Civilization and its discontents
It’s only he that walks in those shoes, that knows where the shoe pinches
One common thread that runs across our civilization is dissatisfaction. From the peasants to the prime ministers, each one of us has a reason to be discontent with the cards life has given.
What is the source of this human condition and why are we all susceptible to it? It was a topic explored in Sigmund Freud’s 75 paged book “Civilization and its discontents”. Civilization and its discontents aim to identify why despite our strides as a species, humanity never seems able to overcome being disappointment with itself. It dabbles into its views on the origins of religion from that want of parental care arising out of “the infant’s helplessness and the longing for the father,", and goes on to explore the self-defense mechanisms we develop to protect ourselves from the difficulties of life.
It touches on love and the different types of love that binds a society together. Then the superego and how it evolves in a society from the cumulation of different personalities whose ideas continually define a societies sense of judgment. The goals, aspirations, and high standards for the society they defined creates a feeling of guilt. All individuals must submit themselves to forming these feelings of guilt and their aggressive instincts must be repressed if they hope to share in the love which civilized society has appropriated for its members. This aggressive feel is inherent in the drive of humanity’s action towards death. Civilization, therefore, is the product of an eternal struggle between these two interpersonal forces of love and hate, life and death.
The argument is framed from the perspective that humanity realised that our survival depends on the ability to live in groups. Communal living significantly benefited humanity and enabled us dominate our environment. But the way we organise society circumvents some primordial, natural processes and feelings necessary for natural human development resulting in that feeling of discontent; a feeling shared by all who consider themselves civilised.
