In Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents,” he argues that ultimately no form of government can exist without obstructing human nature. I find this to be untrue and feel that this conclusion was drawn, based on Freud’s inaccurate ideal of human nature.
Throughout this piece, Freud works to establish the point of view that humankind is selfish and aggressive and puts their own needs before others. This is an old document, but when looking at the societies of today I believe that Freud was wrong. Sure, the existence of dystopias, may seem to support this conjecture, but they could simply exist because we have not yet found the best way to govern ourselves. It cannot be denied, that there are people in this world, with selfish desires , that lead to the cruelness and violence that persists in our world. With that being said though, the goodness of the world cannot then be overlooked. Under governing humans have made technological advances as well as social advances that in the long run have improve that life of various groups of people.
I believe that Freud was right about some of the human instincts, but he made them more extreme than they are. I believe that quite frankly it is hard to establish what exactly is human nature authentically rather than what has been developed from centuries of rules put into place. Rules have existed almost from the very beginning and it wouldn’t really be repressive of human nature for everything to exist coherently. Humanity has survived this long under their current regimes( for the most part.) that goes to show that he was wrong. Humans can be governed, and the issue is failing to realize that “human nature” cannot be applied to all, because human nature is to be distinct in your identity. There is no human nature. We are just human.
