Civilization and the Civilizing Process: Freud and Elias For many years the name of Norbert Elias was almost unknown in the sociology. However, his work on civilization, The Civilizing Process finally made the authors famous and brought him respect he deserved. This book put its author at the line with such famous author like Freud, as the authors tried to explore the civilization and the nature of this phenomenon. Although the authors have a completely different approach, they still have both similarities and differences in their works. Being based on two works, Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud and The Civilizing Process by Elias, the present paper summarizes and juxtaposes what Freud and Elias each contend about the nature, origins, and consequences of “civilization” Norbert Elias defines the term civilization as expressing “the self-consciousness of the West, everything in which Western society of the last two or three centuries believes itself superior to earlier societies or more primitive contemporary ones the level of its technology, the nature of its manners, the development of its scientific knowledge or view of the world, and much more (Elias, 1994).
At the same time Freud in his book focuses attention on the tensions between the person and his civilization (Freud, 1930).
According to Freud, the strain is based on the fulcrum between the persons urge and quest for freedom, on the one hand, and the civilizations urge and demand for conformity. At the same time, the individual has an innate drives and desires, such as sexual gratification, and the others, and these desires may obviously lead to conflicts with the social order.
The Term Paper on Freuds Civilization And Its Discontents
Freuds Civilization and its Discontents How did Freud understand a man? He considered a man neither tabula rasa, nor inherently good or inherently evil. The concept of human nature, developed by Freuds theory, has become the most serious indictment of Western civilization and at the same time it has become its most reliable defense. Freud understood man's character as a continuum of behavior on an ...
As this occurs, the civilization, in the capacity of the large and state ruled society, undertakes all efforts to inhibit these individuals innate desires. In its turn, the suppression or stifling of the individuals energies, almost inevitably lead to non fulfillment and the feeling of guilt. Sigmund Freud developed these ideas according to his theory of the origins of civilization, and the theory of a death instinct. According to Freud, human beings are aggressive by their nature. As this occurs, the very feeling of love for all of humanity is not an original one, it is not a innate state of the human mind. More specifically, Sigmund Freud considers that the conception of the universal love is rather a safe and diluted form, as it is motivated by the innate human beings desire to avoid displeasure and discontent. According to Freud, the aggression, which is an inherent part of the human beings conscience, is then disarmed and weakened by the civilization. The civilization, in its turn, implants in the human beings conscience the sense of guilt.
In such a way, the feeling of guilt is the way by which the norms of civilization are imposed on the person’s life. As it can be seen, the theory advanced by Sigmund Freud is based on the idea that the conflict between societal norms and the individuals sexual needs is the source of the mankinds propensity for aggression, discontent, hostility, and violence. The most important struggle in the individuals life lays in connection between the civilization (the society where the individual was born and has to live in), and the individual’s inner word. In such a way, Sigmund Freud considers that the inner peace and the harmony can be achieved only under the condition that the individual learns how to maintain control over his or her aggressive drives by resolving this conflict. Yet, it should be also taken into consideration that Sigmund Freud in his Civilization and Its Discontents assumed the these destructive desires and drives are innate in all human beings, and, therefore, human being by nature is an anti-cultural, anti-civilized, and anti-social being. What concerns Norbert Elias ideas related to the nature, origins, and consequences of civilization, his concept is different from that of Freud’s.
The Essay on Civilization And Freedom Human Freud Man
Section - 1 INTRODUCTION Definition of Civilization Civilization occurs when a society moves to an advanced state of social development with complex legal, political and religious organizations. There are several definitions for civilization, for instance, 'the people slowly progressed from barbarism to civilization'; 'the quality of excellence in thought and manners and taste'; 'a man of ...
As Elias considers that civilization is everything is which the society is superior to the earlier and more primitive societies, it is important to understand whether the term civilization is of value for Norbert Elias, or does Norbert Elias uses the term civilization in order to denote the concept that other people may value. At the same time, according to Freud, civilization is an antithesis to freedom. He considers that civilization is, to a certain extent, synonymous to culture and embraces all those achievements, norms, and societal rules, which allow human beings to be different from their forefathers. Civilization, as Freud considers, serves two major aims, – to protect people from nature and to regulate their mutual relations. Civilization, therefore, is comprised of all possible means and methods used by the mankind to protect itself from threats, resulting from the source of sufferings. Freud was convinced that civilization is characterized by maintaining control over the nature, by recognition of the value of the purity, order, respect, and adoption of intellectual, scientific and creative achievements.
Civilization was also associated with the urge to substitute individual power by the power of society. At the same time, according to Sigmund Freud, civilization imposed all-embracing limitations on satisfaction of the individuals desires and drives, innate to the egoistic human nature. Freud also considered that human conflicts were caused predominantly by the contradiction between the individuals needs and the societys (or groups) needs. Therefore, origins of the civilization are associated with the emergence of two major factors – love (sexual desire, etc), and the necessity, urging individuals to create societies and communities, which were more viable in contrast to the separate individual. Norbert Elias criticizes philosophers as, according to him, most of them try to hide value-judgments within the supposedly value-neutral words and concepts. In contrast to all of them, Norbert Elias focuses attention on the idea that more or less developed civilization does not necessarily mean that the civilization is ‘better or worse’ in a normative meaning of this word (Elias, 1994).
The Term Paper on Freud And Happiness
Born in 1856 in a small European town, Sigmund Freud would grow to be one of the most important thinkers in recorded history. From a young age, he attempted to understand the human mind and explain its tendencies. In doing so, he successfully managed to make countless enemies and critics. His ideas in response to the puzzles of human existence often conflicted with those of his audience, and I am ...
Unlike Sigmund Freud, Norbert Elias uses the words primitive, civilized, savage, and others in ironic quotation marks, and uses them mostly for descriptive purposes. And while reading his book the reader understands that Norbert Elias use of the term detachment is not value-neutral, it appears that the author examines the concept of civilization through the prism of rationality. This assumption is partially supported by the notion that Norbert Elias treats civilization as some sort of specific social practice, which is rather to be observed that to attach it a metaphysical value. However, it should be also taken into consideration that in the same book Norbert Elias makes an assumption that when the freedom and human beings happiness, to the extent the author understands and conceives these concepts) are achieved, “then and only then can humans say of themselves with some justice that they *are* civilized. Until then they are best in the process of becoming civilized. (Elias, 1994) As Norbert Elias speaks about civilization, he considers that the progress in civilization is a temporary concept, and in the future our modern civilization will be treated as late barbarians (Elias, 1994).
However, the most important thing in Elias work related to civilization was that the author managed to combine the concepts embracing technical progress, such as modernization, industrialization, etc, and the progress of human behavior. The author continues then that civilization, according to him, embraces all technicalities of the human beings’ lifestyle, however, there had occured a change of psyche and behavior in the same process, and a calming down, or pacificationn of the human beings’ aggressive drives, as an important precondition for industry and trade (Elias, 1994).
In conclusion it may be said that Freud considered that civilization was synonymous to the repression of desire and feelings, including sexual desire. Norbert Elias, although his understanding of civilization was more specific, to a certain extent supported Freud’s standpoint and considered that civilization or modernization curtailed the expression of shame and anger. However, in contrast to Sigmund Freud, Norbert Elias in his The Civilizing Process had a different viewpoint on the expression of sexual desire, because he adhered to the position that the suppression of shame increases sexual expression. Norbert Eliass thesis was somewhat different from that of Freud, as he spoke only about the change in the type of emotion, and was focused on guilt rather on shame. The Civilizing Process also suggests that the curtailment of the human beings expression of shame will inevitably result in violence.
The Essay on Mindless Humans
Humans have been socially networked with each other since the time they have been created. Civilization was fashioned by humans interacting with one another. With this interaction with others and communal peers, social man is a somnambulist (Asch 61). In other terms, when humans become social, they are really sleep walking, or following the crowd, even though belief in the western world has it ...
However, unlike Sigmund Freuds reasoning, Norbert Eliass ideas were not so convincing, as they were outlined in a broad terms, while the ideas of Sigmund Freud were more substantial and more detailed. The strongest argument that was advanced by Norbert Elias, was related to the curtailment in the expression of shame, however, Elias himself recognized that his analysis was rather suggestive, as his reasoning is not systematic. References Elias, N. (1994).
The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Freud, S. (1930).
Civilization and its Discontents. London: Hogarth Press..
