Why you can't actually just, why we don't usually dir- directly express what we
desire. We don't en-, directly express our
sexuality because there's this force that keeps us from ourselves, right?
The self is divided In Freud. Unlike Rosseau, who thought you have to
fight to use the true self hidden under all the disguises.
And Freud, the true self is not just one thing, it's a contradictory, set of forces
and our desires are not uniform, even when we get underneath.
The repressions underneith the disguises are.
Desires are not uniform, they're a hereogenious mix of conflicting impulses.
A heterogenious mix of conflicting impulses.
And, and in a way that can, that almost brings us to civilization as[INAUDIBLE]
discontents. But I, I want to give you a little bit
more on the Freudian notion of sexuality and desire, which will help perhaps in
understanding why you can't just find the original thing you really want, the really
real, if I can put it that way. Of desire, because for Freud there isn't a
really "real" of desire. And that's because Freud theorizes that as
infants, really, as very small children, we begin to look for things to satisfy our
elemental craving Things. But we look for things, that are
associated with those elemental cravings and, and never actually, look for the
thing that, that, the nourishment that we, crave directly.
That is what, when we when we, crave something There's always an element of
fantasy on top of instinct. There's always an element of fantasy on
top of biology. So that you continue to search for your
fantasies to satisfy your biology[LAUGH]. And when you find something that really
does satisfy. It's because it's something you were
searching for before. Not the, not the thing itself but
something that, some fantastic, some imaginary construct of what you originally
biologically instinctively crave. And, and, and for Freud he has this
expression every, every finding of an object is a re-finding of an object.
Every finding of an object is a re-finding of an object.
And what he means is when we, when we discover something we really love, we say,
gosh I finally found what I really love. It's actually some repetition of Something
we fantasized about before. Something, that we perhaps, thought we
lost before. And, continue to search for things, that
are, that are, rooted in our histories. I guess that's the, the point I really
wanted to, to emphasize, is that it's, it's the rootedness in our histories that
are imaginar-, imaginary constructs on our biology that is behind Freud's notion of
sex and desire. It's our, understanding our history
doesn't do away with these desires. But understanding our history, is the way
we make meaning out of our desire, and have some better chance of, being, as
Freud would say, less miserable. Suffering less.
Understanding our desires understanding why we search for the things we search
for. Gives us something closer to, to freedom,
really. To the ability to love and to work.
Getting a little far afield from Civilization and its Discontents, so
perhaps I should jump back to that now. You remember that the book starts off
with, Freud's discussion of the oceanic feeling, the oceanic feeling.
And he, he's, he, he starts off that way in a, in a sense to give you a signal, and
I hope you pick it up because of our earlier part of the course, it's the
signal that he, Freud is an enlightenment thinker.
The oceanic feeling is supposed to be a way of talking about religion that is less
objectionable. He starts off with a critique of religion.
And the oceanic here, what's the oceanic feeling?
Again, what's the oceanic feeling, where I talked at the beginning, yeah.
>> Like eternity, like[INAUDIBLE]. >> Yeah.
You want to add to this? >> It's the theory that we belong to the
world. >> We, we feel like we belong to the whole
world. >> We feel like we're all just part of
the, we're part of the, what would you say?
Part of the? >> Force.
>> The force? >> The great scheme of things.
>> The great scheme of things. That works, yeah.
And what does Freud, what is Freud's response to this?
Because his friend is[UNKNOWN], a famous writer, says come on Freud, you're so
anti-religious. So you criticize all the magic and the
incense and all of that stuff, but come on, religion isn't about that.
Religion is about this deep feeling of belonging to the world to connect to
everything, you're one with the universe, and Freud says, no, I see.
What is his response? >> He has a feeling.
>> Well, he has a feeling but he goes a little farther than that.
I have never had such a feeling. It's very Voltarian.
He says, yeah, it's what infants feel in the crib.
Oh yeah. I remember, the very beginning of the
book. Oh yeah, I know about this feeling, that's
what babies have. And some people outgrow it.
Remember, Voltaire's response to Rousseau. This is on just the second page, of the
book. I cannot discover this oceanic feeling in
myself It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings.
One can attempt to describe the psychiological signs.
He says, this is a feeling that is[UNKNOWN] bond with the world as a whole
is something that you find in babies, and so, for Freud this is give it up.
It's an infantile, response to the world. So what Freud is doing here in the
beginning of Civilization and its Discontents, is he's taking a classic
enlightenment position that religion is, is bunk.
And religion is infantile and, and we have to face the world, as he saw it, with our
sober senses. And that's Freud saying, I am part of the
enlightenment, I am part of this Voltarian tradition, and, and Civilization's
Discontents is, is squarely in that, tradition.
The, the, the, the intellectual historian and biographer of Freud who's really
insisted on this, Freud's enlightenment credentials, if I can put it that way, is
Peter Gay who's, A big biography of Freud has become a standard source of narrative
biography about Freud's life, in, in general.