Sigmund Freud: Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis. Best known for his theories on the unconscious mind, the mechanism of repression, the importance of dreams, and transference, Freud established sexual drives as the primary motivating forces of human life. Written in the summer of 1929 and published in 1930 in German as Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (“The Uneasiness in Culture”), Civilization and Its Discontents addresses the conflict between the individual's quest to gratify instinctual desires and society's need to curb the actions of the individual that are injurious to others. He characterizes human instincts as “freedom” and the restrictions of society as “conformity.” The individual's primitive instincts—violence, aggression, and the need to gratify insatiable sexual desires—left unchecked, are in Freud's view harmful to the function of society. Civilization is created to maintain order and tranquility; society makes laws that punish those individuals who act in an antisocial manner.