Civilization and Its Discontents

Name: Civilization and Its Discontents
Brand: Recyclivre
Author: Sigmund Freud
ISBN: 9781891396625

Sigmund Freud

22/01/2011
Martino Fine Books

NC (0 avis)

Couverture de Civilization and Its Discontents par Sigmund Freud

Résumé

Reprint of the 1930 American edition. In this seminal book, Sigmund Freud enumerates the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. The primary friction stems from the individual's quest for instinctual freedom and civilization's contrary demand for conformity and instinctual repression. Many of humankind's primitive instincts (for example, the desire to kill and the insatiable craving for sexual gratification) are clearly harmful to the well-being of a human community. As a result, civilization creates laws that prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and it implements severe punishments if such commandments are broken. This process, argues Freud, is an inherent quality of civilization that instills perpetual feelings of discontent in its citizens.