Sigmund Freud

Caution. This article/definition is in draft form and at this time may constitute no more than rough notes, reminders for required content, or absolutely nothing at all. Content is subject to revision.

Who was he? What did he write about.

Notes

Toxic Socialization

• Freud recognizes toxic elements in "civilization" and even admits that it is society and its "defects" which has made people "embittered, revengeful and inaccessible." He admits the possibility that with healthier socialization, in a process where individuals "have been brought up in kindness and taught to have a high opinion of reason, and who have experienced the benefits of civilization at an early age," individuals might come to have better attitudes. He concludes that the re-education effort to attain this goal is impossibly massive and, in any case, the extant elites were simply incapable of such a feat

Civilization

• Freud embeds his view of religion in his view of civilization and his view of the human psyche.
• Freud's view of the human psyche is simple. We are driven, motivated by a violent and oversexed instinctual ID whose urges and drives are controlled, more or less, by the Ego and Super Ego. As Freud says "there are present in all men destructive, and therefore anti-social and anti­ cultural, trends and that in a great number of people these are strong enough to determine their behaviour in human society"
• Freud's view of civilization is also simple. He believed civilization consists of two things
  1. technology and knowledge which was used primarily "to control the forces of nature and extract its wealth for the satisfaction of human needs" For Freud, controlling the forces of nature was a primary benefit of human civilization. Without civilization, humanity would be subject to the dangers of nature, like earthquakes, floods, storms, disease, and death.
  2. rules and regulations "necessary in order to adjust the relations of men to one another and especially the distribution of the available wealth.
• Rules and regulations existed primarily, according to Freud, to defend civilization against the individual. Why? For the answer to that we look to Freud's view of human nature.
  1. Freud believed we were all driven by a violent and oversexualized Id and he believed that this ID had to be controlled, for the benefit of civilization and the greater good. As he says, civilization has to be defended against the individual, and its regulations, institu­tions and commands are directed to that task. They aim not only at effecting a certain distribution of wealth but at main­taining that distribution; indeed, they have to protect every­ thing that contributes to the conquest of nature and the production of wealth against men's hostile impulses."
  2. It wasn't just instincts that threatened civilization. Anger and hostility are also a factor. People get angry at civilization for two
     1. Because civilization requires them to suppress to renounce their instincts. Civilization prohibits certain instinctual expressions (killing, incest, cannabilism which causes frustration of instinctual satiIt is sfaction and a resulting condition of privation. According to Freud, "privations are still operative and still form the kernel of hostility to civilization."
     2. Because men and women are not equal. Some are extremely privileged and others "underprivileged." It is to be expected that these underprivileged classes will envy the favoured ones their privileges and will do all they can to free themselves from their own surplus of privation. Where this is not possible, a permanent measure of discontent will persist within the culture concerned and this can lead to dangerous revolts. If, however, a culture has not got beyond a point at which the satisfaction of one portion of its participants depends upon the suppression of another, and perhaps larger, portion-and this is the case in all present­ day cultures-it is understandable that the suppressed people should develop an intense hostility towards a culture whose existence they make possible by their work, but in whose wealth they have too small a share."
• Freud's view is extremely elitist.
  • He believes that civilization was something developed and "imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion." As he said, it is " impossible to do without control of the mass by a minority as it is to dispense with coercion in the work of civilization. For masses are lazy and unintelligent; they have no love for instinctual renunciation, and they are not to be convinced by argument of its inevitability;" Civilization needs to be protected from the "rebelliousness and destructive mania of the participants in civilization," and mania which Freud believes would result in "incest, cannibalism, and a lust for killing" should it go unchecked and unsuppressed by civilization. "It is only through the influence of individuals who can set an example and whom masses recognize as their leaders that they can be induced to perform the work and undergo the renunciations on which the existence of civilization depends."
  • He believes a primary difference between modern civilizations and more primitive ones is in the development of the superego. "It is not true that the human mind has undergone no development since the earliest times and that, in contrast to the advances of science and technology, it is the same to-day as it was at the beginning of history. We can point out one of these mental advances at once. It is in keeping with the course of human development that external coercion gradually becomes internalized; for a special mental agency, man's super-ego, takes it over and includes it among its commandments."
• Note that Freud conflates "civilization" with European capitalism.
• Freud recognizes that Capitalism is based on "coercion and renunciation" and suggest the possibility of a "golden age" where coercion and renunciation would not be required, but suggests it is impossible and blames "the victim" (the masses) for having instincts too powerful to control. As he says, "One has, I think, to reckon with the fact that there are present in all men destructive, and therefore anti-social and anti­ cultural, trends and that in a great number of people these are strong enough to determine their behaviour in human society."

Religion (pp. 15-)

Functions

• It is in the above context that we must understand Freud's view of religion. For Freud, religion is a way to cope with the anxieties, uncertainties, and vagaries of human existence. "It can clearly be seen that the possession of these ideas protects him in two directions-against the dangers of nature and Fate, and against the injuries that threaten him from human society itself."
• Religion, whose substantive content is the belief in a supernatural God or gods, thus has four functions
  • "The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature,
  • they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and
  • they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them."
  • Provides satisfaction of humanity's "curiosity." , specifically it provides positive answers to existential questions,like what happens after death, why is the world the way it is, why does evil exist, and so on, that make humanity feel better.
• Religion does this via the presentation of dogma and belief.

  Everything that happens in this world is an expression of the intentions of an intelligence superior to us, which in the end, though its ways and byways are difficult to follow, orders everything for the b est-that is, to make it enjoyable for us. Over each one of us there watches a benevolen t Providence which is only seemingly stern and which will not suffer us to become a plaything of the over­ mighty and pi til ess forces of nature. Death itselfis not extinction, is not a return to inorganic lifelessness, but the beginning of a new kind of existence which lies on the path of development to something higher. And, looking in the other direction, this view announces that the same moral laws which our civiliza­ tions have set up govern the whole universe as well, except that they are maintained by a supreme court of justice with in­ comparably more power and consistency. In the end al good is rewarded and all evil punished, if not actually in this form of life then in the later existences that begin after death. In this way all the terrors, the sufferings and the hardships of life are destined to be obliterated. Life after death, which continues life on earth just as the invisible part of the spectrum joins on to the visible part, brings us al the perfection that we may perhaps have missed here. And the superior wisdom which directs this course of things, the infinite goodness that expresses itself in it, the justice that achieves its aim in it-these are the attributes of the divine beings who also created us and the world as a whole, or rather, of the one divine being into which, in our civilization, all the gods of antiquity have been condensed.

• Wish fulfilments and illusions. "Neurotic relics" (p. 44). Religious ideas are not "precipitates of experience or end­ results of thinking : they are illusions, fulfilments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those wishes. As we already know, the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection-for protection through love­ which was provided by the father; and the recognition that this h elplessness lasts throughout life made it necessary to cling to the existence of a father, but this time a more powerful one."
• Religious beliefs based on
  • tradition (believed and handed down by our "prima ancestors"
  • strict prohibitions against questioning
• Animistic religions which project the violent/unpredictable elements of nature onto personified God's of nature help us "breathe freely, can feel at home in the uncanny and can deal by psychical means with our senseless anxiety. We are still defenceless, per­ haps, but we are no longer helplessly paralysed; we can at least react." The "Infantile prototype" of this is to be found in the toxic relationship between a child and their abusive father. "One had reason to fear them, and especially one's father..."
• Religious ideas arise from
  1. an expression of the son-father relationship (see totem and taboo, related to religions where "totem animals" become sacred)
  2. the need to defend oneself against the "crushingly superior force of nature."
  3. The "urge to rectify the shortcoming of civilization..."
• Religion does four things for people
  • "The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them."
  • Adds also the notion that more advanced religions assume some moral/ethical dimensions. "It now became the task of the gods to even out the defects and evils of civilization, to attend to the sufferings which men inflict on one another in their life together and to watch over the fulfilment of the precepts of civilization, which men obey so imperfectly. Those precepts themselves were credited with a divine origin ; they were elevated beyond human society and were extended to nature and the universe."
  • Advanced civilizations also develop notion of single "father" god, satiating need of the child for a father's love and protection."Now that God was a single person, man's relations to him could recover the intimacy and intensity of the child's relation to his father."
  • Religion answers "big questions..." "Religious ideas are teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external (or internal) reality which tell one something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's belief. Since they give us information about what is most important and interesting to us in life, they are particularly highly prized."

Origin

According to Freud, Religion, which functions to help humanity deal with its helplessness against nature, originates in the child's helpless relationship with its "omnipotent" and all powerful parents. "It has an infantile prototype, of which it is in fact only the continuation. For once before one has found oneself in a similar state of helplessness: as a small child, in relation to one's parents. "

Secularization

• believed increased scientific knowledge would lead to attenuation of religious belief systems, but felt that the uneducated masses would become murderous if they lost their religious belief. Thus Freud concluded that the "dangerous masses must be held down most severely and kept most carefully away from any chance of intellectual awakening."

Commentary: Freud shows himself generally pretty ignorant of human spirituality and the history of religion. He tap dances around class awareness but ends up white washing the whole affair. ==Footnotes==

References