In this sense Freud shares in a general cultural pessimism, or anti-modernism, a kind of skepticism about the accomplishments of civilization, that is typical of this period. Civilization itself comes to be defined as a space of conflict, or as an extension into cultural community of the tensions that stigmatize the individual psyche. He transfers the intra-psychic conflict (between ego and id pleasure principle and reality principle unconscious and conscious mind etc.) that he had analyzed in his psychoanalytical writings over to the domain of human civilization. Freud himself represents a profoundly pessimistic point of view in this treatise. This experience generated a new sense of pessimism about the human being and human nature. Death became anonymous in the trenches, mass killing took place for the first time in this war. WWI as the first technologically advanced war, with the use of tanks, poison gas, etc. All human cultural achievements and advancements.įirst World War as defining experience for Freud and his contemporaries. Kultur: A more encompassing term than English "civilization" includes science, technology, art society, etc. Unbehagen: "Malaise," a sense of uneasiness, dissatisfaction, vauge "discontent." German title: Das Unbehagen in der Kultur. Lecture Notes: Civilization and Its Discontents
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