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

Civilization

• Consists of
  • technology and knowledge to extract and control distribution of human wealth
  • regulations and "measures of coercion" are "necessary in order to adjust the relations of men to one another and especially the distribution of the available wealth.
    • Super Ego -> for Freud, the Super Ego is the internalization of the coercive mechanisms imposed by elites, the internalization of "civilizations' precepts." This internalization however doesn't work in all cases because people still engage in toxic behaviours, violence against others, greed, addiction, fraud, and so on. In these cases, external coercion remains necessary.
• Basically about maintaining inequality."Thus 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."
• Freud recognizes the class nature of "civilization." "One thus gets an impression that civilization is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion."
• Note that Freud conflates "civilization" with European capitalism, presuming like many white supremacists, that European society was superior to societies and cultures that had come before (Indigenous societies, for example). It is worthwhile replacing the word "civilization" with the phrase "European Capitalism" wherever it appears in Freud's writing.
• 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." Note this is a secularized version of the Good versus Evil archetype used by elites to manipulate and control "the masses."
  • Freud goes further and blames the necessity of regulations and coercion on purported instincts towards cannibalism, incest, and murder.
• Elitist apologist and gaslighter. Freud suggests that control of the masses by a minority is inevitable. "It is just as 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; and the indi­viduals composing them support one another in giving free rein to their indiscipline. 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."

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 that 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.

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