One of the more quick, straightforward books that Freud wrote.

Civilization and Its Discontents basically asks why people are so neurotic and unhappy, despite all the benefits civilization’s supposed to have brought us. Freud contends that civilization — with its emphasis on community structures and monogamous relationships — frustrates people’s basic desires to fuck lots of different people and treat others like shit.

Of course Freud stops short of putting a judgement value on civilization, though he does draw parallels between it and religious principles (i.e. “Do not commit adultery” and “Love your neighbor”), which he does condemn:

Its technique consists in depressing the value of life and distorting the icture of the real world in a delusional manner — which presuppposes an intimidation of the intelligence. At this price, by forcibly fixing them in a state of psychical infantilism and by drawing them into a mass-delusion, religion succeeds in sparing many people an individual neurosis. But hardly anything more.

I wonder if Freud’s popularity and legacy had more to do with a frustration with religious structures and rules than the value of his theories….

note to self: re-read May 2007