Civilization and its Discontents

This book helps explain one of life’s enduring phenomena: rage. It explains why standing behind that scruffy, ponytailed, mustachioed gentleman in the checkout lane (let’s call him “Gerard,” for good measure), can trigger paroxysms of homicidal fury. Something deep and ancient roils inside as you do......more

There’s something unbelievable about Freud. If he was some ancient Greek or Medieval thinker, his ideas might not seem as strange. But the man was a contemporary of Albert Einstein, John Maynard Keynes, and F.D.R. He lived through the Great Depression and died during World War II—two events that con......more

This book deftly delineates the dilemma in our civic society, where the struggle between our ethics and animal instincts continue, and the ‘prices’ we have paid in making our society safe and secure. It rejoins what Victor Hugo and Tolstoy and Steinbeck show in their works... But, most of all, I thin......more

This book was sent to its publishers right after the great crash of 1929, but of course, it was written earlier. In the coming decades of wars, economic recessions, nuclear weapons, colonialism and unchecked capitalism, Freud became a preacher sort of figure despite his disdain for religion. His vie......more

`Civilization and its Discontents' is Freud's miniature opus. It is a superficial masterpiece that stretches further than any of his other works; he is reaching for an explanation for human nature in terms of the id-ego-superego structure of the individual as he exists in civilization. For Freud, hu......more