civilization and its discontents publisher

Freud qualified as a doctor of medicine at the University of Vienna in 1881, and then carried out research into cerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy at the Vienna General Hospital. He was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. His many works include 'The Ego and the Id', 'An Outline of Psycho-Analysis', Civilization and Its Discontent, and others. About the Author: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is one of the twentieth century's greatest minds and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Man, by nature aggressive and egotistical, seeks self-satisfaction. Freud's theme is that what works for civilization doesn't necessarily work for man.

This process, argues Freud, is an inherent quality of civilization that instills perpetual feelings of discontent in its citizens. As a result, civilization creates laws that prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and it implements severe punishments if such commandments are broken. Many of humankind's primitive instincts (for example, the desire to kill and the insatiable craving for sexual gratification) are clearly harmful to the well-being of a human community. It seeks to answer several questions fundamental to human society and its organization: What influences led to the creation of civilization? Why and how did it come to be? What determines civilization's trajectory? Freud's theories on the effect of the knowledge of death on human existence and the birth of art are central to his work. In it he states his views on the broad question of man's place in the world. It is considered his most brilliant work. Civilization and Its Discontents' is one of the last of Freud's books, written in the decade before his death and first published in German in 1929.

Civilization and its discontents publisher