The Case for Reason: Volume One: Understanding the Anti-superstition Movement

by Narendra Dabholkar

Dr Sigmund Freud is considered the father of modern psychology. In order to understand mental processes, he conceived of a ‘structure of mind’. The crux of his theory is: In the mind of every human being, natural drives are present in their primitive form. They are called basic instincts and form the ‘id’—the core of the mind. Hunger, sexual desire, aggression and self-defence are some of these primitive drives. However, unlike animals, civilised people cannot express these basic instincts. All the same, the instincts, being natural, weigh heavily on their mind. Individuals grow up in a family and imbibe the dos and don’ts of behaviour from their surroundings and accept certain ethical rules. The part of the individual’s mind that develops in this process is the superego. These two parts of the mind—the id and the superego—are not only distinct from each other, but are actually forces that confront each other, creating tension in the person. But it is not possible for a person to withstand such constant tension. So, a part of the mind has to take responsibility for finding a way (in the shape of behaviour) to keep these two conflicting parts of the mind together by satisfying both to the maximum and hurting both to the minimum. These efforts to maintain accord between these two opponents generates the middle part of the mind, that is, the ego. The ego plays a number of tricks to satisfy both the id and the superego and keep their dissatisfaction to a minimum. These tricks ...