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Civilization and Its Discontents

By: Sigmund Freud - Read: December 2024 - Rating: 8/10

Freud's meditation on the tension between individual desire and societal order.

The core argument: civilization requires the repression of instincts, which inevitably leads to unhappiness. We trade freedom for security, and that trade has a psychological cost.

Some of the psychoanalytic framework feels dated, but the central insight holds up. Every system we build to enable collective living comes with constraints on individual expression. Worth reading to understand the fundamental tradeoffs of organized society.