{"id":50475,"date":"2022-03-31T10:07:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T14:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=50475"},"modified":"2022-04-16T14:56:43","modified_gmt":"2022-04-16T18:56:43","slug":"what-would-freud-say-about-current-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2022\/03\/what-would-freud-say-about-current-conditions.html","title":{"rendered":"What Would Freud Say About Current Conditions?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have no idea. But you can’t read the last paragraph of Civilization and Its Discontents<\/em> without believing he had written it only yesterday or without believing he had hope for the future. The fact that the book was written in 1929 does throw his hope into doubt, if intended as prognostication, which \u2014 to be frank \u2014 it was. But it\u2019s still a great read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"You<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

T\u200bhe fateful question of the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent the cultural process developed in it will succeed in mastering the derangements of communal life caused by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction [Thanatos]. In this connection, perhaps the phase through which we are at this moment passing deserves special interest. Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this\u2013hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. And now it may be expected that the other of the two heavenly forces, eternal Eros, will put forth his strength so as to maintain himself alongside of his equally immortal adversary.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have no idea. But you can’t read the last paragraph of “Civilization and Its Discontents” without believing he had written it only yesterday or without believing he had hope for the future. The fact that the book was written in 1929 does throw his hope into doubt, if it was intended as prognostication, which \u2014 to be frank \u2014 it was. But it\u2019s still a great read. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-news","11":"category-political-culture","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/sigmund-freud-640.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-d87","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50475"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50877,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50475\/revisions\/50877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}