Sigmund Freud

9 Pages 2167 Words

that civilization had two purposes. The first purpose was to protect humanity against nature (44); as a result, individuals embarked on a path of perfection by removing physical limitations in order to triumph over the violence of nature (43-44). Despite becoming “a kind of prosthetic God” (44) and making extraordinary advances in natural sciences and technical application, this did not increase the satisfaction and happiness that humans expected from life (39). Consequently, this problem that was present in the first purpose of civilization was also found in its second purpose, which was to adjust humanity’s mutual relations (44). Freud believed that civilization’s regulation of social relationships between individuals (48) was producing the unhappiness that individuals experienced. Although civilization functioned to protect society, it was at the expense of the individual, and this ultimately had a detrimental effect on humanity.
In order to promote a general peace within society, modern civilization obtained “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…” (84). It established the super-ego within human beings, and the sense of guilt that the super-ego produced had a debilitating and repressive effect. Freud noted that by comparing the development of civilization to that of the individual, there is a better understanding as to how the cultural super-ego operates and how civilization impacts humanity. For him, it is clear that “What began in the relation to the father is completed in relation to the group” (96).
In the development of the individual, he/she renounces an instinct due to fear of punishment by an external authority, which is more often than not a parent. The individual renounces his/her desire in order to not lose love from the parent, which protects him/her from various dangers (85). When renunciat...