Views on Freud: Civilization and its Discontents Chapter 1 part 6
December 6, 2006
Freud - “This differentiation (between what is internal and belongs to the ego and what is external and belongs to the outside world explained in my last post), of course, serves the practical purpose of enabling one to defend oneself against sensations of unpleasure which one actually feels or with which one is threatened.”
Ok, but why would it matter? Why would one care if one is experiencing unpleasure? or better yet how do we know what unpleasure is?
I believe the answer, which Freud does not provide, lies in our need to exist. Our sensations and experiences fall into three categories – the good, the bad and the indifferent (or the ugly which ever works for you). These three depend on our previous experiences which than reference to their appropriate category which depend on how they affect our existence. That is the reason we try to avoid certain experiences because those have pointed towards an inclination to a better or lesser existence.
“In order to fend off certain unpleasurable excitations arising from within, the ego can use no other methods than those which it uses against unpleasure coming from without, and this is the starting point of important pathological disturbances.”
How would one be aware that such disturbances are coming from within?
“In this way, than, the ego detaches itself from the external world. Or, to put it more correctly, originally the ego includes everything, later it separates off an external world from itself.”
Why? It has nothing to do with internal disturbances but rather external situations which cause internal instability.
What is this everything that the ego includes? The development of the self is simultaneous with the realization of the external world, and the constant feedback system the mind provides shapes us with regard to the world around, the context in which we develop ourselves.
Freud goes on to explain that the ‘oceanic’ feeling is a result of a greater attachment of the external world to the ego after the original separation.
