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Discussing Civilization and its Discontents (1930).
This is a 32-minute preview of our vintage 2 hr, 5-minute episode which you can buy at partiallyexaminedlife.com/store or get for free with PEL Citizenship (see partiallyexaminedlife.com/membership). You can also purchase the full episode in the iTunes Store: Search for "Partially Examined Freud" and look under "Albums."
What's the meaning of life? Well, for Sigmund Freud, an objective purpose rises or falls with religion, which he thinks a matter of clinging to illusion, so to rephrase: what do we want out of life? To be happy, of course, yet he sees happiness as a matter of fulfillment of pent-up desires, meaning it's by its nature temporary. Yet we can't shake off its pursuit, and so we're in a bind, and have a number of strategies for obtaining some satisfaction: some compensation for what we have to repress in order to live in a society that forces us to repress our innate desires.
Read the book online or purchase it.
End song: "The Easy Thing" by New People from The Easy Thing (2009).
burl says
September 26, 2010 at 5:36 pmI thought you guys did a really pro job. I was a big fan of Jung in the past, but I am seeing a Darwinian-related vitality of Froid (sic?). The transition from human perceptual scent to vision was very, very interesting – because of my interest in the connectivity/flow of dog to human cognition. There is way more to Temple Grandin than society has given her homage – she needs to be brought into some bigger cognitive research community.
Joy says
October 7, 2010 at 1:22 amJust caught this podcast today, and thought you guys might want to check out the correspondence between Freud and Albert Einstein that took place right after the publication of ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’ (if you’re not familiar with it already, that is). It’s fascinating. Einstein wanted to create an association of intellectuals-as a corollary to the League of Nations- to be tasked with figuring out how to morality-bomb humanity and so put an end to war. He wrote Freud, he said, since Freud was a smart guy and knew how people worked, and asked him whether such a thing (the end of war) might be feasible. Freud responded unoptimistically. The letters were published in 1933 with the title ‘Why War?’.
Here’s a Scribd link to the letters:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11945246/EinsteinFreud-Correspondence-Notes
Good stuff…keep it up.
Seth Paskin says
October 7, 2010 at 8:14 amThanks Joy. Very cool. We’re busy editing the Buddhism episode and prepping for Goodman, but I’ll try and find some time soon to check it out.
–seth
Mike S. says
October 24, 2010 at 5:11 pmJust wading through this now.
First off, i thought the “Zorgon the Great” joke worked. Worked awesomely. And secondly, the cocaine reference would of been a lot funnier if it was left unexplained.
I wonder what Freud would think about the advancement and coming advancements of sexual technology.
For example, the internet allows much more ease of access to porn with providing much greater anonymity. Which in a sense, alleviates much sexual frustration i imagine? (people can look at more stuff when they want and more intense stuff that society would generally condemn)
Furthermore, i wonder what impact Freud would posit robotics would have. Most, if not all, futurists/people in the field of robotics…..expect that in the very near future, sex robots will be available and accsessible for everyone.
As the technology advances, those robots will become more and more realistic, to eventually being physically indistinguishable from real human beings.
I imagine, that in certain countries atleast……when that happens, there will be very little societal intervention or inhibiting of sexual actions with these robots.
Things like pedophilia or rape or whatever else, will be easier to act out with these robots. Which i imagine, would be much more fulfilling to the underlying needs that demand such actions.
So yeah, basically i wonder if Freud would think that sex robots would be like the greatest advancment in human history. lol
I like Freud’s theory about religion being a type of regression. Except, that i’d disagree that it’s necessarily a regression. I would classify it more as a movement.
It kind of reminds me of the baby argument i was making in an earlier post……i agree with Freud’s premise that the ego divides the internal from the external and that leads to all sorts of issues. I especially like Wes’ analogy of the baby longing for the breast, (who can’t relate to that lol) and the development of the divide, seperating him from that stimuli. (suddenly seeing it as coming and going beyond his control).
It certainly makes sense, that that would lead to a development of or pursuit of many avenues for i guess, emotional pacification or alleviation or whatever. Same would be true, for science or the pursuit of any kind of knowledge at all. Which, i learned he also mentions. yay!
I like Seth’s mentioning of Freud’s take, that the search for the meaning of life is pretty much equivalent to the search for the meaning of religion or god. Which is just a substitute for satisfaction or whatever the term was.
Certainly the Spinoza/Freud and I’d certainly say Nagarjuna connection is quite evident.
As for the point about the principle of justice being the first order of civilization…..that clearly seems like a reach. Civilization began long before Freud’s idea of justice. Unless he’s being qutie literal about what constitutes civilization.
– •a society in an advanced state of social development (e.g., with complex legal and political and religious organizations); “the people slowly progressed from barbarism to civilization
By that definition, or any definition close to it….what he’s saying could make sense.
Anyways, the main thing i would like to point out about Freud that isn’t at all exclusive to Freud……is that all these theories that are advanced, are based on a generality of what constitutes the human experience.
With Freud in particular, his whole theory falls apart in a sense, when confronted with Asexuals. Or say with Spinoza, sociopaths and people with conduct disorder.
I think, also, Seth’s point about people with Autism is quite relevant, because all these understandings, seem to revolve on a collective agreement on what’s normal or legitimate.
Like he seems to be saying, that this is what is, and anything that deviates, is because of some failure.
Which to me, makes his philosophy/observations somewhat limited.
To me, i get the sense that Freud’s theories, though seemingly sound for the most part when talking about the average human being…..fail in particular cases, whether atypical (psychos etc.) or hypothetical.
In my mind, it’s a little like the argument for god because of the seeming perfection of the universe. The argument being, that the universe is so perfect with all its laws of nature and the order which in occurs etc. etc…….whereas, that argument falls apart when you bring up the existence (and most modern cosmologists agree) of other universes. Possibly countless universes, that could have occured differently. i.e. universes that we can’t exist in, to ask such questions because they’ve collapsed back in on themselves because the law of gravity there was different.
That Genghis Khan reference was AWesome.
I guess my point is, a lot of these philosophies or ideas, seem to exist in a limited idea of reality. Human beings are all this way, therefore. Or, the world is all this way, and therefore, or God is this way and therefore………or, the universe is this way, and therefore……..
And atleast in my mind, much like Gaileo’s discovering that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around…..really put a kind in a lot of theology of the time………it seems to me much or atleast a large chunk of a lot of these theories just get wiped away with a broader view of reality.
Not that i’m saying Freud isn’t impressive. Which he clearly is…..but it just sort of seems that our understanding of the world has advanced so much since the times in which most of these people lived…….that most of their observations just seem implied.
Are there any more easily accesible (on the net) modern philosophers you would recommend?
Mike S. says
October 24, 2010 at 5:30 pmAs for Seth’s point at the end, about most if not all of these philosophers feeling constrained by society…… i think, part of that comes from feeling intellectually constrained.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems to me that you can’t have conversations like this in regular society. And i can’t imagine that’s at all a new thing.
Maybe it’s just my part of the world…..but if i went to the bar or to the dog park or to a party…i really doubt that more than 1 out of 10 people in any of those places would be receptive or capable of indulging me.
Factoring just that fact in, with all the other many many various reasons why social interaction tends to be tumultous….even relationships with the 1/10….tend to fail.
And again, given the ages these people lived in….(filled with superstition) i can imagine they must of felt very isolated by their intellect. And very constrained by pointless convention.
Kyle says
December 29, 2011 at 12:50 amThere has been all too many good quotes regarding this sentiment. Re: How about that weather? “All forced conversation, is bad conversation” –Cioran. Re: being fearful of bringing up a conversation of any depth of thought at a social gathering. “Those who think too deeply, think themselves through a party and out the other side” Nietzsche
However the predictable rebuke would be something like; “hey, lighten up”.
Josh Davis says
October 27, 2010 at 10:33 amGreat show guys! I especially enjoyed the parts about the origins of the concept of God and the origins/nature of society. I was reminded of another psychoanalyst Julian Jaynes, who seems to take the seemingly extreme view that consciousness itself arose together with society. And, by the way, “I was born so poor that I was taught to view my genitals as a potential money making asset.” Priceless.
Michael Benedikt says
November 30, 2010 at 9:31 amI just spent a wonderful before-dawn two hours listening to you guys on Freud. Your best podcast so far IMHO. Deep, wide- ranging, serious, funny, tied in to other philosophers and podcasts…and it clearly meant a lot to each of you. Is Freud due for rehabilitation? Just mix with modern neuroscience? (Google “Mark Solms”). Mark: the “The Easy Thing” nice song: also sounds great at 2X speed (on my iPhone). Give it a try.
Wes Alwan says
December 13, 2010 at 12:58 pmThanks Michael — much appreciated! I have read Mark Solms’ “The Brain and the Inner World: An Introduction to the Neuroscience of Subjective Experience,” which is a greater primer on efforts to connect neuroscience to psychoanalytic theory.
Craig says
September 8, 2012 at 3:01 pmIt seems a bit late to comment on this one, but what the heck; my sense is that the psychoanalytic community seems extremely ambivalent about linking psychoanalytic concepts with recent advances in neuroscience and cognitive theory. Related to this I suppose it’s also not really clear whether or not one can smoothly reduce psychoanalytic concepts to correlative brain functions and processes; didn’t Freud abandon this idea in the 1890’s, and not just because of the immaturity of brain sciences at the time? Jung also said, something to the effect that, psyche is its own reality.
Another way of looking at it might be to say that, at least in the clinical setting, psychoanalytic ideas aim to be evocative as much as they seek to be descriptive; they aim to produce some therapeutic effect or psychic change, as opposed to merely describing how something is. Perhaps they’re always part art and part science, but never simply one or the other. In that sense there is always something creative or metaphorical in psychoanalytic ideas, and this is of course missing from an fMRI.
So maybe I’m saying that whilst its worth trying to connect psychoanalytic ideas and neuroscientific developments, we might also be hessitant about thinking that one can be translated into the other without losing something in the process.
Anyhows, I digress; this was a great episode (which I only recently listened to). I’m definitely keen to hear more irreverent discussion of Freud, Jung or contemporary psychoanalytic ideas.
dmf says
September 8, 2012 at 8:08 pmFreud never gave up on the promise of neuroscience and many if not most of the Freudian organizations have embraced much of the new science of un-conscious processes but some of the more philosophically minded folks share reservations of the kind that you mentioned, after his break with Freud Jung went in a more philosophical, even theological, direction but in ways which always had an aspect of physics, not physical-ism, to his work in central ideas like synchronicity, psychoid, and a genetic basis for archetypes.
German L Mejia says
October 30, 2011 at 3:23 pmWhere is Wes’s summary?
“Read Wes’s summary here.” <— The link is not working.
Thanks,
German
ps
Have you seen "3. Foundations: Freud" (Open Yale Courses)?
Seth Paskin says
October 30, 2011 at 3:40 pmNot sure what’s up, but I can’t find the summary from Wes. Looks like the post disappeared, so I’ve removed the reference. I’ll ask him if/where it is and update again if we can get it sorted out.
–seth
Adam says
March 14, 2012 at 2:07 pmI’m listening through back episodes. This one is one of my favorites, surprisingly. I think because this reading ties in with some of the previous pod-casts quite well.
swallerstein says
May 22, 2012 at 10:43 amHello:
This is a great discussion of Freud, whom I read many years ago. I also have listened to your talks on Buddhism, Spinoza and Nietzsche.
Congratulations on the intelligent conversation and the breadth of your insights. I like the way that you bring so many strands of thought, from
both continental and analytic philosophers, together.
Now, if I may offer a criticism, I find your humor to be distracting. Often I am trying to focus on the philosophy and the humor gets in the way.
There is also a cultural and generational problem with your humor. I live in Chile and am 66 years old and I find your humor to be very much that of your age group and the country that you come from. There is nothing wrong with that of course, but it may put off people from other cultures and from other generations.
In any case, I will continue listening to your postcasts. Thanks for making them available.
Mark Linsenmayer says
May 22, 2012 at 9:58 pmThanks; I appreciate your listening to us and your tolerating the parts you don’t connect to.
I think of it as like having lyrics over music. Music is generally cross-cultural, but once you put someone’s voice saying something, you immediately narrow the audience to people who enjoy the personality expressed through the lyrics, the vocal tone, the singer’s attitude, etc.
The solution, to my mind, is not to just do instrumental music, but to try to make the instrumentals lush enough to be enjoyable even to someone who doesn’t get the vocal personality, and with repeated exposure, maybe the listener will “get” the vocal persona.
Humor for me at least is an essential part of coping with life, not to mention boring texts, and is one of the main reasons that folks not otherwise tolerant of academia enjoy listening to us, so making fewer jokes is just not going to happen, but hopefully they don’t overwhelm the proceedings.
swallerstein says
May 23, 2012 at 10:46 amHello Mark:
I don’t find the philosophy texts boring. Difficult and challenging, but not boring.
At times in your (as a group) humor I sense that you (as a group) are apologizing for the “boring” texts and for your interest in them.
I don’t see any danger that people as intellectually courageous and willing to let your minds go where the discussion leads as you are will fall into the worst sins of academia.
I agree with you that with time I will learn to get to know the vocal personae in the podcast and even to enjoy their humor inspite of not finding it especially funny.
In any case, thanks for your answer and once again, for your podcasts.
swallerstein says
May 23, 2012 at 8:19 pmHello Again Mark,
I clicked on your name and I see that you are a musician.
My son, Sebastian, is one too. He plays what he calls “fusion”.
If you’re interested, here is his My Space page.
Best of luck with your musical projects.
swallerstein says
May 23, 2012 at 8:20 pmhttp://www.myspace.com/proyectotaulis
the link, sorry.
Erik Weissengruber says
February 25, 2016 at 8:43 pmI am trying to find a link to the Bruce Cockburn song “Civilization and Its Discontents.” But not readily available on the web. Get Cockburn’s album The Trouble with Normal on iTunes and give it a listen. I’ve loved it since I was a tiny folkie.
Two forward and one back
Blind fingers groping for the right track
What’s to do when a stab and a pat on the back look like the same thing?
Civilization and its discontents
When all’s been said and all the money spent
Trying to beat the system of the world’s events
Gets you nowhere.