Introduction

This is the most important cultural work of Freud's last years, written after the trauma of the First World War and on the eve of the Nazis' rise to power. Starting from what a friend called an 'oceanic feeling', he asks why human beings are not happy in civilisation. His answer is that civilisation rests on the repression and renunciation of instinct: to live together, people must restrain their sexuality and their aggression, and this restraint inevitably brings suffering and discontent. Repressed aggression turns inward, forming a harsh 'superego' and a sense of guilt that deepens as civilisation advances. In life, Eros and the death instinct wage an eternal struggle, and humanity's fate depends on whether Eros can master the drives to aggression and destruction. The book remains a classic for understanding the spiritual condition of modern man.