SOC SCI H1F Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Death Drive, The Need, Yevgenia Albats
21 Feb 2017
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LECTURE 11
February 14, 2017
Civilization and its Discontents
• As Freud entered his eighth decade of life, the times were terrible
o Much of the world, attempting to recover from war, was hit with another
catastrophe, a monumental economic collapse caused by the Great Depression
o In addition, the political situation in Europe was ominous with a more horrible
war looming on the horizon
• At this desperate time, Freud, like Rousseau before him, asked why civilization makes
people so miserable
o His answers appeared in one of his most somber yet popular books, Civilizations
and Its Discontents, published in 1930
• Freud defined civilization in the following way:
[Civilization] includes on the one hand all the knowledge and capacity that men
have acquired in order to control the forces of nature and extract its wealth for
the satisfaction of human needs, and, on the other hand, all the regulations
necessary in order to adjust the relations of men to one another and especially
the distribution of the available wealth
• The regulations for relations that Freud referred to include the interpersonal expression
of the instinctual urges for love and hate
o These urges must come under the rules and customs of society
o Thus, in order for civilization to exist, individuals must sacrifice a certain amount
of freedom regarding their basic instincts
▪ There is a price to pay – society regulates the id, restricting the
expression of these desires of our id
o In Freud’s ords, every civilization must be built up on coercion and
renunciation of instinct.
• This is the main message of Civilization and its Discontents: there exists an intractable
conflict between the individual and state involving:
[an] antagonism between the demands of instinct and the restrictions of
civilization.
o This is one reason why people are miserable in society
• This conflict is won by society
o It has the resources and the quality of reinforcing rules with punishment
• The individual loses and must endure a certain amount of personal unhappiness and
disappointment
o Civilization, by subjecting the instinctual drives of Eros and Thanatos to the rule
of law, exerts considerable control over human relationships
▪ Restriction of Thanatos
• Of the two primal instincts, civilization is more concerned with the
death drive due to its potential to unleash toward violence and
destruction
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o Aggression, the death instinct
• The death drive:
…. constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization, [for]
civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose
purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after
that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one
great unity, the unity of mankind.
• The violence and aggression emanating from Thanatos makes the
task of living within a community a cautious endeavor
o I fear the monster that dwells within each of us, no matter
what we believe in. – Jun Cen, November, 2016, New York
▪ In Freudian terms, this monster is the id.
Options for Self-Control
• Freud believed that it was more preferable for the individual to regulate the instinctual
drives rather than being forced to do so by the harsh authority of the state
o Maybe our own resources can be used to regulate those instinctual urges
o The state would be harsh, using punishments
• He defined three psychological processes to achieve self-control
o First, when irrational impulses from the id threaten to break through to
consciousness, the ego can trigger the defense mechanism of repression against
them
▪ Anxiety experienced in consciousness is the activator of repression
• Anxiety is the trigger, activating the ego defense mechanisms
o Ego defese ehaiss eause the ego is alled forth
as a way to control the id
▪ The invocation of repression is an automatic but unsteady process
because the work required by the ego to keep repression active is
immense
• The ego must drive those impulses back to the id, as if to make us
forget that we have these impulses. It acts as a barrier– the
impulses still exist, yet the ego blocks it from coming into
consciousness
• The ego is under a lot of strain constantly
o Whe it a’t handle that strain, we feel anxiety
▪ If repression collapses and impulses of the id escape, then the ego could
be flooded with overwhelming desires
o Another defense mechanism, called sublimation, is also available to keep
unwanted urges from the id out of consciousness
▪ Sublimation, also triggered by anxiety, operates by diverting the energy
of the instinctual desire into socially acceptable activities involving work,
creativity, and achievement
• Use that energy to motivate us into more productive activity
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
In freud"s (cid:449)ords, every civilization must be built up on coercion and renunciation of instinct: this is the main message of civilization and its discontents: there exists an intractable conflict between the individual and state involving: [an] antagonism between the demands of instinct and the restrictions of civilization: this is one reason why people are miserable in society, this conflict is won by society. I fear the monster that dwells within each of us, no matter what we believe in. In freudian terms, this monster is the id. It acts as a barrier the impulses still exist, yet the ego blocks it from coming into consciousness: the ego is under a lot of strain constantly, whe(cid:374) it (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t handle that strain, we feel anxiety. If this can be done, then the reliance upon the defense mechanisms of repression and sublimation is unnecessary: unfortunately, the practice of self-control through rationality is extremely difficult to achieve.
