I liked the beginning of this book, but when he got into a longwinded discussion of guilt at the end he lost both my interest and my support. He started making a lot more hypothetical assertions because he was discussing such an illogical/unstructured subject. Overall the book was interesting but confusing, and I'm not sure he really proved or showed much that I couldn't already infer from day to day life. ( )

Some Interesting bits

I can see where the ideas come from as they appear to continue to be true today. This, i think disproves the theory in itself as promiscuity has greatly increased but the issues discussed still exist if not more so and are more prevalent in those who are more promiscuous. ( )

Freud loved civilization; and he was also ambivalent about it. Freud is moderately interesting in that he was both influenced by and part of, the thoughts of the men (women?) of his own time and immediately before, and a big influence on subsequent decades, as well as a ‘unique’ take on relevant human questions.

Anyway, this seems to be basically Freud’s book about happiness. ‘Interpretation of Dreams’ was sorta okay—it’s a great topic—although I feel like he tried way too hard, you know. (His favorite book!) In this book he kinda keeps it simpler—happiness; barriers to happiness—and in Freud’s world, when he simplifies himself, he kinda barely brushes the top of the hills, instead of floating in the path of the spy planes, you know.

…. Freud’s occasional weirdo-sexism won’t surprise the students of reputation, but more central to his point is that there is more to civilization than just-academics-and-nothing-but-the-academics; the-isolated-man-and-nothing-but-the-isolated-man, you know.

…. I’m sure that what Siggy writes can be interpreted in different ways, but I don’t think I’m as positive, or sanguine, about hostility as he is, and I don’t think that people need to earn love. I don’t know; love isn’t marriage, but people shouldn’t have to earn love. Although he is quite brave to state as his belief what most people usually believe, when most people usually by no means consider their own beliefs to be correct, you know—their real beliefs. And it’s true that Christian and communist (etc.) love in general has been based on the exclusion of the other. So there are some things he’s right about, I guess, although he is both very common, and rather weird.

…. I don’t think that Freud was trivial, the way that we want to believe; Eckhart Tolle dismissed him in about a sentence, you know. “He didn’t talk about meditation, so screw him.” Freud wasn’t completely deluded, or completely without aid for humanity, really: you could at least stop blaming yourself, attacking yourself, taking it out on yourself—that only increases the total amount of aggression, in the end…. Sometimes the religion of Freud’s day took dying on a cross of one’s own construction to be almost the goal of the human project, but….

…. So it’s basically about happiness, although other related topics are brought in, such as guilt, social structures, and parental relations (mostly that of the father as family law-giver vs resentful children, basically).

…. “(The cultural super-ego) issues a command and does not ask whether it is possible for people to obey it.”

This is true I think of the Jewish and I guess the Catholic god. The Calvinist one IMO issues a command while asserting that it cannot be obeyed, you know. 🤓🤪😠

…. I guess properly it is about the ~barriers~ to happiness, of course.

(Calvinist) Yes, this is the law. It’s a good law. No, you are constitutionally and inherently unable to obey it. This law will find you guilty; it will make you unhappy. What’s wrong with that? 😠
(Freud) (does crazy/loony tunes gestures behind his back)

For a short book, it was a challenge to read. Freud (like many German authors) enjoyed very long, complicated sentences. Nevertheless, a rather pessimistic view of man's gradual civilization. ( )

Freud's a divisive author, no doubt about it. So often he'll create a reaction in people (particularly men) when they learn that he posits that all men want to sleep with their mothers. As wild and possibly misplaced as his fixation on the Oedipus Complex is, Freud tends to gesture successfully at truths in the human condition. He won't lead us to concrete proof, but neither does he claim to. "There is something going on here" he'll say in wonderfully worded prose. His ideas on the dual nature of humanity being tied between Eros and Thanatos may not be dead-on but he gives us the material through which to investigate drives of pleasure and aggression more fully. As a foundational work in today's modern thinking and, with Russia's current aggression in the world, I've got to give this one a 5/5. ( )