The Freudian Revolution

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• Like Marx, a determinist

• People determined by their instincts

– Life instinct: sex (libido)
– Death instinct: aggression, self-destruction
 Freud: the Psyche
• Id: the raw instincts

• Ego: the manager of the id that sublimates

the instincts

• Superego: the “conscience” that manages

the ego according to social standards and
morality
 Sublimation vs. Repression
• Sublimation=positive redirection/
modification of instincts

• Repression: When an instinct is not

sublimated but frustrated. The instinct does
not go away but takes the form of a neurotic
symptom
 Civilization and its Discontents
(1930)
• Causes of suffering
– Body
– External world
– Relations with others
 Freud: methods to avoid
suffering:
• Voluntary isolation
• Human community
• Intoxication
• Displacements of libido (sublimation)
• Delusion: alternative reality
• Mass delusion=religion
 Freud: Why does civilization
bring discontent?
• Civilization is the result of human’s
sublimating their instincts
• However, civilization demands too much:
civilization can repress people and make
them neurotic
• Civilization 1) makes people discontented;
2) is fighting a losing battle against
aggression
 Freud & the arts
• Liberate the unconscious mind—an escape f
rom “civilization”
• Stream of consciousness (literature)
– Proust, Joyce, Faulkner
• Surrealism (literature & visual arts)
– Kafka
– Miro, Klee, Dali, Kahlo, Magritte
 Carl Jung (1875-1961)
• Collective unconscious
– Not personal, but shared by human beings in ge
neral
– Encoded as archetypes: basic images, plot patte
rns, or character types reflecting the deep psych
ological needs of human beings, found in folklo
re, religious texts, & literature
• E.g., the child god, the hero, the wise old man (See
Fiero 846)