Civilization and Its Discontents: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Freud begins this chapter by attempting to isolate the causes of human suffering: “the superior power of nature,” “the feebleness of our own bodies,” and the relationships of human beings “in the family, the state, and society.” Freud believes that the first two are inevitable consequences of being alive. Nature will always be powerful, and the body always weak by comparison. But Freud wonders whether the third, human relationships, is a necessary cause of suffering. Freud wonders if maybe humans would be better off—would suffer less—by “abandoning” civilization and returning to a “primitive” state.

Freud notes that, in the age of colonial discovery (beginning in the 17th century), modern Europeans looked at “primitive” peoples in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world as being intrinsically happier, “closer” to nature, and therefore untainted by the suffering of civilization. Freud counters, however, that these ideas about non-European life were often predicated on faulty assumptions of happiness (for example, most Europeans could not speak the languages of the “natives”). Freud also notes that, for every technological advance in human society (like the railway), there might be said to be a complementary problem. For example, there is the fact that railways enabled diseases to spread more rapidly among populations.

Freud concludes his discussion of happiness by arguing that, because “happiness” itself is a subjective category, one depending on the whims and nature of the person using the word, a researcher cannot know for certain which ages were “happier” than others—whether, for example man was happiest in medieval times, or in the 16th century, or at the present day. Freud leaves off the subject of happiness and turns to an attempt to define civilization, which, he believes, can be more objectively understood than “happiness” itself.

Freud defines civilization as “the whole sum of the achievements and the regulations which distinguish our lives from those of our animal ancestors and which serve two purposes . . . to protect men against nature and to adjust their mutual relations.” Protection against nature is, for Freud, easy to understand. “Motors” and other industrial machines have allowed humans to built habitations and cities, and to tame natural forces (with dams, roads, and walls) when necessary. Freud notes that humans have become so effective at controlling their environment that they have begun to marshal the forces of nature the way that God might have. Humans have, in essence, made themselves gods, at least regarding things like managing floods, preventing fires, and navigating the globe.

But the second prong of civilization—relationships between humans—is governed by more subtle forces. Freud notes that another aspect of culture becomes important where human relations are concerned, and that aspect is beauty—something totally “unnecessary” in the utilitarian sense (for beauty builds nothing and protects no one)—but nevertheless a value highly prized by all developed civilizations. Freud believes that cleanliness and order are related to beauty, and are also organizational principles of human civilizations. Beauty is, in other words, something that distinguishes advanced civilizations from “undeveloped” peoples.

Freud goes on, saying that civilizations, in their desire for beauty and order and cleanliness, naturally move on to “higher” spheres of intellectual concern once these more basic aspects of human organization are achieved. For Freud, the “higher spheres” are religious thought, philosophy, mathematical speculation, and other forms of abstract reasoning.

There are political implications for civilized societies, too—namely, the idea that, as civilization develops, so too develops an idea of collective, or communal, interest over the interest of individuals. Civilizations are therefore tasked with a central problem: maintaining the balance of individual liberty and freedom (and Freud notes that freedom was greatest before civilization, when humans simply did as they pleased, but without communal protections) while also allowing for and protecting the interests of the group as a whole.

Freud makes a final, and very important, point in the chapter: namely, that the development of civilizations mirrors the development of individuals. In childhood, instincts are “sublimated,” or rerouted, from the baser ones (involving sex and excretion, primarily) to more elevated ones—for example, abstract reasoning, love, and a relationship toward one’s desires and toward death. In civilizations, too, one finds this process. Earlier civilizations manage instinctual desires, and more advanced civilizations sublimate these desires (revenge, violence, greed, sexual libertinism) into more socially-acceptable and community-minded outcomes, like justice, peace, generosity, and sexual restraint.

Freud admits that, although individuals develop like civilizations, the correspondence between the two categories may not necessarily be exact. Thus Freud will attempt, in the ensuing chapter, to determine how exactly civilizations originate and progress, and through what stages they advance.