Freud: Civilization

The instrument turned on love, society, and God

A course on the thought of Sigmund Freud.

Psychology

What you will learn

Define narcissism as libido withdrawn onto the ego, and explain the reciprocal (see-saw) relation of ego-libido and object-libido.
State what the ego ideal is and why it is the bridge from the individual psyche to the demands of civilization (the precursor of the super-ego).
State Freud's account of civilization as a work of Eros bought with instinctual renunciation, and name the two great drives (Eros and the death drive).
Explain the origin of the sense of guilt as aggression turned inward by the super-ego, and why Freud calls guilt 'the price of progress in civilization.'
State Freud's claim that religion is an illusion (a wish-driven belief) and the 'universal obsessional neurosis of humanity,' and explain the father-projection at its root.
Distinguish 'illusion' (a belief driven by a wish) from 'error' (a false belief), and identify where Freud marks his own account as speculation.

The Ego in Love with Itself — Before libido reaches any other person it invests the self: *narcissism*. Freud makes self-love a normal stage of infancy and a permanent economy — *ego-libido* and *object-libido* drawn from one…
The Discontent of Civilization — Civilization is a work of *Eros* — it binds individuals into ever-larger unities — but it demands the renunciation of drive, so it can never make us happy. Against Eros stands the *death drive*…
The Future of an Illusion — Freud's theory of religion: it is an *illusion* — a belief whose force comes from a wish, the child's wish for a protecting father, projected onto the cosmos as God. Rooted (via *Totem and Taboo*) in…

On Narcissism: an Introduction (1914) — the 1914 paper (in the Collected Papers, Riviere translation) that introduced narcissism as a normal stage and a permanent economy — ego-libido and object-libido, and the ego ideal.
Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) — the Riviere translation of Freud's great late essay — civilization as a work of Eros bought with instinctual renunciation; aggression and the death drive; guilt as the price of progress.
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) — the Hubback translation — the repetition-compulsion and the first statement of the death drive, the speculative counter-force to Eros.
The Future of an Illusion (1927) — the Robson-Scott translation — religion as an illusion born of the wish for a protecting father, and the hope that the 'voice of the intellect' will outlast it.
Totem and Taboo (1913) — the Brill translation — the origin of religion and morality in the primal horde: the killing of the father, the totem meal, and the guilt that founds the moral law.

narcissism, Eros, the death drive

Part of the Simposeum course library.