In this first installment of our webblog for 2009, I would like each of you to offer comment on "The Last Wave." You may try to sort it out for yourself as one way of writing about it, although I would like it best if you would comment on the film in light of the dialectic of civilization and savagery we have studied these last several months. Should you like to more about what Peter Weir was trying to get at by way of the film, have a look at the text of an interview conducted with the director in 1979 at:
http://www.peterweircave.com/articles/articlei.html
OK, you have until later this week to get your comments up. I look forward to seeing them.
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16 comments:
One of the things I appreciated the most about the film was Peter Muir’s focus on the positive aspects of Aboriginal society. He deliberately avoids portraying the Aboriginals as technologically primitive, but instead dwells on what the West can learn from Aboriginal culture. I think this is best summarized in Muir’s response to the statement, “It seems that in your film primeval forces are gaining control over a part of the world that was previously considered civilized.” He replies that “It doesn't take any imagination at all to feel awed.”
It’s apparent from the way the interviewer framed the statement that he considers Aboriginal culture and its focus on nature to be something far removed from his own “modern” civilization. In both the interview and his film, Muir reveals how the opposite is true: Australians are surrounded by the landmarks of Aboriginal civilization; with the proper perspective, they can experience firsthand the external forces that shaped the Aboriginals. Muir discusses how the divide between “Australian” (Western) and Aboriginal civilization is largely one of perspective; he characterizes it as a split between the West’s material wealth and the Aboriginal’s spiritual wealth. The two groups approach the environment differently: the West seeks to control external forces while the Aboriginals view them in a religious sense. Muir’s statement that “it doesn’t take any imagination at all to feel awed” reminds us that if we experience Australia’s natural environment without imagination, without our own culture’s interpretive framework, we can understand Aboriginal culture, like their reverence for the land. Yet this can only be achieved by those willing to sacrifice (or at least set aside) their own culture’s beliefs. This is what the protagonist in the Last Wave had to do, it is what enabled him to truly understand Charlie and his people.
In describing his conversations with Gulipilil, Muir points out how Gulipilil would say things like “You see my father and I and that's why because the moon isn't,” things that make no sense within the context of Western culture. Yet Muir learns that, if one is willing to set aside his native preconceptions (“the context of Western culture”), he can gain an understanding and appreciation for other’s culture, a lesson Muir shares in both the film and interview. In short, if man is willing to let himself be awed, he can experience things that (using his own society’s interpretive framework) he couldn’t even imagine.
The Last Wave presents several aspects of the dialectic between civilization and barbarism that we've been looking at with our reading of Civilization and Its Contents. I'll touch on a couple of aspects of the film that seemed to animate thoughts very close to the ones Mazlish deals with.
Not long into the film, Weir begins to reveal how he sees the historical development of civilization as something both drawn from and reenacted in the development of individual person. The differing reactions between the schoolteacher and her children to the thunderstorm and hail illustrate the point. The children dance around gleefully in the storm while the schoolteacher seeks to institute order and justice, herding them inside. (These opposite reactions also occur in the scene where the bathtub is overflowing.) The children show an animalistic, natural urge to play around in nature, and the adults try to cultivate them out of that urge. The adults in The Last Wave have long a lifetime of being indoctrinated into civilization behind them, whereas the children are still young and governed primarily by their immediate emotions. The goal of parenting seems to be to “polish” (Mazlish often uses this term) children into more refined individuals – individuals greater walled off from a barbaric nature.
Weir’s interview revealed how Freudian psychology was central to his portrayal of civilization and barbarity. He (Weir) was quoted as saying “it takes the littlest thing to reveal the chaos underneath. Thus, he too sees civilization as an unstable veil over reality threatening to burst out.
Reality bursts out, of course, in the form of the convergence of the dreamtime and normal time. The dreamtime, for the aboriginals, is the hidden truth behind existence in the human world; humans must obey the reality present in the dreamtime. As the white people continuously raise walls between their culture and nature and instinct, they blockade themselves from the dreamtime – so Weir’s story goes. There is also a human component to this isolation. The whites not only ignore the spiritual truth of the dreamtime, they also grow block themselves off from the indigenous people of Australia (“there are no tribal people in the city…”). This is an equally destructive disconnect: the court situation reveals that communication between whites and aborigines really is not possible. Perhaps this is limited anyway by the exclusive nature of aboriginal tribes, but nonetheless the achievement of a greater separation between whites and their “barbaric” neighbors appears not to have helped them very much in this instance.
The tension between civilization and so-called “savagery” is brought into sharp relief through the characters of the lawyer David Burton and the aboriginal Chris. The characters represent two opposite modes of experiencing and understanding the world: David is an analytical and fact-oriented lawyer, while Chris is a tribal Aboriginal who believes strongly in dream-time and spirituality. As David learns the worth of Chris’s “unconventional” knowledge, he exposes the fallacies of civilization because people have lost the connection to their spiritual side. As a result, “civilized” people fail to see the abnormal weather as an indicator of Armageddon and simply explain it as freaky weather that will eventually pass. Even though David tries to justify the weather similarly, his dreams lead him to Chris and Charlie, who reveal the imminence of the end of the world.
David’s connection to a different, white primitive tribe reveals that the “savage” is present in all people; we all have common roots, but the “civilized” people have just abandoned their past and subsequently forgotten their history. This film serves as a warning that we should not be overconfident in the power of civilization by highlighting the explosive power of nature.
Although the whites strongly believe the Aboriginals living in the city are not tribal, the clannish loyalty amongst the men obviously refutes their statements. The whites refused to acknowledge the ongoing existence of the tribal culture despite the pervasiveness of white culture and their attempts to “civilize” the savage customs of the Aboriginals. However, the tribal system of the Aboriginals is highly organized, the members cannot break the law without deadly repercussions, and the tribe is strongly bonded. The law even recognizes that tribes are allowed to administer justice in whatever way they see fit, which makes the distinction between civilized and savage societies unclear. This correlates to Mazlish when he states that even civilized people can be act uncivilized. It is difficult to sharply classify societies or cultures as “civilized” or “savage” because all possess elements of both.
The Last Wave attempts to show the value in Aboriginal culture and the importance attached to spirituality and a closer connection to nature, and at the same time it exposes white ignorance and prejudice. David’s wife was a 4th generation Australian, yet she had never met a native before Chris came to her house for dinner, showing how the whites isolate themselves. She is scared of Chris because he is so different from her, and her reaction is probably common amongst the majority of middle to upper class white Australians. At first David tries to deny his spirituality, but his recurring dreams force him to consult Chris, so he eventually accepts his spiritual side. However, this process seems impossible for the vast majority of “civilized” people and I am not sure what Weir is trying to suggest with the ending of the film, is civilization just going to suddenly end as a result of our follies? Or will it end regardless and we will just gain a deeper understanding of how and when if we become more spiritual?
The idea I got out of reading the article in light of watching the film is the irreconcilability of the aboriginal way of life with the western way of life. Specifically, you could watch Chamberlain’s character undergo a transformation. The more he came to accept what the aboriginals were telling him the further he became from his wife and children. There simply was no place for him in society, a white person with the spiritual concerns of a tribal person. Likewise, the character Chris is in a similar situation in the film, a tribal man bound to silence who also feels compelled to share what he knows with the lawyer. Weir comments on the above examples and more within his interview; however, more importantly, he notes that these characters are representative of the actual pulls that society makes on the aboriginal actor, Gulipilil, who cannot reconcile his two different lives. He serves as a real life example for the conflict driving the story.
In a similar vein, Weir recalls the time he was having a drink with Gulipilil when he told Weir something that made absolutely no sense, until Weir realized that it was a concept that simply did not translate. As a Westerner viewing the film, many of the events or ideas seemed strange, misplaced or random. I think that some of the things Weir tried to put into his film, as he understood them from his limited time with the actual aboriginals, were not easy to translate to a Western audience. As a viewer, in retrospect, I understand the film isn’t designed to be entirely realistic (or our version of realistic). Consequently, the confusion within the film, specifically as seen through the eyes of the main character, now makes much more sense to me. I think his struggles are representative of anybody trying to reconcile two separate cultures, especially when they are as different as the ‘savage’ aboriginals and the ‘civilized’ westerners.
The point I am trying to make with the above examples is how I think the film highlights the contrasts between ‘savagery’ and ‘civilization’. Notably, how the there does not exist a comfortable middle ground between the two. There are numerous examples amongst the encounters we have been reading about (Cook comes to mind) where misunderstandings or different value systems lead to events which have been perceived as ‘tragic’ or ‘atrocious’ in retrospect. I think Weir’s film goes a step further, saying that what has happened in encounters like these is irreconcilable because they involve forces beyond our own control, and there is almost a natural order to things, as if this is the world’s way of keeping itself in balance. Weir talks about how we have forgotten how to fear nature. Perhaps we have simply become complacent, perceiving ourselves amongst the highest rungs of the cultural hierarchy. He provides an example where that ladder is shattered, to demonstrate how helpless we are without that crutch we call civilization. Where then can people turn when they have shattered all ties to their ‘savage’ histories, like Weir mentions when he talks about how the lawyer has ‘lost’ his past?
It seems that one of the central messages Weir tried to convey in “The Last Wave” was the sense of repression felt by Richard Chamberlain’s character, caused by the constraints of civilization. In the interview, when asked about what lies under Richard Chamberlain’s seemingly “happy and tranquil” life, he responds, “Things not thought through, things suppressed. The natural forces that have been cemented over and the bloodstains of the corpse are seeping through for some people. It's there and we just don't choose to see it.” This view of civilization corresponds with Freud and Mill’s as presented by Bruce Mazlish in Civilization and Its Contents. They both see civilization as a restraining force causing man to ignore his impulses and natural behavior in favor of a socially acceptable norm. Mill describes it as “a host of civilizing and restraining influences” that are necessary for “a state of things so repugnant to man’s self-will and love of independence.”
Chamberlain goes through an inner struggle that reflects this same opposition, which is symbolized by his dreams. The contrast between his “dream-time” and real life as a suburban lawyer reflect the division of his mind between his natural impulses and the civilizing forces that hold him back. He first fights his dreams, refusing to sleep for fear of having to recognize these dreams. When he finally discovers the truth about himself as “morkrol” (sp?) and visits Charlie he abandons the restraints that have kept him from confronting his true identity and discovering the meaning of his inner self, of sorts. Although this results in a realization of imminent destruction, at least he is now no longer deceived by civilization.
In response to Hannah’s concluding questions about the end of civilization, I would like to discuss the concept of time as it relates to the dialectic of civilization and savagery and to the film in particular.
We, in the West tend to think of time as moving in some sort of linear progression from one event to the next. This idea of linear time is the foundation upon which the concept of progress is built, and is therefore essential to the concept civilization, which arguably cannot exist without the idea of progress.
Our notion of time has become so entrenched in our culture that we often fail to realize the fact that other ways of perceiving the concept of time even exist. However, throughout most of history and in most cultures around the world, time has been viewed as cyclical, rather than linear. For many nomads the concept of time is based on the annual cycle of the seasons. The ancient Egyptians thought of time in terms of the cycle of the Nile. As we have seen in Sahlins, the Hawaiians perceived time as a mythic cycle. These are but a few examples among many. Therefore, this difference in the perception of time is one fundamental, if often overlooked, distinction between “civilization” and “savagery.”
In the film, the tribal Aboriginals clearly have a different notion of time than the “civilized” white Australians. For them, events can occur in “dream time,” a sort of parallel flow of time. Many of the events shown in the film do indeed occur in dream time and, because both “dream time” and “physical time” are perceived as “real,” it can be difficult to sort out what is happening in dream time and what is happening in physical time. Although the title of the film and many of the events seem apocalyptic, I do not feel that is an accurate description. In fact, the notion of apocalypse itself relies upon the concept of linear time, which can have an end. The film, however, is based in dream time, which seems to be cyclical, not linear. The coming of the last wave is simply the end of one dream cycle and the beginning of another. This can be clearly seen in the cave, with the depiction of some previous great wave painted on the walls. From this we learn that the “last wave” was not the first “last wave” and likely will not be the last “last wave.”
This film is not about the end of time, which perhaps strikes a bigger blow to civilization than a giant wave ever could. Civilization is not the final and permanent result of progress that will endure until time itself finally does end. Instead, our modern civilization is just a small part of the endless cycle of time. Thus savagery triumphs over civilization.
What sticks out most to me when I think about The Last Wave in light of the readings this semester is The Farther Shore and its take on perception. Both Gifford and the Richard seemed to be faced with the dilemma of being on the near shore of perception. They see ideas and events in ways that are truly limited to their own experience in life. Gifford, however, acknowledges that there was a different mode of perception during his time and documents the change from one to the other; making for a smooth and comprehendible process. It seems that Richard lacks this process and is instead shown a different way of seeing through his visions in the Dreamtime. Richard, being a lawyer, does not have experience with this “primitive” mode of viewing events and therefore tries to seek answers out through the Aboriginals he defends in court. Ultimately Richard cannot come to terms with the different perception of his ancestors and becomes hostile and kills Charlie when his system is virtually shocked by the drawings underneath Sydney. Drawing about what his visions stated. For some reason Richard could not understand how over time his ancestor’s perceptions changed.
When hashing deeper into it though, the reason that Richard and Gifford differ in their understandings of their ancestors is because of the ability to communicate effectively with them. Where Gifford has the documents written by his ancestors on the “Farther Shore”, Richard does not have any help with his South American “aboriginal” ancestors evidenced by their brief mentioning. This can however bring into question whether Gifford’s ancestor’s were more civilized than Richard’s. While some could immediately answer this question with a firm “yes” detailing how the civilization with the most written material is the more “civilized”, I believe that the question is more complex than that. There is not information enough to detail the account of Richard’s ancestors. Was their writing lost or did the not write? Was there mode of writing portable or like the carvings on the wall found underneath Sydney? These inquiries make it difficult to answer the ultimate question of who is more civilized; the Whites or the Aboriginals. Is it better to have writings that document the change in perception, or to be able to see things just like your ancestors?
Weir’s The Last Wave cleverly depicts so-called civilization interwoven with the savagery of the tribal Aboriginals. Weir intertwines the two seemingly distinct ways of living into David Burton, the main character, providing a representation in which it is difficult to distinguish between the reality of civilization and the mystical traditions of the savages. Throughout the film, the viewer is unsure of whether what they are seeing is actually happening or one of the apocalyptic visions of the lawyer. By doing this, Weir suggests that savagery does exist within culture, even if it is believed that civilization has completely wiped it out. One of the scenes that exemplifies this message occurs in the museum. The woman states that there are two entities of time: human time and dream time. She then goes on to state that the dream world is, “more real than reality”. From this quote, Weir states his claim that civilization and savagery coexist, each playing a role in affecting everyday lives.
I think a major point of the film was that we living in the so called "civilized west" think that we have total control over our lives. We don't respect nature the way we should and don't appreciate that there are some things that we have no power over. The aborigines on the other hand do show this respect for higher powers both natural and supernatural. The film demonstrates the disastrous consequences that result for the Australians because of their ignorance. The constant hail and rain, the frogs, and the water coming out of the radio all demonstrate nature re taking control of the city.
This film presents two obviously different types of “civilization” or “culture,” whichever you prefer to ascribe to these ways of life. From our point of view, the civilized group would be the “normal” Australians, whereas the savage group would be the Aborigines, so Mazlish’s idea of the development of the term civilization as an “in-group” versus “out-group” dialectic applies.
It seems to me that the main way these two groups differ is the difference between a “balanced” perspective and a “single-minded” perspective, which is one of Gifford’s main points. Whereas the Australians try to rely on sight and written rules, the Aborigines rely on sight as well as word of mouth and natural instinct. The Australians show their reliance on sight and written law during the trial of the Aborigines because they believe that the written law should prevail over the unwritten laws of the Aborigines. Also, the fact that David feels the need to “see” the stone from his dreams and his lack of understanding of his dreams serves to show that he has become one-dimensional in his perception of the world.
On the other hand, the Aborigines have a more well-rounded approach to life. Not only do they believe in the sanctity of the sacred stones, but they also realize that respect the instinctual law to not lay eyes upon them is more important than seeing the stones. This major conflict between a society based on written and unwritten laws and a divergent society that now relies solely on sight is most obvious during the trial when the Aborigines profess that the written laws of man are far inferior to the spiritual laws.
This is my belated interpretation of Weir’s Last Wave.
After watching the movie last Saturday, I felt that the “wave” was a literal manifestation of the apocalypse referred to in the film as being responsible for the “cycles” of cultures. I interpreted the wave with the idea of a Greek tragedy in mind: Chamberlain represents Western society to a certain degree and therefore embodies characteristics of ignorance and ambivalence (and when he finally goes through the step of realization, it comes too late). The problem I felt with this understanding was a lack of knowledge of how Chamberlain’s contact with the aboriginals added to Weir’s message, other than acting as the catalyst to Chamberlain’s downfall and realization. Charlie’s magical powers furthered my discontent as they beg for a more symbolic interpretation.
So, after more contemplation and further reading of Mazlish’s Civilization and its Contents, I feel like the “wave” sweeping over Chamberlain at the end of the film is representative of the spread of civilization – “accivilization” in the words of Mazlish – that wipes out and buries the ways of groups such as the aboriginals or the ancient South Americans. For Chamberlain, the wave is the final culmination of events that occurred throughout the film, and is representative of his realization and reconnection to his past and the culture of the aborigines. As for the film as a whole, the wave is possibly symbolic of the final silencing of ancient or “other” civilizations by the West, and the “Last Wave” could very well be a global embrace of Western civilization. Going further, the mystical powers of Charlie could even correspond to the religions and belief systems of the old cultures that are being replaced by the new religion – or better yet, “nonreligion” – of the new global civilization. While I know this is clearly theoretical, I feel that the events of the Last Wave could support an interpretation along these lines.
The movie, The Last Wave, directed by Peter Weir highlighted an example of the clash that can occur when civilization and savagery meet at a crossroads. However, in contrast to other examples studied during the class in which different cultures met, this contact occurred within one person. The main character of the film is a man who is accustomed to a civilian way of life, a successful lawyer whose family seem to be examples of civilization. When Richard Chamberlain’s dreams return involving the aboriginal family that he ends up defending in court, it is the foreshadowing of the return of savagery. As the conflict deepens and the dreams seem to signify the end of civilization as it is known, Richard Chamberlain and his family struggle with the confrontation of civilization and savagery, for at this stage he does not yet know that he too is a member of an Aboriginal tribe that shares a “dream time” with the Aboriginal tribe found in Australia. This “dream time” seems to represent a link between civilization and barbarism, for the civilized Chamberlain and the primitive Aboriginals accused of a crime both share the tendency for these dreams that included premonitions of what disasters were to come, including the sacred stone with blood on the edge, water coming through the stereo, and frogs falling from the sky, all natural disasters that seem to symbolize an apocalypse.
I agree with Carl that as Richard Chamberlain began to become more intrigued and concerned by his dreams and his connection to the Aboriginal people, the further he grew from civilization, highlighted through his distance to his wife and children. As Chamberlain begins to listen to the elderly Aboriginal man, he decides to send his wife and children far from him, whether or not this was due to his desire for their safety or so he could have space to ponder his realization about his heritage and its connection to his dreams is ambiguous in the film. This film allows the view to see this contact, discussed in the first semester of the course with readings from Sahlins and Baudet, between differing cultures. It also demonstrates how although two people from differing ways of life may be seemingly in opposition, but there are underlying factors that can connect the two cultures in ways previously unexpected.
The unique feature of Peter Weir's film was his emphasis on the authenticity of Aboriginal culture. His cinematic work is interesting because it neglects to exploit the superficialities of ancient culture for crass entertainment value or to create a false sense of cultural profundity (the "awe" which he dismisses). Instead, Weir opts to actively encourage the viewer's acceptance of a world in which Aboriginal culture is equal in validity to Western culture - if not preeminent. Throughout the course of "The Last Wave", the viewer is slowly forced to suspend a blind belief in objective truths, truths which have very limited validity in the film's inherently Aboriginal Australia. For example, the protagonist is first confronted with explicable natural phenomena, followed time and again by progressively stranger occurrences, until no question can remain that the Aboriginals' traditions, dismissed as impotent myth, are quite real. As ancient caves and sacred grounds underlie the city, so does Aboriginal culture underlie the Western in Weir's Australia. Although the new may appear to have completely supplanted the old, it ultimately becomes clear that Australia remains firmly Aboriginal; its old customs never really die, they merely rest beneath the facade of the new.
Although the mythic aspects of his work are naturally dismissed by the discerning and objectively skeptical film audience, Weir's message retains symbolic significance. (It is perhaps ironic that his film becomes symbolic when stripped of his 'authenticated myth'; so too do all cultural traditions become 'symbolic' when the actual ramifications of their practices are nullified by the scholar.) It would certainly seem as though a case is made for the propagation of indigenous traditions in the face of supposedly inexorable homogeneity. The tribal Aboriginals are able to survive unnoticed in the city, simultaneously maintaining their ancient customs while integrating themselves into the superficialities of a Westernized society. Just as Weatherford argued in the second portion of the reading, it is quite possible - even likely - for such a seemingly paradoxical situation to occur. It would seem as though both the writer and director, unlike many of their peers, are not quite ready to lament the death of the native at the hands of rampaging and all-consuming globalization.
After watching the movie The Last Wave and reading the interview, I felt that there were two key points made that connected with our discussions thus far. First, the conflict or clash of two cultures was present in the movie particularly between the lawyer’s wife and Charlie but also between all of the Westerners and Aboriginals. The Westerners and the Aboriginals have lived side by side without understanding each other. They speak different languages, or in Charlie’s case, refuse to speak at all. Their beliefs on science verses tribal and spiritual acts cause conflict and misunderstanding in court. The Aboriginals do not want to expose the secrets of their people even if it means lying in court and being persecuted for a crime that they did not commit. The lawyer’s wife is afraid of the Aboriginals as she does not understand them. She has studied them and practices their style of art, but when she finally has her first encounter, she is uncomfortable and then afraid, especially when Charlie reappears outside of her house. The lawyer, on the other hand, as well as his daughter in the end, seem to live in both worlds or at least to have a connection to both worlds. The dreams come to the lawyer and he gets a glimpse of the secrets of the Aboriginals. He feels sympathy for them and tries to help, even when his life is tormented by mystery. The central theme here is the innate lack of understanding between cultural groups that leads to conflict and fear or one another. Second, through the lawyer’s connection with the Aboriginals and his ability to enter their dream time, we see how cultures, though each has its differences and distinctions, are also connected in what we may refer to as globalization, although not how it is most often used today, but rather in the way it is used in Mazlish’s Civilization and Its Contents. There is a universality of people; we are all connected, even if not obviously so. Our cultures influence each other and spread all over the globe. No group is completely isolated and without any outside influence. Although on the surface two groups seem completely different in their beliefs and ways of life, they are likely connected in some way whether it be by the worship of one God or as in the movie, by the same dream time. The movie was exceptional in its ability to capture a real instance of the simultaneous clash and melding of cultures.
While I could have sworn I posted earlier, the thoughts I've had in mind still haven't been touched on to a large extent, so I'll give it another go.
What struck me most about "The Last Wave" is not the confrontation between civilization and savagery as many have pointed out, for Peter Weir's take on such, as dramatic as it might be, doesn't necessarily bring an extraordinary amount to the table that we haven't seen elsewhere. Rather, Weir's emphasis on perception, as Alan said, seemed to me the most pressing topic for discussion, especially in relationship to our readings from the Farther Shore.
While Weir's take on perception, especially in regards to dream time, waxes and wanes from clear to completely opaque throughout the course of the film, it is certain that he views dream time as a secondary mode of sensation and perception, beyond or excluded from our normal variety of tools to perceive the world. Such alternate methods of perception, as he says in his interview, allow for experiences for which there are no words and of which "civilized" minds cannot comprehend.
"The Last Wave", therefore, hinges on the idea of this mode of perception in that the conflict between civilizations upon which we focus only comes about because of the contrast between those who possess this means of perception and those who do not: the Aborigine and the Western civilizations, respectively. The lack or loss of such an ability, however, is not meant to be some simple sign of how primitive people possess things that civilized people do not, as if Weir meant to argue that a spiritual wealth in primitive cultures places them on an equal standing with the material wealth of "developed" nations. Rather, "The Last Wave" shows that the predominance of Western civilization and its resulting growth has standardized perception among the populace, perhaps to the point of stagnation. Such an argument can certainly be expanded not only to include perception, but all its results.
I don’t see a post for the discussion on Mazlish and Freud for their uses of the term civilization so I am just going to post this here.
Mazlish views civilization as a human invention to describe a well-mannered society that is scientifically and artistically inclined. Mazlish sees the term as an eighteenth century creation to separate Europe from the rest of the peoples of the world during the Enlightenment period. He is critical of the term and believes that, as an invention of the Western world, it does not constitute an adequate word to identify and describe certain people. Mazlish incorporates Freud in his work in order to highlight these negative connotations that civilization carries with it.
Freud, on the other hand, believes that civilization is a result of an innate human tendency to form groups for working and pursuing the pleasure principle. Freud sees the term as a controlling force that is imposed on humans by their own wills. Freud is also scornful of civilization; however, he rejects the term on the basis of its effects on the happiness and actions of humans rather than the inaccuracy of its defining characteristics.
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