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culture psychoanalysis Freud Jung

The concept of culture in the theory of psychoanalysis of S. Freud and C. Jung

1. Features psychoanalytic concept culture 3. Freud

Sigmund Freud(1856-1939) - founder of psychoanalysis, Viennese psychiatrist, the first to use psychological factors to explain cultural phenomena and creative processes. Main works " Introduction to psychoanalysis", "I and It", "Totem and Taboo".His concept can also be called naturalistic,because he saw the source of culture in the natural biological nature of man. S. Freud hypothesized the existence unconsciousas a special deep level of the human psyche, which differs from the sphere of consciousness and has a powerful, sometimes hidden effect on it.

Freud divided the structure of the human psyche into 3 parts:

"It"- animal instincts, a “boiling cauldron of instincts” inherited by man, his unconscious drives, primary desires. Freud identified two basic instincts: Eros- sexual desires and Thanatos- the desire for destruction and death directed outward. "It" lives on pleasure principle and pleasure.

"I"- consciousness that needs to choose. It is an intermediary between the unconscious and the external world, regulates the actions of the individual, ensures human survival in the world of nature and society, and adapts to objective conditions. "I" lives by the principle of reality.

"Super-ego"- these are prohibitions and norms of a sociocultural nature (includes simple concepts“can”, “cannot”, “must”, and more complex social prescriptions and values, representing a moral law for a person). They are acquired by the individual unconsciously during the process of upbringing. The “super-ego” is a kind of projection of the cultural world into the human psyche, which also manifests itself in the form of the unconscious. The "super-ego" lives according to the principle of conscienceand protects society.

“It” is the world of instincts inherent in the human psyche, uncontrollable and unconscious desires that actively interfere in our lives, and the idea that our actions are guided by our “I” is only an illusion, Freud believes. A direct collision between “I” and “It” will inevitably lead to the victory of the unconscious. But a person in society can survive only by subordinating “It” to his most important goals. The “I” responds, on the one hand, to the needs of the “It”, and, on the other hand, takes into account the normative regulations of society (which are represented in the human psyche in the “Super-I”). And the activity of the “Super-I” is associated with the search for socially acceptable methods of satisfying needs. Although the “Super-I” can also dominate the “I”, acting as a conscience or a vague feeling of guilt.

Freud defined three behavior optionsin “relationship” with “It”:

Satisfaction "It" (principle

pleasure, pleasure), when all energy is spent on satisfying animal instincts.

The fate of such a person is tragic, Freud believes. A person who satisfies his desires and instincts without taking into account moral standards and laws that exist in society and determine life in society, isolate from society.

.Suppression“It” (to act according to one’s conscience), according to Freud, often leads to mental illness(dissatisfaction of primary desires and instincts - "feeling of unhappiness -> depression, etc.)

3.Sublimation"It". Freud introduced the concept of "sublimation". Sublimation is something developed in the process historical development human ability to transform the energy of animal instincts into various forms creativity, in different kinds activities for the benefit of society and culture.

.Freud believed that unsatisfied desires, accumulating, turn the human psyche into a “boiling cauldron of instincts,” so they must periodically be “discharged” in a way that is safe for society. AND culture provides a person with the opportunity to sublimate the energy of instincts.Sports, science, art, spiritualized love and all types of human activity - all this, according to Z. Freud, are products of the sublimation of primary instincts. Culture does not create human vital energy; it only directs it to reasonable goals and rationally organizes its use in the conditions of human society.

Searching for the origins of culture, Freud turns to the analysis of the pre-cultural state of humanity and connects the emergence of culture with a feeling of guilt for the “murder of the primitive father.” The life of our ancestors was imagined as follows: a primitive herd, in which the strongest male owned all the females; growing sons were expelled from the herd, they were not allowed to approach the females. So they live at a distance until the strongest one replaces his decrepit father. But one day the unsatisfied desire of the sons forces them to unite, kill their father and eat him. But after the parricide, the sons experienced a huge sense of guilt for what they had done and established a ban on parricide and incest - incest within the clan. These first prohibitions are the basis of culture, and this is how morality was born. The moment of the emergence of culture is the moment when a person’s aggressive and sexual desires,who were previously satisfied freely, begin suppressed by the moral norms and customs of society.

According to Freud, traces of this were preserved in the ritual totemic meals-sacrifices of many primitive peoples. The totemic animal, which was solemnly killed and eaten by the primitive clan, replaced the once killed and eaten father, and these totemic rituals, preserved among some peoples, remind us of the original guilt of man.

In his concept 3. Freud contrasts man and society, and, analyzing the influence of culture on man, comes to the conclusion that the development of culture leads to a decrease in human happiness and an increase in feelings of guilt and dissatisfaction due to the suppression of desires. And the higher the stage of cultural development, the more unhappy the person. According to Z. Freud, culture is neurotic in nature. Freud evaluates European culture especially negatively - Christian culture with its very strict prohibitions (10 commandments). S. Freud assessed sublimation as a pseudo-realization of a person.

Freud's concept had a huge influence on the development of science and social thought of the 20th century. He was the first to use psychological factors to explain cultural phenomena and creative processes, although his theory has many shortcomings (for example, he biologized the origin of culture).Z. Freud is the founder of the method of psychoanalysis, the organizer of psychoanalytic assistance in the USA and Europe.

2. Specifics of the analytical concept of culture K.G. cabin boy

Carl Gustav Jung(1876-1961), Swiss psychologist, psychotherapist, author "Analytical Psychology", "Archetype and Symbol".He was a student of S. Freud and collaborated with him for some time and learned a lot from psychoanalysis, but he disagreed with Freud, and his research led to different conclusions. Jung saw in man, first of all, a spiritual being, capable of opposing the spirit to instincts. This, in essence, formed the basis of Jung’s criticism of Freud, a painful break with which he substantiated in his work “The Contradictions of Freud and Jung,” published in 1929. The essence of Jung's position was that he refused to perceive man as a creature driven by instincts, subject to the elements of the unconscious. If Z. Freud explored the unconscious as the natural essence of man,That K. Jung discovered the original cultural origins of the unconscious.

Firstly, Jung showed interest in the mystical aspects of culture; in his studies, he compared the states of mediumistic trance, hallucinations and clouding of reason; Jung noted the presence of similar states in prophets, poets, founders of religious movements and sick people. In his opinion, poets, prophets and others outstanding people their own voice is joined by another, coming from the depths of consciousness. The consciousness of creators (unlike the consciousness of patients) can master the content coming from the recesses of the subconscious and give it a religious or artistic form. Prominent people have intuition "far superior to the conscious mind."They capture certain “proto-forms”: these “proto-forms emerge in our consciousness spontaneously and have the ability to influence our inner world", Jung believed.

Secondly, Jung discovered typical images are symbolic images that run through the entire history of world cultureand expressing a person’s involvement in the mysterious side of life. These symbolic images “were never in consciousness and were never acquired individually, but owe their existence solely to inheritance” (C. Jung). Those. they are born from the unconscious common to all people. Jung drew attention to the parallelism of mythological plots and motifs in which these images arise (about the Flood, about Heroes, about devotion, for example in Greek culture this is the myth of Penelope, about invulnerability, for example in Greek culture the myth of Achilles). He considered this proof of the existence of the unconscious.

Based on this, Jung divided the unconscious into two layers:

)personal unconscious - these are lost memories, as well as contents that have not yet consciously matured; and 2)the collective unconscious (non-or superpersonal unconscious) is the most ancient and universal forms of ideas of humanity, ancestral memory humanity, this is a reflection of the experience of previous generations imprinted in the structures of the brain. This unconscious was born at the dawn of human history in collective mental experience; it is the basis of our psyche. The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche that is common to all humanity. The collective unconscious is older than human consciousness, therefore Human consciousness is formed and grows from the collective unconscious.

The primary structures of the collective unconscious are archetypes(from Latin arche - beginning, typos - imprint) - a kind of sediment from the primary spiritual experience of humanity.

Archetypes are images or motifs without content(but they are capable of being filled with consciousness) - the deep layer of the unconscious, where universal human primordial images lie dormant.This is a mental meaning, which in itself is devoid of objectivity, for example, one of the meanings is the thirst for love, which is not initially associated with any specific image or person. Archetype is the first meaninginvisibly organizing and directing the life of our soul. K. Jung identified a number of universal cultural archetypes, for example, mother, child, old man and others.

Archetypes have never been in consciousness, have never been acquired individually, are inherited, born from the unconscious common to all people. The collective unconscious (having cultural origins) “launches” the process of inculturation (this is the process of entering a culture, i.e. assimilating the culture of previous generations). Archetypes are certain innate programs under their influence are not only elementary behavioral reactions (unconditioned reflexes), but also perception, thinking, and imagination. There are as many archetypes as there are typical ones life situations, if something happens in life that corresponds to the archetype, then it is activated.

Archetypes are immutable, but their content is constantly subject to influences social environment and historical events. In the most general sense, an archetype is an eternal plot or image, repeated from era to era, from culture to culture, but each time reinterpreted in a new way in accordance with the spirit of its time and its culture. Jung gave an example. In the 19th century, the idea of ​​conservation of energy was expressed by Robert Mayer, he was a doctor, and not a physicist or natural philosopher, but it was not created by Mayer in the full sense of the word. Mayer recalled that this “emerged” in him and led him to the conclusion that this was so.K. Jung explains that the idea of ​​energy and its conservation,must be is the original imagewhich lay dormant in the collective unconscious. In primitive (dynamic) religions this image of energy was expressed by the thought of the existence of a universally widespread magical power, around which everything revolves. For Heraclitus, it is like world energy, like “ever-living fire.” In the Gospels, energy is manifested in the changes of the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire coming from the sky. In the Middle Ages - like an aura, a halo of a saint, in the idea of ​​​​the immortality of the soul, lies the idea of ​​its preservation. In the East - as the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe transmigration of the soul.

For Jung, the conscious and unconscious complement each other, both are the source of culture. For Jung, the unconscious basis human personality, although of archaic origin, can still live in peace with culture.

Jung also paid a lot of attention to the analysis of thinking and its connection with culture, believing that culture is a shared and accepted way of thinking.In his opinion, there is two types of thinking: logical and intuitive.

Logical thinking - This is a European (Western) cultural tradition; it developed within the framework of medieval culture on the basis of scholasticism. Scholasticism prepared the categorical apparatus of science, when thinking is carried out in verbal expressions, based on laws, identity and consistency in reasoning.

Intuitive thinking - a form of thinking based on insight, intuition- this is a tradition of the countries of the East, thinking is carried out in the form of a stream of images,it is directed inside consciousness, it is not productive for industrial development, but it is indispensable for creativity, mythology, religion and is intended to adapt to the collective unconscious, establishing a balance between consciousness and the collective unconscious.

K. Jung creatororiginal theories of psychological types.He identified two psychological types: extrovert and introvert. Extrovert- it's such psychological type interest and attention paid to the outside world, to adaptation to to the outside world to understand this world, it is aimed at expanding consciousness. Introvert -This is a psychological type of interest that is aimed at the inner world, at an internal object, at deepening consciousness - at the collective unconscious.

K. Jung says that an Indian always remembers not only his own nature, but also that he himself belongs to nature. The European, on the contrary, has the science of nature and knows surprisingly little about his own essence, about his inner nature. And he believes that in order to get out of the crisis, European culture, with the predominance of extroverts in whom the balance of consciousness and the unconscious is disturbed, must change and restore the lost unity of the human soul.

By its design and immediate goal, Freudianism is focused on the study and healing of the psyche of individuals, but from the very beginning it contained a tendency to explain social consciousness in its present and past. The “prohibitions” that Freud believed repressed sexual attraction into the sphere of the unconscious and give rise to neuroses, were, in essence, nothing more than social norms of morality and law that arose at the dawn of human history. Freud called them “cultural prohibitions” and believed that it was extremely important to find out how, why, and under what conditions they arose, established themselves, and evolved. The scientist's attention was drawn to the problems of the formation and essence of human culture. As Freud himself wrote, he sought to judge general development humanity according to its experience acquired... on the way of studying the mental processes of individuals over the entire period of their development from childhood to adult. By transferring certain characteristics from an individual person to all of humanity, Freud thus tried to understand the process of evolution of society.

It should be noted that Freud transfers to all humanity the psychological traits of not just an individual, but a neurotic. On this path, the scientist put forward a number of statements. In his opinion, firstly, all people are neurotic to a greater or lesser extent. Secondly, each child in his own individual development goes through a phase of neurosis. Thirdly, the stage of neurosis is also characteristic of primitive man. All peoples pass through it in their cultural and historical development. Considering culture through the prism of an individual’s neurotic consciousness, Freud qualified it as a system of prohibitions that block a person’s natural drives. In his opinion, the repression of drives is a measure of the achieved cultural level, and the cultural development of mankind is a renunciation of natural passions, the satisfaction of which guarantees the elementary pleasure of our “I”.

It should be emphasized that the Freudian term “culture” in most cases turns out to be equivalent to the concept of “society”. In his most extensive definition of “human culture,” Freud points out that “it embraces all the knowledge and methods acquired by people to dominate the forces of nature and obtain goods to satisfy human needs”, and at the same time it includes all the institutions that regulate relations between people, especially the distribution of extracted goods. But it should be noted that all people still have destructive, antisocial, anticultural traditions and that these aspirations in a significant number of people are so strong that they determine their behavior among others.

We can say that a person seems to be between two fires. On the one hand, culture oppresses a person, deprives him of pleasures (for this he strives to get rid of it); on the other hand, culture protects it from factors environment, allows you to master all the benefits of nature and use them, and also shares them among people. So, if a person abandons culture in favor of his pleasures, then he is deprived of protection, many benefits and may perish. If he refuses pleasures in favor of culture, then this places a heavy burden on his psyche. In which direction is a person inclined? Of course, the second one. Freud writes about it this way: “Because of this, every culture must be built on coercion and on the renunciation of drives, and when it is understood, it turns out that the center of gravity has been shifted from material interests to the psyche. The decisive question is whether and to what extent it will be possible to reduce for people the burden of the sacrifice, which consists in renouncing their desires, will reconcile people with the sacrifices that they inevitably have to bear, and how to reward them for these sacrifices.” The main question remains how to force a negative crowd to comply with cultural dogmas. Here the question arises about the role of personality in culture.

Basic theories of the origin of culture

One of the most difficult problems associated with cultural genesis is the problem of the origin of culture.

Tool-evolutionary version of the origin of culture

Representatives and their works:

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), article “The Role of Labor in the Process of Transformation of Ape into Man” (1873-1876), which was one of the chapters of his work “Dialectics of Nature”.

Karl Marx(1818-1883) - German philosopher, sociologist, economist, writer, poet, political journalist, public figure.

K. Marx believed that the development of culture is based on the improvement of the material side of life.

K. Marx argued that culture is connected with human labor, with production material goods.

According to the tool-labor concept, man separated from the animal world.

F. Engels owns the classic formula: “Labor created man.”

By labor F. Engels understood expedient activity, which began with the manufacture of tools from stone, bone and wood.

According to K. Marx and F. Engels, consciousness arose as a result of labor.

In the process of work among people there was a need to say something to each other.

This is how the speech arose as a means of communication in joint work activities.

The consequences of these prerequisites - the emergence of the process of work and speech - are enormous.

Human activity has become a huge impetus that has led to cultural genesis.

Psychoanalytic explanation of the origin of culture

S. Freud's concept of culture

Founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in the book "Totem and Taboo" tried to reveal cultural genesis through the phenomenon of primitive culture.

Z. Freud is trying to unravel the original meaning of totemism. At the same time, he shows that to interpret the phenomenon of culture great value has a system of prohibitions, that is, taboos. S. Freud believes that culture is a system of norms and prohibitions aimed at protecting society from a free individual.

Z. Freud considers taboo as a result of ambivalence (duality) of feelings. It's about about conscience as a gift that separated man from the animal kingdom and created the phenomenon of culture.

S. Freud derived the phenomenon of conscience from the original sin committed by primordial people - the murder of the primitive “father”.

The sexual rivalry between children and their father led them to decide at the beginning of history to kill the head of the clan.

However, this act did not pass without a trace for them.

The terrible crime aroused repentance. The children vowed never to commit such acts again.

This is how, according to Z. Freud, the birth of man from an animal happened. Repentance also gave rise to a cultural phenomenon.

S. Freud believed that he managed to find the source social organization, moral standards and, finally, religion in the act of parricide.

He understood by human culture everything in which human life rises above animal conditions and how it differs from the life of animals.

Culture, in his opinion, demonstrates two sides of itself.

On the one hand, it covers all the knowledge and skills acquired by people, which give a person the opportunity to master the forces of nature and receive material benefits from it to satisfy their needs.

On the other hand, it includes all those regulations that are necessary for regulating the relationships between people, and especially for the distribution of achievable material benefits.

Each culture, according to S. Freud, is created by coercion and suppression of primary urges.

At the same time, people have destructive, and therefore antisocial and anticultural tendencies.

This psychological fact is critical to the assessment of human culture.

Culturogenesis, therefore, is determined by the imposition of prohibitions.

Thanks to them, culture many millennia ago began to separate from the primitive animal state.

We are talking about the primal urges of incest, cannibalism and the passion for murder.

The main task of culture, according to S. Freud, is to protect us from nature.

Z. Freud believed that religion provided enormous services to culture.

She actively contributed to taming asocial instincts.

2.2. Analytical theory of culture K.G. cabin boy

Carl Gustav Jung believed that the sources of culture are the conscious and unconscious principles.

In many ways, following S. Freud in psychotherapeutic practice, C. Jung significantly diverged from him in his understanding of culture.

Differences between C. Jung’s theory and classical psychoanalysis of culture:

1) rejection of Freud’s pansexualism and the erotic interpretation of all cultural phenomena,

2) a modified personality structure and the concept of “collective unconscious” along with the “individual unconscious”;

3) in Freud, culture is included in the Super-Ego, which stands in opposition to the Id (the seat of the unconscious); in K. Jung, the conscious and unconscious complement each other.

Moreover, both of them are a source of culture.

Jung viewed personality structure as consisting of three components:
1) consciousness – EGO – I;

2) personal unconscious – “IT”;

3) “collective unconscious”.

The personal unconscious contains complexes, is a collection of emotionally charged thoughts, feelings and memories brought by an individual from his past personal experience or from ancestral, hereditary experience.

These complexes can have a strong influence on an individual's behavior.

Everyone knows that Napoleon was vertically challenged and was generally unprepossessing.

He extremely disliked tall, slender guardsmen, and unless such a soldier was distinguished by absolutely insane courage, he could not receive a promotion.

At Napoleon's headquarters, too, everyone was small and not too thin.

For example, a person with a power complex may expend a significant amount of mental energy on activities directly or symbolically related to the theme of power.

The same may be true of a person under strong influence mother, father or under the power of money, sex or some other kind of complex.

Once formed, the complex begins to influence a person’s behavior and attitude.

IN late XIX- first half of the 20th century General attention was attracted by the psychoanalytic interpretation of culture undertaken by Z. Freud, C. Jung and other scientists.

3. Freud

The founder of the psychoanalytic doctrine of culture is the Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud(1856-1939). He became one of those researchers who had a tremendous influence on all areas of scientific knowledge dealing with the problem of man. Some historians of science are even inclined to believe that this psychoanalyst revolutionized views on human nature, discovering fundamentally new sources and resources of existence in it. To understand the essence of the Freudian concept of culture, it is necessary to understand his approach to the problem of man. According to Freud, man is not only a rational, cultural being, but also a natural being, driven by unconscious instincts of an animal nature. Human consciousness consists of three main substructures that are in complex relationships - Ego (I), Id (It) and Super-Ego (Super-I). The id is a biological, natural, sensory component of the individual’s consciousness, the action of which is chaotic and knows neither rules nor laws. The id leads a person to aggressive actions and pleasure (food, sleep, sex). However, as a creature social person cannot be guided only by blind desires, since there are other people and external restrictions. In order to learn to think, extinguish the rough energy of the Id, and solve problems taking into account reality, there is an Ego, which acts as a kind of executive body in a person’s relationship with society and the means of adaptation to reality. But the Ego needs guidelines, norms, values, rules by which to live. They are not given from birth, but are acquired through the formation of the super-ego, which is an internalized (acquired, internalized) version of the norms and standards of behavior accepted in society, in a goy or other culture. The superego as a process of socialization (enculturation) of the individual and society is a constant curbing of unconscious impulses and control over them. 3. Freud, revealing the essence of this process, introduces the concept of sublimation, which he considers as a mechanism for suppressing instincts and switching human energy from destructive goals to sublime ones, cultural. Sublimation actually becomes the primary source of cultural creation. Culture is nothing more than the result of sublimated instincts and drives, the curbing of human destructiveness and aggression. The stronger the sublimation, the more developed the culture. At the same time, of course, a person is constantly between two fires - powerful instincts and the culture imposed on him.

Culture, notes Z. Freud, is a social phenomenon, for the individual is its enemy, at least virtually, due to the fact that it curbs and coerces him. Culture is forced to be built on coercion and prohibition of desires. Individual freedom is not an achievement of culture; it existed before culture and without culture. The development of culture precisely imposes restrictions on individual freedom (taboo). Culture represents the power of the collective, the will of the majority. It started with prohibitions social control, social norms and sanctions regulating sexual relations. Ancient man, believes 3. Freud discovered that the possibilities of survival and improvement of his life are (literally and figuratively) in his own hands. Therefore, he limited himself as much as possible. Initially, the basis of culture was external needs, the heap and the power of love, and love connected more closely than labor interests. Eros and Ananke became the forefathers of human culture. The emergence of religion, power, state, morality, and norms is nothing more than the result of processes arising from the restriction of sexual relations. The prehistoric drama of parricide due to the son’s attraction to his mother (“Oedipus complex”) prompted ancient people rethink life, idealize the father and come to the need for a social contract, taboo, totemism. The “Oedipus complex” played, from Freud’s point of view, a decisive role in the emergence of many elements of culture and became a universal cultural and psychological constant human life. In general, the theme of sexual relations and love in 3. Freud is not limited to the above. He believes that love is one of the fundamental foundations of culture, its greatest achievement. Sexual love gives a person happiness, the highest experiences, satisfaction, and regulates relationships between people. In addition to sexual love, there is inhibited love (inhibited in the sense of purpose), or tenderness between brothers and sisters, parents and children. 3. Freud believes that women, with their demands for love, sexuality and family, stood at the origins of culture. But subsequently, cultural activities increasingly become the domain of men, and women recede into the background.

Trying to comprehend the phenomenon of culture and give it a definition, the Austrian scientist moves in line with the classical tradition (Greeks, J. G. Herder, G. Hegel). By culture he understands everything what distinguishes a person from an animal. It includes, Firstly, all the knowledge and skills accumulated by people, allowing them to master the forces of nature and take benefits from it to satisfy human needs, and secondly, evening? institutions, necessary to streamline human relationships. Freud does not distinguish between culture and civilization, as many of his contemporaries did. The content of culture consists not only of coercion, benefits, the means of obtaining them and the order of their distribution, but also the means that make up the psychological arsenal of culture. First of all, religious ideas. They are the highest value of culture, its precious asset. Religion can offer people something more than all other elements of culture (science, art, material culture). And a true believer will not allow his faith to be taken away from him either by the arguments of reason or by prohibitions. It is also impossible to overthrow religion through violent measures. Freud calls religion the most important part of a culture's mental inventory. Religion is not a delusion, but an illusion that comes from human desires. It is similar, in a sense, to delusional ideas in psychiatry.

Considering the dynamic and value aspects of culture, 3. Freud notes with disappointment that, despite great advances in cultural activities, especially in mastering nature, man has not achieved complete happiness; Apparently, ego is not its only condition. Even sex life largely ceases to be a source of happiness. Because of culture, a person lost part of his happiness, but gained partial security, protection from aggression.

Everything in culture There is a greater tendency to switch the center of gravity from the extraction and distribution of material goods to phenomena of the spiritual order. Although culture is created with enormous effort, it is vulnerable and easily destroyed, it individual elements(science and technology) can be used to destroy humans. The tendency to aggression is the biggest obstacle to the improvement of culture; one might say, its trouble. Humanity is between the Scylla of social repression and the Charybdis of complete liberation from instincts. It hardly needs to be said that a culture that leaves so many members dissatisfied and even leads to rebellion cannot hope to survive for long, nor does it deserve it. Human culture is still imperfect. Many people have very strong anti-cultural tendencies and manifestations of narcissism own culture. Much in culture depends on individuals - leaders, politicians, who can perform both constructive and destructive roles.

3. Freud opposes any accusations against culture that our misfortunes are associated with it. It is culture that provides a person with the means to protect himself from threatening suffering. But sociocultural evolution proceeds very slowly and encounters stubborn resistance from hostile forces. Criticism of culture does not mean rejection of it, but the need for its perfection, for greater satisfaction of our needs. True, culture in its essence is such that not everything in it can be made perfect, and not everything is done as quickly as we would like.

Reflecting on the fate of culture, 3. Freud is not trying to be a prophet, a know-it-all. The scientist doesn't even try to give her overall assessment, refrains from interpreting culture as the most precious human asset, leading to unprecedented perfections. He is ready to listen to any cultural critic and be an impartial participant in the discussion. Freud modestly explains this by saying that he does not know this subject very well and is not sure about many things. “All I know with certainty is that value judgments are inevitably guided by people’s desires, their desire for happiness, their attempts to support their illusions with arguments,” he writes in “Cultural Discontent.” Fatal, for human race, it seems to me that the question is: will it be possible - and to what extent - to curb the attraction to aggression and self-destruction on the path of culture, leading to destruction human existence.

Now people have gone so far in their dominance over the forces of nature that they can destroy each other, down to the last person. Thanatos (god of death) can take over people's minds. One can only hope that another of the “heavenly powers” ​​- the eternal Eros (god of love) - will exert its strength in order to defend its rights in the fight against an equally immortal enemy. But who knows which side will win, who can foresee the outcome of the struggle?

You can become more thoroughly acquainted with the cultural ideas of 3. Freud by reading his following works: “Totem and Taboo”, “I and It”, “The Future of an Illusion”, “Discontent with Culture”.