Essay, Research Paper: Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud believed that man like all other animals is born with strong instinctual urges. He felt that civilization and society must repress men and women or else the instincts would run our lives and we could not live in a cohesive social group. This form of repression is good, but Freud sees a danger. In his view, the mind must repress certain urges but too much repression can cause emotional or physical damage as the mind struggles with itself. Civilization and its Discontents applies these basic principles to society at large. Repression in the form of the super-ego (conscience and guilt) is internalized and established. The individual mind is controlled by others such as authority figures, religion, school, family, and parts of himself--the super-ego (these directives from authority form the basis of the super ego). The Super-ego consist of all the orders and directives of a given culture and family environment. Freud sees that men are becoming more and more repressed as we grow more civilized and that something has to give hence the name of the essay Civilization and its Discontents. This built up repression has to be released, either in the form of emotional or else physical damage. It is also Freud’s impression that religion is an illusion and a wish fulfillment. It allows mankind to tolerate their repressed life in society. He bases all of his beliefs on science, therefore since nothing in religion can be backed up by scientific proof, religion is a mere illusion. Civilization and its Discontents is chiefly just a criticism of society, unlike Karl Marx and his Communist Manifesto. Marx scrutinized every aspect of society and basically used the Communist Manifesto to tell people how to change society. He had a strong belief in the work ethic and believed that all people should belong to the same social class, except for a select group of people who would rule and dictate the society. Robert Reich on the other hand was not telling how to change society in Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor Getting Poorer, but how each person personally had to change in order to further advance themselves in society. He basically said not to become an independent producer, since they are in the boat that is sinking. If you want to get ahead in life, you need to jump into the boat that is rising and become a symbolic analyst, according to Reich. In my opinion society functions most like what Reich summarizes it as being, that of the educated symbolic analysts rising to the top of the social diamond in America, and those with no education sinking to the bottom. Then there are those with little education who are just staying level, but will eventually sink. If you do not do as much as you can to put yourself as close to the top of the social ladder, you will fall and sink with the rest of society


Word Count: 493