Dear Gentle Readers,
Recently Sir Braver came across an excerpt in his literary wanderings that piqued his interest. It was a segment from Sigmund Freud’s “Civilization and Its Discontents.” Given the times we live in, Sir Braver thought that possibly Dr. Freud could explain (and it appeared to be in layman’s terms) why there is so much divisiveness, aggression, and discontent not just in the United States, but apparently globally. So we decided to tackle the reading together.
Knowing that Freud is the father of the id, the ego, and the superego, we anticipated that the reading might be fairly interesting. And, yes, there was an abundance of id, ego, and superego. Although the book is only approximately 60 pages and includes hefty footnotes, the reading was slow-going, just a few pages every night, followed by discussion.
Pictured: Book cover with photo of Sigmund Freud.
According to Freud, much of man’s sexuality (and aggression) emerged when man’s posture changed from four-legged to two-legged, or so I understood. A description of erection followed. Whether he was talking about an erect physical stance or a more specific erection is unclear, since the description of erect ambulation was described primarily as revealing genitalia which previously had been obscured. But, we will move on.
Overall, I learned five things:
1. Genitalia are not pretty.
‘Beauty’ and ‘attraction’ are originally attributes of the sexual object. It is worth remarking that the genitals themselves, the sight of which is always exciting, are nevertheless hardly ever judged to be beautiful; the quality of beauty seems, instead, to attach to certain secondary sexual characters.”
2. All excreta is stinky, except for our own.
“…in spite of all man’s developmental advances, he scarcely finds the smell of his own excreta repulsive, but only that of other people’s.”
3. “We are born between urine and feces.” (I have no comment.)
4. Aggression is a male characteristic. Here I have no specific quote; it is a running theme.
5. Libidinally is my new word, thank you, Dr. Freud. In fact, we can add excreta to the words-to-know list.
My conclusion – Civilization has its discontents, and I am not sold on Freud’s analysis.
Libidinally yours,
As I See It 