Individuals vs. Society

By: Hayley Turner 

The book Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud discusses the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. The discontents stems from an individual’s instinctive want to seek and have pleasure and society’s constant implication of conformity and repression. The book addresses how a society creates laws and norms that make a person’s instincts (such as the instinct to kill or the instinct for sexual gratification) unlawful or rebellious. The fear of arrest or difference makes individuals repress theses instinctual want and thus creates a discontent with the society.  Freud’s theory is based of the fact that every individual has instinctual desires. The desires include sex, violence and aggression.

I understand what Freud is saying because in society I am able to see the discontent of other and I know the discontent I have myself. The discontent of other can be seen on the television when a serial killer is arrested or someone is caught with a prostitute. These individuals, although participating in dangerous acts (according to the law), are trying to fulfill the desires they have that have been repressed by the created laws.  

Although Freud’s theory examines instinctual desire can it also include a person own desire to want something different out of society’s norms? Buy this I mean can an individual have discontent for a civilization because they are unable to dress a certain way, talk a certain way or act a certain way. These desires I don’t view as instinctual but at person preference; so do they fit into Freud’s theory?