Friday, February 6, 2009
Freud and Mazlish on Civilization
In this week's individual webbog post I am eager to learn of your interpretations and/or readings of civilization as this phenomenon is understood by Mazlish and Freud. There are key differences between these two figures as well as significant similarities, so make it your goal to offer meaningful reflection on what they have to say about the advantages and disadvantages offered by the historic invention of this key concept. Both men convey distinct concerns about civilization and its implications for the modern quest for individual liberty and self-flourishing and in the course of our reading of their critiques of civilization we learn much about the complex, intertwined history of self and its other.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
Both Mazlish and Freud have their own reservations regarding the present day implications of “civilization.” These two men both attempt to trace the development of civilization through modern history in order to gain a better understanding of why this term/concept came about. Mazlish uses a more modern era-based evolutionary study in order to trace the dynamic meaning of the term “civilization,” whereas Freud, as usual, attempts to trace a large-scale phenomenon back to human psychological foundations (he traces civilization back to ancient communities that were formed in order to defend against physically strong individuals).
Even though both these men attempted to trace the roots of civilization in order to better understand what being civilized actually means, their conclusions could not be more different. Mazlish believes that civilization is a successful process/goal in itself. Where he finds fault in civilization is when people attempt to assign one civilization as “civilized” and another “savage” (by civilization I mean a group of people who share a similar background and similar goals; whereas “civilized” is meant to be superior; this difference in meaning is a main reason why Mazlish believes the current connotation of “civilization” should be destroyed).
Freud, like Mazlish, also comes to the conclusion that civilization arose because of a need to survive/compete with other individuals/groups. However, Freud still does not support the general idea of civilization. He believes that humans are meant to follow their biological instincts and civilization inhibits the usage of these instincts. Therefore, civilization as a whole eliminates our ability to achieve ultimate happiness and leaves us with lesser forms of “happiness.” In short, it seems that the main difference between the beliefs of these two men is that Mazlish accepts the idea of civilization, but has problems with the usage of the term “civilization.” Freud, on the other hand, complains about the idea of civilization.
Although Freud offers a strikingly pessimistic view of civilization while Mazlish offers some hope of redemption, both support the idea that civilization helps to form personal identity. According to Freud, civilization leads to the creation of the ego as a separate entity from the external world, and Mazlish believes that people identify themselves with a specific civilization in contrast to others. However, Mazlish’s concept of civilization is directly derived from the Enlightenment and the need to classify and organize perceptions of the world. On the other hand, Freud tries to describe and define civilization as it relates to the human psyche and how it limits the pleasure drive.
Mazlish offers several defects of civilization, such as leading to racism and imperialism, yet he also offers hope of a global civilization and a civilizing process in which individuals are constantly striving to better themselves and not become content to maintain the current state of things. He believes civilization gains more meaning and depth as they years pass.
Freud also recognizes the problems with civilization, yet to him, the whole concept of civilization is limiting because it causes people to repress their instinctual drives, thus it runs contrary to human nature and our search for happiness. Although civilization has given us protection against nature and has lengthened our life span and quality of life with technology and medicine, it has not resolved the problem of relationships and finding happiness in life. The repression of instincts has led to neurosis and the need to avert suffering instead of seeking happiness. Freud suggests that no one is truly happy while a member of civilization, yet he does offer a speck of hope when he talks about love.
Thus far, it is clear that both Mazlish and Freud find fault with civilization, but neither has expressed a way to ameliorate the problem. Hopefully the conclusion of their works will offer a more encouraging message, but I highly doubt it with Freud.
Although both scholars are investigating the concept of civilization, they differ widely even in their approaches. While Mazlish begins by acknowledging the ambiguity of the term civilization due to its historical use and development, Freud jumps right in and defines exactly what we expect in a civilization. Mazlish meanwhile spends a considerable amount of time investigating the development of the term and its different connotations. Also, Freud looks at the development of civilization from a psychological point of view, explaining it in terms of drives and instincts, while Mazlish sees it from a historical perspective.
Freud and Mazlish do, however, come to many of the same conclusions about the nature of civilization. For example, both see civilization as a process. Mazlish refers to this process as “accivilization,” meaning the process a society goes through in becoming civilized or in moving toward a state of civilization. Freud also sees it as a process, and as one similar to the maturation of a human. In illustration of this he states that “the evolution of civilization may therefore be simply described as the struggle for the life of the human species” (82). In addition, both recognize civilization as a social construct, not an inherent part of humanity. Both also see progress as a key element of the process of civilization. Freud stipulates that in order to be thought of as civilized, a society must show signs of technological and cultural advancement. In a way, he says, this advancement is man striving to emulate the “ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he [man] embodied in his gods” (44). Mazlish, particularly in chapter three, presents the progress element of civilization through the views of Guizot, Gobineau, and Darwin. He quotes Guizot, who says that “the idea of progress, of development, appears to me the fundamental idea contained in the word, civilization” (52).
Freud, after briefly defining what he means by civilization, the fundamental definition being “the whole sum of achievements and the regulations…which serve two purposes – namely to protect men against nature and to adjust their mutual relations” (42), he moves on to assess the value of civilization. The rest of the book seems to be devoted to the discussion of whether civilization is a curse or a blessing. Freud asserts that “what we call our civilization is largely responsible for our misery” (38) in that it restricts our instincts and drives, making us unhappy and unfulfilled. Mazlish, on the other hand, has not given us a definitive opinion of his own on the value of civilization. Although he presents early views that hold civilization as a quality of superior society, he also puts forth the opinions of Mill, Freud, and Elias, who all show a recognition of the evils that accompany civilization. Perhaps later in the book Mazlish will present his own views on the benefits of civilization.
The differences concerning Mazlish’s and Freud’s thoughts on civilization can be attributed in large part to their contrasting styles of dealing with the subject. Mazlish, for most of his book so far, seems to offer no real new insight into civilization, but instead traces the use of the term throughout history. By doing this he encounters the “ideal” civilization and its evolution. Freud’s views are his own and reflect his studies on the human psyche and his use of “quasi-science” (I say this because Freud does not offer very many concrete details on his observations, but they seem reasonable nonetheless). With this Freud traces civilization to what he believes to be its dawning and encounters its evolution in his own thoughts. Both men think that civilization does a good job protecting its members from the first two sources of discontent as said by Freud: superiority of nature and the weakness of our own bodies. They both pick a bone with how civilizations treat other people, but do so also in a different way. By focusing on the encounter of civilization (how the word really arose anyway) Mazlish offers a condescending view on how civilization has been used as a discriminatory remark against those outside a specific culture. He sees civilization as a remark to make to show superiority and inferiority between cultures. Freud on the other hand, focuses on how civilization orders the relationships on human beings within one society. He speaks of how the community replaces the individual in terms of ruling and that this was the beginning of civilization. Because of this “love” arose and men grew to have ambivalent feelings toward interacting with each other.
Mazlish and Freud both see civilization as a means to measure or analyze human behavior. People have instincts but do not always act according to those instincts. Freud claims that this is due in part to the restraints put on humans by civilization. Mazlish claims that society constructed this “civilization” and doesn’t deny that it adds social constraints.
Overall Freud’s main focus is on the constraining aspect of civilization. He studies the human tendency to feel guilt due to a knowledge or ability to differentiate between good and “bad.” The question he poses is where this ability or scale of what is good and bad comes from.
Mazlish answers this question claiming people have created this concept as means by which they can compare each other and compare cultures. It is the universal “measuring stick.” He states that one culture defines itself through contrasts with other cultures and some cultures see themselves as the more civilized and therefore superior culture.
Both Freud and Mazlish agree that civilization is what separates those who claim to be civilized from barbarians. However, Mazlish looks on this as a more positive or at least not a negative concept and just prefers the use of the phrase “civilizing process” to show that the term “civilization” as it stands alone does not have a definition and is always changing in concept just as society strives for new levels of culture, control, etc. Freud, on the other hand, sees civilization as a suppressor of natural instincts, and as he sees what is instinctual to be natural, he has a very negative view of civilization.
Although the title of Mazlish’s book, Civilization and Its Contents, is a reference to Freud’s earlier book, Civilization and Its Discontents, it seems to me that the two works are only loosely related. The authors differ not only in their conclusions, but also in their subject matter. Freud’s focus is on the psychological state of the individual within society, while Mazlish focuses on the affects of the concept of civilization upon the world from a largely historical perspective. Although both authors have criticisms of civilization, they are really not even using the same meaning of the word civilization.
In Freud’s book, the words civilization and society could be used largely interchangeably. When he examines the effects of civilization on the mind of the individual, he is not speaking of any specific type of society. The causes of the psychological effects he mentions could be found in any society exhibiting basic levels of group organization.
Mazlish, on the other hand, could not use the words civilization and society interchangeably. He is discussing not the civilization/society itself, but the concept of civilization. When Mazlish speaks of the advantages and disadvantages of civilization, he does not mean the civilization itself, but the concept of civilization and its various acquired connotations.
Freud criticizes civilization because he says that civilization represses an individual’s natural impulses, which leads to neurosis. In his view, societies formed because weaker individuals joined together as a group to oppose the stronger individuals who had previously threatened them. However, in order to live as a group, rules had to be formed and certain sexual and aggressive instincts were repressed. Hannah mentioned that Freud supports the idea that “civilization helps to form personal identity”, but I don’t believe that this is an entirely accurate statement. Civilization certainly influences personal identity, but rather than helping it form, Freud would say that it damages the individual’s identity, thus leading to unhappiness and, in some cases, to various mental disorders. Contrary to the modern belief that civilization ensures personal liberty, Freud would say that civilization restricts an individual’s freedom. Before individuals organized into groups and formed societies, they were each free to do as they wished in accordance with their drives. However, Freud does realize that there are some benefits to civilization—before group organization each individual had no protection from stronger individuals.
Mazlish on the other hand is criticizing the concept of civilization, particularly the racist and Eurocentric connotations that it has acquired over time. The concept has become too exclusive and limiting and fuels the damaging ideas of racism and Western superiority. Therefore, Mazlish offers the suggestion that we should discard the concept of civilization as an achieved state and focus instead on the civilizing process. The civilizing process, unlike the concept of civilization, can be universally applied to all societies, and thus avoids damaging exclusiveness.
Freud and Mazlish both offer criticism of civilization, but their methods and conclusions are very different.
Freud and Mazlish both write about the concept of a civilization, but Mazlish’s Contents appeared later than Freud’s Discontents, and is only loosely based off of it, much less than the title would imply, because Mazlish invokes the ideas of a number of different writers. This is in contrast to Freud’s piece, which although it is based in his own science of psychoanalysis, is very theoretical and in a way reflects many of the personal convictions and ideas held by Freud, which I believe makes it a very unique and novel work.
Both Mazlish and Freud attempt to trace the roots of civilization, but from different angles. Freud approaches the problem from a much broader definition, but he is standing firmly within the argument in the sense that he doesn’t so much question what civilization has come to represent (progress, other Enlightenment values) as much as he critiques it. What Freud puts forth, more or less, are his personal views about the problems of the current European civilization and how different values, whether religious, political, sexual have prevented what he sees as the natural order of things. He sees civilization as a restraint, but in the same sentiment offers a hope for the future by implying that if his generation can identify the problem, future generations would have a chance to fix it.
Mazlish, on the other hand, follows the concept of civilization over time as it has been defined and used by Europeans, from colonialism to the racism brought about by the discovery of natural selection. He is dismissive of Freud’s view of civilization, because he says that Freud, like Gobineau before him, put forth what he saw was a solution to the problem of history, which in itself is an idea only possible within the realm of Enlightenment ideology. Mazlish, writing outside of this ideology, stays out of the philosophical realm that Freud tries to dive into and instead empirically critiques what he sees as our past notions of civilization. Mazlish, citing the Islamic world, is skeptical of the idea of a global civilization because he sees the concept as inherently unstable, referring to some of his previously cited works like Gobineau and Freud to show that the more encompassing some of these definitions of civilizations become, the less able they are to withstand the intense scrutiny given to them by the passage of time. Mazlish discusses about the difficulty of finding a center to any sort of global civilization, and I think that is why he perceives the concept as unstable.
Jacqueline wrote:
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.
I feel like the differences between Freud and Mazlish’s writings on “civilization” are for the most part readily apparent. Mazlish traces the term “civilization” to its birth during the Enlightenment, and then examines how the term has been applied in history; hoping mankind can lose some of the connotations of the term especially in regards to racism. Freud, on the other hand, reveals to us the origins of the civilizing process and how this inhibits human instinct. Mazlish, for the most part, is in favor of civilization in terms of progress and the spread of technology, while Freud bemoans the repression of instinct that comes from civilization. However, there are plenty of similarities between these two writings. Both men recognize civilization as a process that is a social construct but at the same time as something that can be beneficial to mankind. Freud mentions how our suffering (especially in relationships) is inevitable and that civilization contributes to our suffering in that it inhibits our instincts. He says this alongside admitting that civilization has replaced security for happiness. We can see how this is beneficial to man, since happiness without security will be short lived, while security with limited happiness at least allows for progress.
Both Mazlish and Freud’s books on civilization focus on the issues which each regards as significant in the concept of civilization. In Freud’s book, Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud demonstrates his belief that certain institutions found in civilizations, in particular Western Civilization, go against human’s ability to chose freely. In particular, much of his rant focuses on Christianity, which he believes restricts humans natural tendencies and biological desires. Freud traces the progression of the development with a focus on the psychological tendency of humans that contributed to their desire for an ordered system, civilization. In his book, Freud cites the human desires for protection, shelter, and relationships as the main factors that led to the rise of civilization. Although Freud does see why humans want civilization, for it fulfills some of their desires for safety, he does not believe in the concept of civilization. Rather he thinks that humans should be able to live according to their biological desires, rather than restricting themselves to conform to the rules set forth by society. However, Mazlish disagrees with the concept of civilization for another reason entirely. He sees civilization as a tool to declare one tribe better than another, and for that reason decides that civilization is a concept thats use should be discontinued.
Mazlish's civilization is a deliberate distinction of the self from the other in identity and institution. The authors he selects may represent this distinction, economically, morally, or racially. Finally, Mazlish explores the ideas of either a dialogue of civilizations (a new way of strengthening identity but allowing adaptation) or one global civilization (though this is not really his "civilization", for there is no other).
Freud's civilization is a socially formed agency which deflects or inhibits the desire for satisfaction. He traces the evolution of civilization from Man's desire to give up some freedom by living with Woman, to society's embrace of scientific study as a channeling of drive, to civilization's belief in love as a way to partially satisfy this drive.
Freud is obviously concerned with civilization from a psychological standpoint, while Mazlish looks at civilization's polical and sociological dimentions. Yet the works are similar in that they both trace development of the enigma of civilization historically - in the sense that both trace developments of the concept over the course of history (Freud traces these developments within the history of the mind.)
Also, as part of this analysis, it becomes clear that both authors tend to "take to task" this concept of civilization; they will be active agents in the analysis and offer their own ideas.
One other thing is that I would have to say that Mazlish looks at civilization as differentiating identity between societies while Freud looks at civilization as a struggle for the identity of the individual within the society. Hannah suggested that Freud treats civilization as a tool that helps build personal identity, but I'm not sure I would agree with that. On page 74, Freud writes about the "poverty of groups." He seems alarmed by the idea that members of a civilization would try to identify themselves with each other rather than having either strong individual identities or a strong group identity.
Freud argues that the individual identity is always at odds with the communal identity. Mazlish's work, though not so concerned with psychology, seems more likely to suggest that individuals will always be motivated to group themselves together in order form a stronger group identity by opposing some nominated other.
Freud perceives civilization through the context of man’s quest for happiness. To Freud, civilization is essentially a set of compromises that individuals make, a contract, that redirects their instincts (thereby sacrificing potential happiness) in exchange for others’ help in achieving (presumably greater) happiness. Throughout Civilization and its Discontents, Freud is constantly questioning whether this contract is actually advantageous for men to enter into. At times, he argues that civilization hurts man and is a major source of his unhappiness. The title of his book suggests that civilization leaves many of its members unhappy, and Freud devotes a substantial portion of the book to examining how one element of civilization, religion, leads to great human unhappiness. Yet in a later chapter, when Freud describes how drug addicts achieve happiness through desensitization, he laments how these addicts’ productive power, their ability to contribute to civilization, has been lost to narcotics. Despite the contradictory conclusions of Freud’s “scientific” approach, there is much to be gained from his critique of civilization. Freud offers objective criteria for evaluating civilization’s worth. If civilization adds to the “net happiness” of the human population, then it is a valuable institution. While there is no easy way to measure global happiness, Freud offers suggestions, pointing to how some human instincts are redirected by societies demands, leading to a loss in individual happiness. He also questions the benefits of technology, pointing out how the devices that are supposed to make us happy are often fulfilling demands that technology itself created. So what we can gain from Freud’s approach is a standard for gauging civilization’s worth – it should increase total human happiness – and ideas for how to evaluate it.
Mazlish, as an anthropologist, takes a markedly different approach to discussing civilization than Freud does. Mazlish focuses primarily on how civilization is valuable as an intellectual term, whether the concept it describes is something worth academic’s consideration. While he points to the works of those like John Stuart Mill who question civilization’s value, Mazlish focuses primarily on civilization’s political effects. Unlike Freud, he considers how different civilizations relate to each other and discusses the effects of imposing civilization onto a group of people, of forcing them to sign Freud’s contract. He discards Freud’s simplifying assumption that there is either one civilization or that all civilizations are equal, and attacks those who adopt this approach. What we gain from Mazlish is a critique of civilization as a way of thinking about human social relationships, a questioning of our anthropological framework. He makes us aware of the biases (racism, Western superiority, modernity as the pinnacle of progress) inherent in the term and forces us to use it more carefully when analyzing different ways of life.
A comparison between Freud's and Mazlish's views on civilization is a somewhat difficult undertaking, in that Mazlish, as an anthropologist, uses a social/historic view on the topic as the main focus for his book, whereas Freud discusses the topic only as an effect of certain behavioral and biological causes. Moreover, the former is influenced (or at least aware) of the work of the latter, which complicates the discussion further.
Nonetheless, some important distinctions can be made. First and foremost, as many of my esteemed peers and classmates have pointed out, both Freud and Mazlish have a somewhat unfavorable view of civilization within the context that they view it, in that both see the flaws outweighing any good stemming from the concept. For Freud, civilization is the family unit expanded to an increasingly larger level, suppressing the biological instincts towards death and love. Mazlish, on the other hand, sees the intellectual image of civilization as forged in racism, imperialistic designs and Western "dominance".
More important than simple similarities and differences, however, may be ways that the theories of Freud and Mazlish merge and synthesize. Can the idea of civilization as a growing blanket of repression fit with Mazlish's ideas of Western-dominated civilization? Considering Freud's historical placement in the epicenter of modern conflict within Western "civilization", it certainly seems to make sense. The negativity of Freud's view, placed within the context of his geographical setting in Austria and historical setting at the climax of WW1, shows a hint of the downfall of civilization, rooted firmly in the "science" of the day.
In this way, Mazlish's ideas, while resting somewhat on the ghost of Freud, are more all-encompassing and general, incorporating more modern, reflective, and historic elements than Freud's "science", and therefore in all likelihood more applicable as a tool and referential piece.
Bruce Mazlish and Siegmund Freud stand, if you will, on opposite banks of Gifford's metaphorical river; Mazlish firmly rooted in the present, and Freud on the farther shore. This comparison goes a long way towards explaining the differences between the two thinker's notions of civilization. Freud, as a savvy observer of the early twentieth century, was a strong critic of civilization even as Europe moved gradually away from its imperialist foreign policies. His criticism was rooted in "pseudoscience" which, if not compatible with contemporary, nuanced conceptions of psychology or related sciences, certainly represented a revolutionary step forward in its own time. Although Freud is guilty of some egregious oversimplifications in the pursuit of his theories, his contributions to the development of psychology, and to the study of civilization, surely outweigh his shortcomings. With that in mind, Freud's criticisms of civilization seem center on its artificiality and humankind's inherent incompatibility with rigid social structures. Freud construes civilization as something of a solid entity with definite existence, whereas Mazlish questions the very value of the concept of civilization; but like his fellow critic Freud looks skeptically at civilization and finds his peers' blind affinity for the notion galling. The key separation between the two writers seems to be in their attitudes towards humanity in general. Freud sees man as unfit for civilization because of his subservience to a consuming desire for self-preservation (ignoring his other, more arcane hypotheses involving "death drives" and the like); while Mazlish sees civilization as unfit for man.
Although both works discuss the nature of civilization they look at it from entirely different viewpoints. Mazlish's "Civilization and its contents" is a historical and anthropological work examining the big picture causes and effects of civilization including how it has been used as a justification for colonialism by making oneself "civilized" and the other the "barbarian." I feel that overall Mazlish has a negative view of civilization and even suggests we abolish the term. Freud on the other hand looks at civilization from the psychological perspective of the individual and how civilization is created to restrain the violent and carnal instincts of human beings. He argues that this inevitably leads to discontent but acknowledges that a livable society would be impossible without it.
Post a Comment