Civilization

The Enlightenment's word for humanity's shared achievements, claimed as universal; Shore stresses that in practice it meant a European, even Parisian, standard. Freud's Kultur is translated the same way.

The 3 claims that turn on it

In lecture order, as Marci Shore presents each view. The time opens that minute of the lecture on YouTube.

Lecture 2The Heritage of the Enlightenment

ShoreL2 · 3:57Core idea

The Enlightenment's talk of universal civilization, Shore observes, often shrinks on inspection to one Parisian café standing in for Paris, France, Europe and the world: universalism with a hypocritical streak.

Put simply Shore: when Enlightenment thinkers spoke of a civilization for all humanity, they often meant one Paris café, standing in for Paris, France, Europe and the world. Their claim to speak for everyone had a hypocritical streak.

Lecture 9Freudian Psychoanalysis

FreudL9 · 42:17Core idea

Civilization is bought with repression of both drives: to live together people must curb sex and aggression alike, which is why society and individual fulfillment pull against each other.

Put simply Freud: civilization is paid for by holding back both our basic drives. To live together, people must curb sex and aggression alike, which is why society and personal fulfillment pull against each other.

FreudL9 · 45:07

Civilization, Freud writes, is largely "constantly created anew": every individual entering society must in turn give up instinctual satisfaction for the community's sake.

Put simply Freud: civilization is rebuilt in every generation, because each new person joining society must give up some satisfaction of their drives for the good of the community.

How these claims connect

Links from these claims to others in the course. Each shows the earlier claim, then the later one that answers it. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.

Freud builds on Freud

FreudThe id is desire itself, unconscious, divided into two hardwired drives Freud posits like geometric axioms rather than proves: Eros, toward love and pleasure; Thanatos, toward aggression and death. L9 · 32:50

FreudCivilization is bought with repression of both drives: to live together people must curb sex and aggression alike, which is why society and individual fulfillment pull against each other. L9 · 42:17

Society must repress both drives, Eros and Thanatos, to keep people living together.

Freud builds on Freud

FreudHuman aggression is a standing threat to any society, so living together means constantly suppressing it; the hostility we cannot aim at others gets turned back on ourselves. L9 · 43:03

Repressed aggression is the specific price of leaving the state of nature.

Freud builds on Freud

FreudSociety trades happiness, not just Hobbes's liberty, for security: the pleasure principle, what the id craves, cannot be squared with the reality principle people need in order to coexist. L9 · 44:32

Restates renunciation as pleasure principle versus reality principle, with happiness traded for security.

Marcuse disputes Freud

MarcuseWhere Freud saw repression as the unavoidable cost of living together, Marcuse sees an exit: the repression that matters is capitalism's, and its hold on the body might be undermined. L14 · 40:22

Civilization's repression is not permanent: capitalism's specific repression can be overcome

Girard builds on Freud

GirardFor Girard, the founding moment of civilization is a collective murder: the group experiences "a supremely evil and then beneficent being," and that experience cannot help gripping it. L20 · 39:03

Civilization rests on violence: for Girard an actual founding murder, for Freud repressed aggression.

Related terms

Terms that appear in the same claims.

Verdrängung

repressionPushing disturbing desires and memories out of awareness into the unconscious, where they persist; for Freud it underlies neurosis and, on a larger scale, civilization.

Ἔρως / Θάνατος

Eros and ThanatosFreud's two basic classes of drive: Eros, the life drive of sex and love, and the death drive, a pull toward the inorganic that shows as aggression when turned outward. In the lecture, Thanatos is aggression and killing.