Civilization And Its Discontents

Conscience “consists of watching over and judging the actions and intentions of the ego, exercising the functions of a censor” (79). Conscience is an aspect of the super-ego that internalizes societal rules and turns a person’s aggression inward to dismantle selfish urges. When conscience is piqued, a person feels guilt.

Culture is “the sum of the achievements and institutions which differentiate our lives from those of our animal forebears” (29) and that protect people and regulate their interactions. Culture is the central force that binds together individuals into larger groups; it imposes its rules in the form of the super-ego. The main challenge of culture is to control people’s natural aggressiveness so that they may learn to cooperate and not damage or kill each other.

Along with a creative life instinct, called libido or Eros, humans possess a destructive death instinct that focuses on obstacles to personal desires. Left unchecked, it takes the form of aggression, which society must actively suppress for the good of the group. Sometimes a culture is so successful at suppressing individual aggression that the destructive instinct turns inward and damages the person.