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Civilization and Discontents


            In the book "Civilization and its Discontents"," Sigmund Freud tries to compare and differentiate the psychoanalysis to other accepted scientific disciplines. But first of all we should establish the key point of the text. The main idea of "Civilization and its Discontents " is that human beings are divided in to three parts: super-ego, ego, and the Id. These three parts are in a constant fight to rule us as human beings, but we should get the three terms in sync in order to live in stability. .
             The super-ego, represents our conscience, telling us what's right from wrong that have been embedded in our minds we were kids. It is the voice of the aspect of our psyche that is looked as the mental cop that policies our thoughts and behaviors. The super-ego controls the actions of the ego in the form of a "conscience" and consequently imposes a sense of guilt and need for self-punishment on the individual (126). Guilt is the super-ego's calling our attention to our own failure. Of all three terms, the super-ego has the most aggressive and strictest role in our psyche, and it is the self. The "super-ego", according to Freud, is both individual and collective. The ego, however, represent yourself as a person, our decisions, and our capacity as a rational persona with our own logic and decisions. It describes the face we present to the world, our civilized identity. It is not a scornful term, it is an observational term. The Id represent our lowest instincts, our primary desires, dissatisfaction of hunger, rest, love, and all primary needs of a human being. In the Id there is Thanatos and Eros (165). The ego, wants to get rid of the super-ego that always wants to establish its authority. It wants to eliminate the instincts that the ego considers primary, low, and make the ego do things that as a rational being will not necessarily do. This is what causes displeasure, we do not do the Id's desires because the ego will counteract certain thoughts or actions, thus we do not do ego's desires because the super-ego will then stop us from taking action or considerations from the ego.


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