In his Modernity and Its Discontents, Freud argues that human psyche is structured into three parts: id, ego, and superego. The id is the primitive part of human personality (I); it operates on the pleasure principle fulfilled by Eros (sexual love, desire for life) and Thanatos (aggressiveness, desire for death), regardless of the consequences (VI). However, civilization’s goal is to work in “the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind” (VII). Therefore, in order to foster a stable and productive society, each individual’s instincts for eros and thanatos must be restricted. Otherwise, people would act on their
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Spiritual love is the feeling of connection with things -- with other people and even the things we create. One example of spiritual love is the church: people come to church seeking to be connected with others and with something greater than themselves. Many of us also enjoy being compassionate, sometimes volunteering at places like a daycare or an elderly center. We do not volunteer to have sexual relations with old people or babies. We also don’t do this for our own survival. Sometimes, we just enjoy helping people. Consider the spiritual bond artists have with their creations. Whenever they create something, they aren’t merely entranced by its physical beauty, but they feel pride and satisfaction in building something that is beneficial to …show more content…
Although we mix our labor into creating products, capitalism alienates us from them, as it asks us to sell our products to a stranger, while not paying us the full profits of our emotional and physical labor. We are unable to develop a spiritual connection with the person our product helps, as he or she is a stranger. Moreover, we are alienated from our employer as a result of this system which promotes efficiency above human interaction. Our employer views us as merely a source of revenue; he takes the profits of the product that we created while not creating the product itself. Furthermore, we are alienated from our peers because we have to compete with them to maintain our low-paying job. Ultimately, capitalism denies us the togetherness we long for. We find this togetherness in spiritual love.
Freud would argue, however, that this “so-called” spiritual love is merely a sublimation of eros and thanatos. He would say that we help old people and babies for the sake of posting photos and gaining social capital. We create things to make money and feed our families to pursue eros. We may believe that our motivations are more than just eros and thanatos, but this is because society has made us develop such a strong sense of a superego that we do not want to reduce our actions to mere, physical pleasure. Our true motivations have simply been submerged in our unconscious,
Spiritual love is the feeling of connection with things -- with other people and even the things we create. One example of spiritual love is the church: people come to church seeking to be connected with others and with something greater than themselves. Many of us also enjoy being compassionate, sometimes volunteering at places like a daycare or an elderly center. We do not volunteer to have sexual relations with old people or babies. We also don’t do this for our own survival. Sometimes, we just enjoy helping people. Consider the spiritual bond artists have with their creations. Whenever they create something, they aren’t merely entranced by its physical beauty, but they feel pride and satisfaction in building something that is beneficial to …show more content…
Although we mix our labor into creating products, capitalism alienates us from them, as it asks us to sell our products to a stranger, while not paying us the full profits of our emotional and physical labor. We are unable to develop a spiritual connection with the person our product helps, as he or she is a stranger. Moreover, we are alienated from our employer as a result of this system which promotes efficiency above human interaction. Our employer views us as merely a source of revenue; he takes the profits of the product that we created while not creating the product itself. Furthermore, we are alienated from our peers because we have to compete with them to maintain our low-paying job. Ultimately, capitalism denies us the togetherness we long for. We find this togetherness in spiritual love.
Freud would argue, however, that this “so-called” spiritual love is merely a sublimation of eros and thanatos. He would say that we help old people and babies for the sake of posting photos and gaining social capital. We create things to make money and feed our families to pursue eros. We may believe that our motivations are more than just eros and thanatos, but this is because society has made us develop such a strong sense of a superego that we do not want to reduce our actions to mere, physical pleasure. Our true motivations have simply been submerged in our unconscious,