Civilization - A Definition By Freud

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What is civilization? (Freud-Style) According to Freud and his interpretation of what "Civilization" is written and documented in the novel, "Civilization and its Discontents," he states that the word "civilization" describes the whole sum of achievements and regulations that distinguish our lives from those of our animal ancestors. It also serves two purposes - to protect men against nature and to adjust their mutual relationships. For a civilization to survive and prosper it needs laws, customs, justice, evolution, a renunciation of instinct(s), love, the desire to bring people together and the wanting of sexual freedom.

Civilization in essence is a means to regulate and understand such relationships. If such an attempt was not made, the relationship would be subject to the arbitrary will of the individual: that is to say the physically strong man would make decisions based upon his own interests and instinctual impulses. Instead of such barbarous systems for making decisions, a majority will often unite and over take such a monarch.

This power in numbers is often labeled as "Brute Force" and occurs when a single leader or dictator is no longer wanted. Development of civilization is simply a peculiar process which man undertakes in which many things strike us as familiar and almost instinctual.

To learn more about civilizations we establish communities and other support services to promote higher learning. Civilization is thus divided into stages, the first of which is men makings the earth useful to them by creating tools, mastering the use of fire and constructing dwellings. When the organization of civilization was first being undertaken, each new innovation opened up a new path for its respective culture. Culture being a word used almost synonymously with the word civilization. With every new tool man created it was solely for the betterment of...