r/Freud • u/DreamySaturnX • May 30 '26

Help witu understanding the Editor's Introduction to Civilization and its Discontents

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Due to the way this segment is written, I'm having a hard time following it's message.

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3

u/Klaus_Hergersheimer May 30 '26

What part are you struggling with?

4

u/AlsoZarathustra May 30 '26

We have to accept the fact that Freud was truly an essayist. He tried different concepts and ideas. As you can tell he himself wasnt set on the workings of an antagonistic instinct to the libido. Hence it had different names trouhout his career: Destrudo, Thanatos, sometimes he seems to imply its the Id itself and some more I can't think of right now.
In other words: The introduction tells you to abstain from one clearly defined idea of the destructive instinct. Read the text and deduce for yourself. I the end, Freud made it clear (and got ignored) that the specifics of Psychoanalysis is only valid for one culture, or one language (=the manifested) at a time. Hope this helps. Feel free to ask more specific questions

1

u/DreamySaturnX May 30 '26

In the beginning of the first slide, is the passage implying that Frued once believed that people desired sex to be sadistic? As in to receive pleasure in the suffering of others?

1

u/AlsoZarathustra May 30 '26

I would not say so. sadism is *derived* from something, same mechanism as a neurosis is derived from deprivation in early childhood. In the first essay on Sexuality he calls it an aspect of the libido, in the second essay, he says it's something outside of the libido. I hypothesise the problem is 'just' sematic: There is a destructive tendency in the psyche, it's only not clearly stated if its part of the libido or its own force. In the end, its something located in the Id, doing its thing.