Psychology
Civilization and Its Discontents
CevvelaPsychology
Civilization and Its Discontents
Sigmund Freud · Metis Yayınları · 1930
7
Cevvela Score
7.3 (3.680 oy)
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Summary
A clinical manifesto arguing that civilization runs counter to human nature and to our primitive instincts — sexuality and aggression — and that modern man, having sacrificed freedom for the sake of security and order, inevitably becomes neurotic and unhappy.
Quotes from Cevvela
“Humanity has traded a great part of its freedom for a measure of security.”
“Civilization is built upon the repression of our own aggressive drive.”
“Happiness is only a momentary state of satisfaction; making it permanent runs against human nature.”
“Neurosis is the price of the excessive sacrifices civilization demands of us.”
“What we call education is the merciless repression of the child’s natural, primitive desires.”
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Reader Score: 7.3 / 10(3.680 votes)
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Freud shatters the fairy tale of being “civilized and advanced.” By nature we are savage; civilization commands us to repress that savagery, put on a tie and shut ourselves into offices. This is the diagnosis of what Cevvela calls the inner emptiness and the search for meaning. Freud tells us that those repressed primal desires never disappear; they merely turn into illnesses and neuroses. Every time you follow the rules of politeness and hand out those false smiles, you realize how you betray the wild nature within — and how that betrayal slowly drives you mad. Civilization is a safe prison.