Sigmund Freud is synonymous with the word controversial, and for a good reason. Within Chapter 3 of Civilization and its Discontents, Freud surmises that all humans have had to curtail their primal sexual and aggressive desires, and thus their “possibilities of happiness,” for civilization and the security it offers humankind. Also, within this chapter, Freud disapproves of true love, the one that biblical scripture 1 Corinthians defines. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” According to Freud, “A love that does not discriminate seems to me to forfeit a part of its own value by doing an injustice to its object.” To him, love is a drive, a means of accomplishing something. He even suggests that family units, the idea of husband, wife, and children, are formed so that men can have a permanent partner to have sex with, and women can have someone to protect their children and themselves.
I think Sigmund Freud and his works are what many of us would call in today’s age: clickbait, “designed to attract attention and to entice readers, while being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading.” Sure, as humans, we have natural sexual and sometimes aggressive desires. But that is not all that consumes us. I think what Freud fails to realize is that people are multi-faceted and multi-dimensional. We are more than our animalistic instincts, thus why we are given the title humans.
