Civilization and Its Discontents

I think I understood 80% of the book, but I would need to read other works by the author to understand all the concepts.

because we are forced to fight against our own nature in order to live in community.

for example: sexuality. In society, "homosexual impulses" have to be repressed and the purpose of sex is reproduction, not pleasure (of course, a lot has changed today)

the permitted love is "heterosexual genital love", which is nevertheless repressed by legitimacy and monogamy.

Freud also says that there is a "clash of giants" within us: Eros (love, the father of civilization) and the death/aggression/destruction instinct.

Eros created culture because it unites us, brings cohesion, makes us evolve and reproduce. The death instinct is its main adversary.

This struggle is the cause of the malaise in culture, as we have to restrain ourselves from living these impulses.

Freud also addresses the issue of religion.

Do you know that feeling of infinite love that we feel in church (or in the religious temple you attend)?

It is the sensation of eternity or "oceanic feeling" that exists in every human being and forms the basis of religiosity.

This "oceanic feeling" was experienced by us when we were babies and did not know how to separate the self from the rest of the world.

Regarding happiness, Freud says that the purpose of life is to want to be happy. Absence of pain and displeasure + more intense feelings of pleasure.

Unhappiness threatens us through the finiteness of life and the decay of our body, anguish and relationships with other people.

Now here’s a part I LOVED:

When he explains about the “narcissism of small differences”

he uses this to explain why communists believed they had found the path to redemption from evil. The enemy is the bourgeoisie, the evil is private property.

“the narcissism of small differences” found psychological support in the persecution of the bourgeoisie in Russia.