“Civilization and Its Discontents”—A Reappraisal

The author questions the extent to which Freud's theory of culture can justify Freud’s postulated claim concerning the social causation of neuroses. Since the premises on which Freud bases his cultural theory are untenable, it is argued that this justification cannot be supplied by it. This is followed by an examination of Freud’s arguments against historical materialism, and a further reasoned rejection of those objections Freud did not withdraw. Finally, in the author’s proposing to open psychoanalysis onto historical materialism, Freud's concept of sexual instincts is deciphered in the light of Laplanche’s considerations as a naturalistic mystification of the unconscious. With this opening, the contradiction between conscious and unconscious objectives in neuroses appears abstractly as a manifestation of the contradiction of subjects in which society finds itself. In closing, the need for a meta-theoretical mediation of psychoanalytic insights and historical materialistic knowledge in making a concrete analysis of the social conditions of neuroses is emphasised.