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Civilization and Its Discontents

by Sigmund Freud, James Strachey (Editor / Translator), Peter Gay (Introduction)

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 10,394 ratings · 323 reviews

It stands as a brilliant summary of the views on culture from a psychoanalytic perspective that he had been developing since the turn of the century. It is both witness and tribute to the late theory of mind—the so-called structural theory, with its stress on aggression, indeed the death drive, as the pitiless adversary of eros.

Civilization and Its Discontents is one of t...more

Paperback, 160 pages

Published September 17th 1989 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published 1930)

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Nov 11, 2007 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone laboring under the illusion that they do not love freud

Shelves: groups-of-people

This may come as a surprise considering how much I complain about psychotherapy, but I LOVE SIGMUND FREUD. This is not just transference, and no, he doesn't remind me at all of my father; I believe Freud was a great genius, and far more importantly, that he was a fantastic writer and very interesting person. I also believe that Freud is one of the most unfairly maligned and willfully misinterpreted figures of the past hundred-or-so years.

If you haven't read him (HIM, not his theories), or if you...more

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Mar 30, 2013 Omneya rated it 2 of 5 stars

A tedious read, Freud's essay is mundane at worst, general knowledge at best.
Freud had this tendency to make pretty obvious and minor premises and then jump to big and somehow unrelated conclusions depending on said premises.

It's already known that Freud and his disciples were treading a deserted land which is psychoanalysis in their times, which calls for far more caution and far more-in this case, very welcomed-pedantry.

Nevertheless Freud writes with uncalled for confidence, mixing facts with...more

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May 08, 2012 matt rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: social-crit, won-t-read-again

I've got nothing against Freud, really, but whatever it was I was looking to find I didn't find it here.

It may have been a bad translation but the prose was leaden, uninteresting and seemed way to weighed-down with self-importance and near-myopic pedantry.

I read it because of course its a seminal classic and one of his central texts but was mildly disappointed to see that there wasn't all that much "there" there.

I've always been intrigued by Freud and I would like to get some of the finer points...more
I've got nothing against Freud, really, but whatever it was I was looking to find I didn't find it here.

It may have been a bad translation but the prose was leaden, uninteresting and seemed way to weighed-down with self-importance and near-myopic pedantry.

I read it because of course its a seminal classic and one of his central texts but was mildly disappointed to see that there wasn't all that much "there" there.

I've always been intrigued by Freud and I would like to get some of the finer points of his weltanschaung down. I assumed this text would help, but apparantly either I missed it or it wasn't really there to find.

It is funny how at certain moments he starts to say things like "it's like a city...like ruins!...wait, wait, no, no, it's nothing like ruins." Funny how even the great ones are overzealous with their awkward analogies. Good thing to keep in mind.

It might be a handicap but mostly the Freud I've gotten is from literary theory (hello, papa Bloom!) and my ex-girlfriend (don't ask). I think Bloom is brilliantly on to something when he affirms that Freud wasn't really a psychologist, consider that more of a literary conceit, what he really was was a philosopher, a wisdom writer. (The fact that Bloom himself apparantly tried and failed utterly at psychotherapy, being told by his shrink that he was being paid to listen to hour-long lectures on how to properly read Freud might prove enough of a credential to lend his claim a little merit, no?)

You can't really make a workable model of human personality with his building blocks any more, can you? I heard once that scientists have started to think of the psyche as more like the British Parliament- contending constituencies which have more on the table than just a-fuckin' and a-fightin'. But, since we're on the topic, let's not neglect the, er, pervasiveness of these rather fervently observed pastimes...it's well-nigh Schopenhauerian, isn't it? Hmmm...come to think of it, there really was some bad faith on Freud's part when it came to naming formative influences. Suuuure he never found out about Nietzsche before he started writing his key works, whaaatever...

I like this very much and it explains how not a single practicing psychologist I've ever queried has ever said that his thinking still reigns supreme in psychological circles. Apparantly he's more of a know-it-to-know-it kind of thing. The study of the mind has gone past him now, so much the better.

Psychology's loss is philosophy and literature's (philology's?) gain- it's no wonder that theorists of language and thinkers of man's place in the social sphere still pay homage. I thought this would be one of the texts which would offer his pensees (pun intended, if you're wondering) but either I missed something completely here or he did.

Maybe it's better, taking these dubious observations to heart, that the literary are keeping him going. What more was he, really, than an explicator of mythos? (Think Oedipus, Karamazov, his razor-close reading of Shakespeare, the aforementioned Existential forerunners, etc)(less)

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Jan 02, 2011 Belal rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

أكثر استفادة لي من الكتاب ،أنه غير لي نظرتي السطحية ،لأطروحة فرويد الخاصة ،بعقدة قتل الأب الأصيلة ،فأنا كنت أردها دائما بالحجة العادية ،أنه إذا كان الذنب ،قد جاء من القتل ،فكيف تكونت هذه القابلية أصلا ،للشعور بالذنب ؟،ولكن تحليل فرويد لها ،وادماجها في منظومته التفسيرية كان أقوى من التعامل معها بصفتها خيال جامح
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يقول جورج طرابيشي المترجم ،أن السؤال الذي يجيب عليه فرويد هو ""لماذا لا يحظى الإنسان بالسعادة التي ينشدها مهما قارب أن يكون الها؟"" ،يمكن القول بأن الإجابة على مدار الكتاب هي "لإن الإنسا...more أكثر استفادة لي من الكتاب ،أنه غير لي نظرتي السطحية ،لأطروحة فرويد الخاصة ،بعقدة قتل الأب الأصيلة ،فأنا كنت أردها دائما بالحجة العادية ،أنه إذا كان الذنب ،قد جاء من القتل ،فكيف تكونت هذه القابلية أصلا ،للشعور بالذنب ؟،ولكن تحليل فرويد لها ،وادماجها في منظومته التفسيرية كان أقوى من التعامل معها بصفتها خيال جامح
..
يقول جورج طرابيشي المترجم ،أن السؤال الذي يجيب عليه فرويد هو ""لماذا لا يحظى الإنسان بالسعادة التي ينشدها مهما قارب أن يكون الها؟"" ،يمكن القول بأن الإجابة على مدار الكتاب هي "لإن الإنسان مكبوت يحش بالذبندائما ،ولأن السعادة قائمة أساسا على التحقق المفاجئ للرغبة "
فكرة الكتاب الأساسية بشكل سطحي بسيط ،أن هناك قلقا أو اضطرابا في اي حضارة ،ناتج عن ان أي حضارة لا يمكن أن تقوم بغير أن تقوم بعملية كبت لبعض الغرائز الإنسانية ،مستغلة في ذلك شعور الإنسان بالذنب ،أو تزرعه فيه ،وبدون عملية الكبت هذه لا يمكن قيام الحضارة ،لكن في الجانب الآخر ،نفس هذا الكبت ،هو الذي يولد الاتجاه اللاحضاري ،والتعاسة الإنسانية الدائمة
ومن شأن أي كبت مبالغ فيه ،من قبل أي حضارة ،أن ينتج بجوار كمية التعاسة الزائدة ،أسخاصا عصابيين ،لأنه ليس كما يظن القديسين أن مثلهم العليا دائما في يد الإنسان ،وليس الأنا_وهو الجزء الواعي من الإنسان الذي يوفق بين غرائزه وبين مثله العليا_له مثل هذه السيطرة المتوهمة على نفسه ،بل بشكل ما يمكن القول بأن له حدا ،إن تجاوزه ،يفقد بعده القدرة على الموازنة بين الهو والأنا الأعلي،ويصير أقرب للمريض النفسي

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من جهة أخرى ،يناقش الكتاب ،ألنزعة العدوانية عند الإنسان ،ويعتبرها غريزة طبيعية إنسانية ،وهي تجلي لغريزة الموت أو غريزة التدمير ،التي استنتجها فرويد في كتابه "ما فوق مبدأ اللذة " ،بصفتها الغريزة الأخرى المقابلة لغريزة الايروس ،أو الجنس ،أو الحياة ،وهو يحلل كيف تميل الحضارة بشكل عام وضروري ،لتجاوز هذه الغريزة أو كبتها أو توجيهها ،ويتساءل في نهاية الكتاب
"إن مسألة مصير الجنس البشري ،تطرح نفسها ،،هل سيكون في متناول الحضارة ،أن تتغلب على الخلل الذي تدثه نزعة الإنسان العدوانية هذه "
وهذا السؤال له أهمية خاصة خصوصا بعدما "سيطر الإنسان على الطبيعة سيطرة كبيرة ،بحيث بات من السهل على البشر ،أن يفنوا بعضهم بعضا عن بكرة أبيهم "(less)

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Oct 07, 2008 Mr. rated it 5 of 5 stars

`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 p...more

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Jun 09, 2008 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Much of what Freud has to say in this book would be different had he done his thinking/writing with the knowledge that the field of psychology now possesses. For example, he talks at length about cleanliness and a decrease in the reliance of olfactory cues in sexual relations among humans, although today there is compelling evidence that olfactory cues play a major role in sexual behavior (see Geoffrey Miller's work). Also, Freud's work was coming just at the heels of Darwin's revolutionary theo...more

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Apr 03, 2010 Christian Clarke rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book explains why the average man--someone like you--is always pissed off, as if there is a cauldron of anger boiling just beneath his--and your--clothes. This book explains why you will be standing behind that douche bag in the checkout lane at the grocery store and suddenly feel the urge to lunge at him and with your bare hands tear the larynx out of this throat, but don't. Instead you grit your teeth and check your smartphone for NFL score updates and then later, in your Prius, you shudd...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Atekeh ebrahimi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

مشکلی با این کتاب داشتم این بود که زمانی خوندمش که تازه داشتم از تکامل سر درمی آوردم و چیزهایی که از انسان های نخستین میگفت با اطلاعات من جور نمی شد و حتی معلوم نبود منظور کتاب از انسان نخستین دقیقن چیه...الان هم که دوباره میخونم باز همون سوال ها برام ‍پیش میاد.

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Aug 09, 2012 Stacie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own, non-fiction

I read this in undergrad, and decided I wanted to do a re-read. As dated as it seems, it doesn't really seem all that dated.

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Feb 22, 2009 Gary rated it 2 of 5 stars

The impact of Sigmund Freud on contemporary Western thought can hardly be underestimated. Many of the key "psychological" terms we employ can be traced back to his writing. Although fascinating and often insightful, much of his influence has been destructive, providing comfort and a scientific imprimatur for a large portion of the anti-Western diatribes of the last generation.

Let us first dispose of several misconceptions that have clouded the popular image of this brilliant thinker. To begin wi...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Lucas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Agree or disagree with it, in part or in whole, "Civilization" is a pretty remarkable essay that, in a small space, posits the reason for our discontent in society and suggests a way toward happiness. It's essential reading mostly because of its influence, but there is plenty to appreciate in the picture he paints of the human mind. I think my frustration with it derives from the fact that I like a lot of what Freud says on the surface, but I have some serious problems with the specifics. So the...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

The Standard Edition, translated, edited and with a brief intro by James Strachey. It's a densely written and rich essay, made up of philosophical musings, not without a few detours, on the state of unhappiness that civilization brings. It's a brilliant, dark conception. In a Rousseauian anthropological approach mixed with psychoanalysis, Freud argues that man first began to socialize as a means of economizing happiness. However, as a certain point, guilt arose through the killing of the father...more

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Nov 27, 2011 Canan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think that some readers read Freud with a lot of prejudice and without an objective p.o.v towards humanity today. Those of us who sit in front of our computers may think that Freud's view on civilization and the society is only applicable to the period he lived in. But war, torture, and aggression in its all forms still goes on today. Furthermore, Freud had a thing to say about Communism also: that communists believed they could make everyone happy by getting rid of private property, but that...more

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Nov 30, 2010 The Awdude rated it 5 of 5 stars

After reading Lynne Huffer's Mad for Foucault, in which she tries her damndest to make a contribution to the ever-metastisizing trend of haphazard anti-Freudianism, I couldn't resist the urge to return, after my prolonged sabattical in the world of all things contemporary, to the father (hehe) who, in my opinion, laid the groundwork for pretty much everything in the post(hyper)modern body of Western thought that's worth a damn. Sure, he may have thought that Neanderthal man discovered the use of...more

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Aug 05, 2010 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Intellectual Historians, Psychology students, Freudians

Recommended to Michael by: Richard Beyler

Shelves: psychology, philosophy

This is one of those "seminal" books that shows you why so much of Western thought is totally screwed up. The premises and logic of Freud's argument are utter nonsense from beginning to end, yet he somehow taps into a vein of unconscious imagery within the contemporary Zeitgeist that still resonates 80 years later. Certainly, for anyone studying the early 20th century, the ideas in here will seem eerily familiar; Freud isn't so much creating a new argument here as speaking aloud what was in ever...more This is one of those "seminal" books that shows you why so much of Western thought is totally screwed up. The premises and logic of Freud's argument are utter nonsense from beginning to end, yet he somehow taps into a vein of unconscious imagery within the contemporary Zeitgeist that still resonates 80 years later. Certainly, for anyone studying the early 20th century, the ideas in here will seem eerily familiar; Freud isn't so much creating a new argument here as speaking aloud what was in everyone's heads at the time.

So, the basis of this little thought-experiment was Freud's concept of the struggle between eros and thanatos: the drive for pleasure and the drive for death. That much still may apply, one way or another. As Freud saw it, the frustration of the id's natural desire for pleasure and love led to neurotic obsessions with death and destruction through aggressive behaviors. That part of the argument is sensible enough that the publishers see fit to include it on the back cover. What they don't tell you is that all of this began at some objective point in prehistory when a gang of brother cavemen killed and ate their father in order to possess and gang-rape their mother. For real. Freud says that this actually happened, and he "proves" it by pointing to various ancient myths in various cultures that can be seen as allegories for this objectively real event. I'm sure most Freudians would say that this is a metaphorical event, which took place in the imaginations of ancient peoples and that we still carry the legacy of this concept, but Freud's rejection of Jung's "collective unconscious" forces him into a position like unto fundamentalist Christians, insisting that his myths must be based upon actual fact.

Indeed, this text is largely intended as a refutation of Jung and other psycho-analysts of the time who were suggesting that something valuable might be found in spirituality. Freud used this horrific imagery to posit that all religious thought is based upon perversity and hatred. Certainly this resonated well enough with many of his contemporaries, and no doubt it still does. Underneath this is also an underlying argument that it is civilization itself which necessitates the death-drive and the existence of neuroses, again a common enough idea. Freud is not "anti-civilization," of course, and wants to believe that the eros-principle can be integrated into a healthy psyche without a complete return to nature, but this seems to contradict his own logic. Psychology has long-since abandoned Freud, but he remains an influential force in philosophy and social science, which needs to move on as well. I recommend this book primarily for its historical perspective, not for any actual insights.(less)

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May 05, 2010 FiveBooks added it

Shelves: fivebooks-on-psychoanalysis

Psychoanalyst Dr David Bell has chosen to discuss Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Psychoanalysis, saying that:

“…It is relatively easy to read as a stand-alone text and it addresses what we mean by civilisation and what the cost to us is of being civilised. It is partly Freud’s attitude that makes him so remarkable – his capacity for detached observation. I don’t mean cold and indifferent but it is a psychological achievement...more

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Dec 27, 2009 Prokop Holy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1929)
also Warum Krieg? (1933) Zeitgemässiges Uber Krieg und Tod (1915) und Die kulturelle Sexualmoral und die moderne Nervositet (1908)

Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1929)
Es braucht nicht gesagt zu werden, dass eine Kultur, welche eine so Grosse Zahl von Teilnehmer unbefriedigt lässt und zur Auflehnung treibt, weder Aussicht hat, sich dauernd zu erhalten, noch es verdient.
...die Menschen gemeinhin mit falschen Massstäben messen, Macht, Erfolg und Reichtum fur sich anst...more

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Feb 28, 2013 David Sarkies rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

One of the good things about taking this online course about Modernism and Postmodernism is that I am being forced to read things that I would generally not read, as Freud is one of them. Basically I have no real interest in Freud and after reading this booklet everything that I thought about Freud has pretty much been justified and I have no further interest in reading any more of him. Basically, as I have said before, and as I will say again, the guy is pretty much obsessed with sex and seems...more One of the good things about taking this online course about Modernism and Postmodernism is that I am being forced to read things that I would generally not read, as Freud is one of them. Basically I have no real interest in Freud and after reading this booklet everything that I thought about Freud has pretty much been justified and I have no further interest in reading any more of him. Basically, as I have said before, and as I will say again, the guy is pretty much obsessed with sex and seems to think that sex is pretty much the be all and end all of everything. Okay, that might be putting things a little too simplistic, but in another way, the guy simply bases his entire argument on a purely physical view of the world and the spiritual simply does not exist.
The thing that struck me in this text (and there were a couple that do stick in my head) was how he looked on the concept as God the Father. To Freud he sees the concept of God, in particular the Christian God, as being a reflection of our identities with our fathers. Our father's give us birth and thus to Freud it is understandable that primitive man, who has no knowledge of the scientific world, to create a father figure in the form of God who created the world, and in creating the world, created us. This is not surprising coming from somebody who pretty much rejects the spiritual. For those of us who accept the spiritual, we see the physical father as being a reflection of the spiritual father, though to some of us that may not be a very pretty picture. A person who has a vengeful father will see God as being vengeful, and those of us who have a distant father will see God as being distant. However, God is in fact the perfect father, of which all Earthly father's are a pale reflection (and I see a Platonic concept coming out of that, with God being the perfect form of the father, and for those who know Plato, know that these forms aren't something that were conjured up in our minds, but actually existed).
Another thing that he talks about (Freud that is, not Plato) is the idea of relationships, and in particular, love. The idea of civilisation, says Freud, is that it is a relationship between the whole, where as the idea of love (here referring to Erotic love, which I do not accept as a pure form of love) is a relation, exclusive, between two people. I note that even though Freud was very much a materialist, he only saw sexual attraction as occurring between two people, and that appears to be because he considers it to be a natural force that provides for the perpetuity of the human race. In a way he sees pride as being the desire to protect one self, while love is the desire to protect the race as a whole (and these two forces, while complimenting each other, also struggle against each other).
However, let me finish off with this concept of love, or more specifically, erotic love. Personally I do not believe that it exists. Love is an outward thing, and while I hear of the four words in Greek for love (storge – love of an object, or a passion for something; phillia – brotherly love; eros – sexual love; and agapae – sacrificial love) I do not believe that Eros is actually a form of love. It is a form of physical attraction, but it is not love, and the reason I say that is because it does not exist outside of any of the other loves, and it is not outward looking, but rather it is inward looking.
Okay, maybe it can be outward looking, but from Plato's source on love (the Symposium) it seems to be a desire to become one with a person, but it is still very much self-serving. The desire to become one with a person may be shared by both of those people, but it is still self serving for both of those people. Love is always outward looking, even if it is the love of sport (though that is also self serving, so that narrows it down to there being only two words in Greek for love). Therefore, the idea of erotic love, with the exception that it helps perpetuate the human race, is a contradiction in that it is not love, but rather that it is lust, even if this lust, or attraction, is a natural thing that enables us to perpetuate our race, and in the long run works for the survival of our race.(less)

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Oct 06, 2011 Christopher Rex rated it 3 of 5 stars

Freud was certainly an interesting dude and very ahead of his time in many ways. Basically, he is arguing that society/civilization inhibits our psychological and physical freedoms by imposing all sorts of "guilt complexes" upon us (especially for sexual behavior). The Church is central to this "guilt complex" (but certainly not alone) and we pay a huge psychological burden as a result. The "trade-off" of living in large, organized society is that we have to give up some of our freedoms and that...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Nate rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is undoubtedly one of Freud's seminal works. References to his earlier thought and writing can be found throughout. Civilization and Its Discontents discusses how our natural tendencies are pushed into the background with the rise of civilization. More specifically, for an individual to live in harmony with his fellow humans, he must suppress much of his aggressive and sexual instinct. This leads to general discontent as any instinctual thought brings an immediate reaction of guilt.

It would...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Bruce rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was interested in reading this short work at this time because Freud herein addresses, inter alia, the creation of art as sublimation of libido in society. In this text Freud addresses several issues and introduces or expands on concepts that he introduced elsewhere, and it is interesting to see the evolution of his own thinking. Among other things he discusses ego differentiation and the development of religion as a means of addressing the fear that the superior power of fate brings, but that...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars

'Homo homini lupus' - 'Man is a wolf to Man'

This is an assertion that Freud makes about half way through this book, and I find the statement on its own to be correct. But that is because much of our knowledge has increased since Freud made the statement. We know much more about the history of our species, and our own evolution, the social life of other animals, much more in many other fields, ranging from biology to archaeology. This information has not been kind to Freud's conclusions.

Freud is...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Jonathon rated it 3 of 5 stars

A must read. (Read this paragraph in a snobbish elite voice...fine dont do it, whatever....)

More philosophical than psychological I would say, though it borderlines both. Really interesting on the creation of art and science and the libido interconnected. Also his discussion that people who lack a drive in art and science (lay people) tend to be drawn to religion.

What a pompous asshole. I dont know, maybe im reading this shit wrong.....anyway

Overall pretty good, except the last 20 pages I got...more

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Mar 28, 2012 Kyle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Characteristic Freud.

I came into reading Civilization and Its Discontents having read Interpretation of Dreams, his major essays like Mourning and Melancholia, as well as his case histories. Civilization and Its Discontents contains all of Freud's major arguements and concepts(guilt, wish fufillment, transference, stages of child development, the complexes, ect). However, what I think this text does better than his others, is connect his high concepts to the larger socio-cultural context of his...more

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Mar 15, 2011 Esme rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Von Kriegsneurosen betroffene Menschen wiederholen in ihren Träumen immer wieder die traumatisierende Situation. Diese klinischen Beobachtungen ließen sich nicht mit der bis dahin in der psychoanalytischen Theorie angenommenen "Herrschaft des Lustprinzips" vereinbaren. Dem zur Lebenserhaltung drängenden Eros stellt Sigmund Freud den zum Unbelebten strebenden Todestrieb gegenüber.

Der Todestrieb ist eine zwischenmenschliche, zivilisations- und kulturfeindliche Aggressions- und Destruktionsneigung...more

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Oct 05, 2009 Gene rated it 2 of 5 stars

Interesting, and perhaps every college educated person needs to have read at least a little bit of Freud. But I come away thinking that sometimes his writing oversimplifies some things (rules out theism by simply claiming it's infantile) and over complicates other things (the significance of a child's feces to himself). I was amazed how much of his thinking rests on evolutionary presuppositions. If that theory ever is ruled out, it would be a blow to his theory of psycho-analysis. I also feel th...more

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Jul 20, 2009 Steve rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

I've done a lot of reading about Freud, but I had never read him in his own words before. This was, perhaps, not the best place to start, as it is not a scientific work but a philosophical one in the tradition of Hobbes and Rousseau, both of whom I loved when I first read them as a teenager. This text may represent the breadth of Freud's thought more fully than his scientific work, but it simply isn't as respected as, for example, his analyses of certain celebrities.

I do believe Freud was a gen...more I've done a lot of reading about Freud, but I had never read him in his own words before. This was, perhaps, not the best place to start, as it is not a scientific work but a philosophical one in the tradition of Hobbes and Rousseau, both of whom I loved when I first read them as a teenager. This text may represent the breadth of Freud's thought more fully than his scientific work, but it simply isn't as respected as, for example, his analyses of certain celebrities.

I do believe Freud was a genius, but I also disagree with him about many things, mostly philosophical. This text is essentially a supplement to his previous book, Totem and Taboo, which I have not read in the original text, but have read about (in textbooks, etc.). Having that background of Totem and Taboo in mind made Civilization and its Discontents tolerable.

Freud's writing style is dense, full of long words that he minted only decades prior to this book, psychoanalytic terms normal people simply don't come across very often. It is, therefore, a slow read. I picked up this book largely because it was so small (that often is what tips the balance when trying to decide between a number of meritorious texts). But it took a lot of time and effort to get through it. However, if you have read Hobbes and Rousseau (who I'm told were reacting to Augustine and Aquinas--read them too, I suppose), then you will adore this book, which traces man's rise to civilization just as those two great philosophers did.

With that said, it is all, of course, speculation, just as it was for Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke. None of it is falsifiable, therefore it is unscientific and it cannot be criticized from a scientific perspective. The merit of Freud's theory is that it roughly fit the Zeitgeist of the 1920's: repression, guilt, malaise, and behind everything, anxiety.

Freud even admits that his thesis is not only speculative but even commits the anthropomorphic fallacy by (knowingly!) attributing human characteristics to the abstractions of "human civilization." It is doubtful that these metaphors can take us very far, especially considering what science has told us about what actually happened, the real process of development of early civilization, which was much messier and far less uniform than Freud would have us believe.

So while Freud's logic is easy to follow (society requires we repress our sexual and violent desires --> ethics --> conscience --> guilt and anxiety --> neurosis), it simply may not correspond to the truth. That modernity is a neurosis may have been tenable in 1927; it may be obvious now; but it is certainly not science (as Freud seems to admit in the final chapter when he ponders a cultural psychoanalysis, or, a psychotherapy for the human race, asking who on earth could possibly be equipped to decide what ought to be normal).

When I was in high school, I thought Freud had figured everything out; I became an atheist. Now that I know better, the only effect (or, in this case, affect) this book had on me was that it bummed me out because people, Freud argues, suck. This text is worth reading because of its historic influence, not because it gets very much right.(less)

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Dec 16, 2012 Leajk rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, religion-atheism

Well, I the most prominent thing I remember about the book is that it was a quick read.

I have very little patience for psychoanalysis (that is I care for neither Freud nor Jung), so I read this book since it was suppose to be one of Freud's atheist books. As regards to that I remember some rather crude, although somehow half-convincing arguments about toteem poles. That's the thing about Freud though I suppose, he has the gift to sound very convincing even when what he's saying is absolute bs.

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Jul 02, 2010 Jeremy added it

Shelves: philosophy, sociological

I found this really interesting, Freud takes his theories about the psyche and stretches them as far as they can go, asking what, if anything is the mental state of civilization. What its components are, how they interact with each other and what happens when they clash with one another. A lot of these observations seem really obvious, but he approaches them in a way which shows how so much of how we live our day to day lives is based on this weird sense of dissatisfaction with the world that we...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Fernanda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Freud es un personaje icónico que si bien no es mi derecho juzgarlo, este libro me pareció aburrido. Le dio muchas vueltas a lo mismo y si se supone que debí aprender algo importante de todo esto, no fue así. Es un ensayo donde Freud divaga y se pierde por las ramas de su propio pensamiento. Creo que lo único que realmente me llamó la atención fueron sus referencias a la cultura individual y colectiva, también sobre sus aluciones esporádicas a la religión y lo que representa, así como su explica...more

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About Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud, was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression. He is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life which is directed toward a wide variety of objec...more

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Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Penguin Freud Library)

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“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.” — 373 people liked it

“Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures... There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.” — 120 people liked it

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