FREUD’S NEW BOOK

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 974, 17 May 1930, Page 32

FREUD’S NEW BOOK

THE “I” AND THE “SUPER-I” RELIGION AND HAPPINESS “The International Psycho-Analyti-cal Verlag” of Vienna has published Professor Sigmund Freud’s new book, “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur.” In his previous work he dealt with religion, which he again touches on here in the first chapter. To Freud religion seems to spring from the childlike helplessness of the human being and its fear of the power of fate. Life is too difficult; its numberless problems cannot be solved. The chief palliatives used by us to make it bearable are work, art and intoxicants. We aim at happiness, and try to avoid pain. Freud argues against religion as the universal way to happiness. It promises too much, he says. When misfortune comes, religion offers nothing but unconditional surrender.

The three sources of our sufferings, he goes on, are our physical frailties, the superior power of nature, and the inadequacy of the institutions which regulate our relations. Culture has failed ud. Man has become a kind of “Prothesengott” a god with artificial limbs), but still does not feel happy. Man, according to Freud, is “homo homini lupus.” Civilisation attempts to limit this natural aggressiveness, but with limited success. Even in a Communistic society man would feel unhappy, owing to the aggressive tendency of human nature. On the other hand, he points out, aggressiveness leads to conscience, to the “Super-I,” which represents the ethical demands of man against the aggressiveness of the selfish “I,” which finds satisfaction in using other human beings for its own purposes. Out of the difference between the “SuperI” and the "I” arises the feeling of guilt, which Freud calls the most important problem of the development of culture.

The great problem of the future is: Will man be able to conquer the ever more threatening desires of aggression and self-annihilation? Mankind today is looking into the abyss, and awaits immortal Eros, in whom Freud sees the Saviour of the human species. The struggle between Eros and the desire for death are the chief contents of life, and the essence of the development of human culture.