The Future of an Illusion

Civilization is one of the core concepts explored in The Future of an Illusion, and throughout the book, Freud theorizes about the purpose of civilization and the reason for its development. The term “civilization,” as used by Freud, is in many ways synonymous with society—often referring to the set of laws and customs that govern the relations between members of a community. However, Freud has a very specific idea of civilization’s purpose, which he defines as being directly in relation to nature:

[Civilization] includes on the one hand all the knowledge and capacity that men have acquired in order to control the forces of nature and extract its wealth for the satisfaction of human needs, and, on the other hand, all the regulations necessary in order to adjust the relations of men to one another and especially the distribution of the available wealth (6).

In this lengthy definition, Freud argues that civilization essentially comes about as a means of governing society’s working habits—the systems for both creating wealth and spreading it throughout society. However, Freud also describes a number of “mental assets” through which a civilization aims to control its members’ psyches so as to turn individuals into productive members of society.