Civilization -- Philosophy; Death -- Psychological aspects; Psychoanalysis; Psychoanalysis and culture; War -- Psychological aspects
We have heard that the outer compulsion which education and environment
exercise upon a man brings about a further transformation of his impulse
life for the good, the change from egotism to altruism. But this is not
the necessary or regular effect of the outer compulsion. Education and
environment have not only love premiums to offer but work with profit
premiums of another sort, namely rewards and punishments. They can
therefore bring it about that a person subject to their influence
decides in favor of good conduct in the civilized sense without any
ennobling of impulse or change from egotistic into altruistic
inclinations. On the whole the consequence remains the same; only
special circumstances will reveal whether the one person is always good
because his impulses compel him to be so while another person is good
only in so far as this civilized behavior is of advantage to his selfish
purposes. But our superficial knowledge of the individual gives us no
means of distinguishing the two cases, and we shall certainly be misled
by our optimism into greatly over-estimating the number of people who
have been transformed by civilization.
Civilized society, which demands good conduct and does not bother about
the impulse on which it is based, has thus won over a great many people
to civilized obedience who do not thereby follow their own natures.
Encouraged by this success, society has permitted itself to be misled
into putting the ethical demands as high as possible, thereby forcing
its members to move still further from their emotional dispositions. A
continual emotional suppression is imposed upon them, the strain of
which is indicated by the appearance of the most remarkable reactions
and compensations.
In the field of sexuality, where such suppression is most difficult to
carry out, it results in reactions known as neurotic ailments. In other
fields the pressure of civilization shows no pathological results but
manifests itself in distorted characters and in the constant readiness
of the inhibited impulses to enforce their gratification at any fitting
opportunity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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