints was rather ubiquitous since the shrines that were a show of their presence were numerous that they became difficult to count. On the other hand were the old pagan gods. The perception the people had about them is that they were “disinfected of belief” yet they were still important (Anttonen). They were immensely known for their astrological and literary techniques. It was quite difficult for the poets to imagine living in a world of cosmos without the pagan astrologists. There is the notion that the survival of their names was the same as that of the day of the week and the planets. The pieces of the fragments of their tradition were taught in educational institutions, and some found their way to Christian festivals.
Contrary to anticipations, the two pantheons never really fused together in any firm of textual context. The pagan gods were in support of the side of those seem to be in the making of beliefs while the Saints were part of the real that believed in the existence of a supernatural being. In historical context, St. Catherine was of no use to mythography. Also, Apollo did not seem to be a key player in the hagiography. Apollo’s case would have been rather different in case a virgin chose to denounce him while he was still on his way to martyrdom. At this moment, most might think that there is a deep connection between pagans and Christians but in the real sense, there are just fragments that tend to shed some light on such a notion, but nothing is for certain.
Gods and Goddesses
According to Newman in Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages, the allegorical goddesses of the third pantheon had the freedom to interact freely with the rest of them. The God of medieval Christendom is believed to be the father of one son but had several daughters. Unlike the son, the daughters who became goddesses became something of a big embarrassment to their father. It is the main reason behind most of the scholars in the line of literary appreciation treating them as ideological constructs. Owing to their states and the manner in which they carried themselves quite contrary to what was expected of them, the historical theologians do not study them anymore. However, the art historians sometimes take a look at their iconography but then there is no guarantee that they approve of their nature and how they turned out.
In the course of studying their iconography, the art historians came to the realization that the goddesses had an occupation to a domain that was very spacious in the medieval religious times (Newman). For this reason, they are often free to cross the boundaries of genre and language. Other than the latter, they can also cross the point where seriousness meets imaginations and the critical play that later fall into beliefs. In several literary writings, there has been the allusion into the revelation of holy women since the goddesses abound not only to rational thoughts but also in the creation of poets and the theological writings by the clerics (Newman).
Psychoanalysis
In most presentations, psychoanalysis is brought as thought is has remained to be fundamentally unchanged since the time of Freud (Anttonen). The authors write in a manner suggesting that they may be caught up in a time warp since they portray a lot of differences to psychoanalytic tradition and Freud’s research writings (Mitchell). The detailed documentation of the latter is in the innovative literature of psychoanalytic techniques and theoretical concepts. Even though some of the writers on the topic may be aware of the contemporary developments in the field of psychoanalysis, they still feel indebted to being loyal and reflecting on tradition. In so doing, they fail to give any particular aspect of their writings on the actual clinical practices they were supposedly meant.
The main controversial issue about the literary compositions of Freud is that none of them have been intact owing to the interference that most authors have done to them. The understanding and psychoanalytic practices that Freud documented in his research have been subject alterations that make them quite unreliable in examining the psychoanalytic process (Mitchell). Initially, he intended to base his analysis only on the centrality of the Oedipus complex, instinctual drive and the prime motivation on sex aggression before they were transformed through study challenges and fundamental transformations that were majorly based on the psychoanalytic thought (Mitchell).
In Freud's article, the fundamental concept that is easy to determine is the fact that his thoughts took a principled direction. He reconceptualized the study on regression to an infantile neurosis, the systematic frustration that is the outcome of the wishes the patient has and the analytic neutrality. These concepts have been exceedingly helpful in the transformation of the way the current clinicians choose to perceive various situations regarding their patients. This is because they rely on the study not for its presumption impact on the analytic theory but for its development towards an inquiry that is collaborative to the analysis and the analyst in general.
Sometimes, the analysts may like to naively think of themselves as being arbiters with the subjective experience and the profound comprehension of the nature in which the psychoanalytic process works. The reality of the matter is that they are just the guide towards the mutual undertakings that the study journey entails to take them. Best case scenario, the meaning of the contemporary psychoanalytic world can only be established in a meaningful manner only in a post-Freudian society (Gabbard).
A huge percentage of the people who tend to believe that familiarity with Freud’s work is perfection towards the comprehension of the psychoanalytic concept are on the wrong path (Anttonen). It is more like believing that every Physics concept is based on the work of Newton which is not the case. Freud only tries to make the people see the broad picture and one can only achieve this by reading in between the lines of his literary works and compositions. There has been an impact on the contemporary living world that has all been sparked by Freud's revolution into flowery concepts, understandings, and methodologies made necessary through fundamental ideological changes and expansions.
Myths on Psychoanalysis
The central myth that tends to outweigh the psychoanalytic thought is that it has gone out of fashion. In Mitchell’s Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic thought, he talks about the Orthodox psychoanalysis process that is rather not in the time in which we live (Gabbard). It is an allusion into the mythological concept of its existence. The world that surrounds psychoanalysis is rapidly changing, and individuals need articles that make it easy for them to come to terms with the things they can understand and those they can’t in the same instances.
Bibliographies
Mitchell, Stephen A., and Margaret Black. Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic thought. Basic Books, 2016.
This book gives a profound examination of the psychoanalytic concept and the manner in which Freud chooses to document it in his writings. He also explains the ways in which Freud fuses different concepts to come up with the perfect explanations that may be convincing to the readers to help them gain insight into psychoanalysis. The ideas they learn may be helpful in learning more about the discontents that civilization brought about.
Anttonen, Pertti J. Tradition through Modernity: Postmodernism and the Nation-State in Folklore Scholarship. Finnish Literature Society/SKS, 2016.
The articles delve deep into the recent strides that expound on the actual meaning of civilization and the strides it took into becoming a modern concept in the current century. The author also gives a perception of the realizations that Freud made in his studies and literary appreciations.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Dover Publications, 2016. Internet resource.
This is a broad article by Freud explaining the background of civilization and the steps it has taken ever since its advent. Also, it mainly talks about the neurotics' expansion and the identification of the aspects of the society that pertain to neurotics. Additionally, there are fragments of the First World War and its effects on the people.
Newman, Barbara. God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Internet resource.
The book mentions of the existence of a supreme being, God and both the son and the daughters he had. The article further explains how much the daughters turned to be a disappointment to their father contrary to how the same became. However much the daughters were unpleasant, they had a critical role to play
Germer, Christopher K., Ronald D. Siegel, and Paul R. Fulton. Mindfulness and psychotherapy. Guilford Publications, 2016.
The literary appreciation explains the concept of psychotherapy and the processes that it entails. Also, it alludes into the connection that exists between psychotherapy and psychoanalytic processes and the way in which they can both alter the normal functioning of the human mind and infringe their thoughts.
Gabbard, Glen O. Boundaries and boundary violations in psychoanalysis. American Psychiatric Pub, 2016.
The book talks of both the boundaries and the attempts that have been made in trying to cross the psychoanalytic boundaries. The article also gives the elementary correlation between psychiatric victims and the psychoanalytic treatments and processes.
Works Cited
Anttonen, Pertti J. Tradition through Modernity: Postmodernism and the Nation-State in Folklore Scholarship. Finnish Literature Society/SKS, 2016.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Dover Publications, 2016. Internet resource.
Gabbard, Glen O. Boundaries and boundary violations in psychoanalysis. American Psychiatric Pub, 2016.
Germer, Christopher K., Ronald D. Siegel, and Paul R. Fulton. Mindfulness and psychotherapy. Guilford Publications, 2016.
Mitchell, Stephen A., and Margaret Black. Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic thought. Basic Books, 2016.
Newman, Barbara. God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Internet resource.
