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all humans got together creating what we could call culture, each culture has its own way of living, people

that are more alike, are connected and so different civilizations are created, each one with its own rules and

traditions. Those individuals that get together are in a constant relationship between them, but even though

those people will be closer to each other they are still different and so they have to change some of their

interests, they have to give up certain aspects of their own ego interests to join with other people in creating

these social institutions. The creation of this institutions has dangers on it, because if you establish a society,

you have to establish rules and limits, you have to had a way to control the people that belongs to that

community, and this is what the superego does in ourselves, in a way, the civilization is a big superego that

rules all people as a community, and also each person will have his own superego as well.

When we are born in the civilization we have, happiness is everybody's goal, if you ask someone what do you

want from life? almost everyone will tell you: Happiness, of course they will have different views of what is

happiness, and also different ways to achieve it, but all people share the same goal, happiness. So this is a

clear example of Freudian ideas in our society, what Freud pointed out in his text, is still found nowadays, the

seek of happiness is and will be our final goal. Men's purpose and intention of their lives is the pursuit of

happiness. What we usually say we need to achieve happiness is love, but Freud says that this socalled love

is the search of pleasure, we seek someone that represents our ideals, our egoideal and the superego is

represented in the text as the internalised prohibitions of the parents, all kind of authority figures and so, we

repress our instincts, our animal instincts that the superego tells us to hide, Freud often makes references to

repression as being the main vehicle of society, humans are not animals, and so, we do not have to behave asanimals, we have to look beyond.

As the community grows, people become more dependent on each other, wanting to be loved, trying to avoid

pain and seeking pleasure. In order to achieve all this we unconsciously change our desires, and we place our

true desires at a very low level. This is done by a process of sublimation, or convincing ourselves that our

desires are other than they really are.

In society, it is necessary to have metaphysical constructions for two reasons: first, to bind people together

and keep them harmonious within the society, and secondly, to achieve a greater degree of happiness in a

situation where instincts are repressed. We can take a look at the superego as this is the creator of the

strongest (and unconscious) moral codes, we are our worst banners, the superego is our greatest banner, the

superego, by repressing of our instincts, creates a need of sublimation, the superego is a sense of guilt, as

Freud himself says. This sense of guilt is the one that stops us from going ahead with our instincts that will be

wrong seen by society, in a way, the superego regulates what is right and what is wrong, what we should do

and what we should not do.

Some people use creative activities such as art, music, painting, etc, in order to substitute their frustrated

desires that the superego prohibits. This kind of activities are supposed to take away that sense of guilt, and

it is in part, a way to avoid pain and suffer, if we do not feel guilty, we do not have to be punished. More over,

this intellectual activities are better valued by society than the instinctual ones, that are banned.

Freud establishes an opposition between egoinstincts and objectinstincts, he puts into question the validity

of this opposition by pointing put that both instincts flow from the ego, our necessities related to external

objects are a function of our own desires.

It seems like Freud is in favour of society because he says that civilization is the perfect example of the

conflict between Eros and Thanatos, society tries to use the Eros to save all human species, always avoiding

our aggressive, animal and primary instincts. But Freud knows that all those instincts are natural and should

be allowed, and never repressed in order to achieve the total happiness.

Freud also talks about religion in his text, he describes it as delusional and infantile. He attacks religion by

saying that the purpose of human life is not redemption in an afterlife, but the achievement of happiness,

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Freud totally rejects the practice and institution of organized religion.

Freud ends up his work with a question, he does not arrive to a conclusion, he leaves the book open, he wants

the reader to think about what he/she have just read, and he does not want to create or impose his opinion, he

wants the readers to realise by themselves what the truth is within society, and all the rules that govern us

without knowing it, and maybe Freud is waiting as well for a reaction after reading the text, get the people

involved in what is going on in civilization, to stop repressing our desires.

Civilization and its Discontents is the most philosophical of Freud's works. He combines many of his previousideas to produce a commentary on civilization and life in general. Freud offers an overview of life based on

his extensive psychoanalytic findings, in his text, Freud makes an analysis of society, of the different ways of

behaving and the internal rules that all people has. Freud has in a way an internal debate, he has to know how

far psychoanalysis is to go. On one hand, Freud's interests resides on removing the oppressive influence of the

superego and so absolve people from that sense of guilt. It starts with assuming that everything in our mental

life is determined, and does not pass moral judgement. This conflict between the individual's deepest instincts

and the structures of any social system of civilization that we have to face, will never be totally resolved.

Civilization will attempt to oppress the individual into its needs and the individual will never have full

happiness because of this. Some will have much more unhappiness than others, but civilization is by its

fundamental nature incompatible at some levels with the individuals needs. As we have seen, Freud wants to

address philosophical and existential problems, the book sounds like a work of philosophy. He discusses suchissues as religion, aesthetics, ethics, the purpose of life, civilization versus a state of nature, and problems with

civilization. Sigmund Freud produced a phenomenal book in his look at the relationship between the

individual and the society.

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