Yet, All Dictators Wanted “the Best” for their People: On the Civilization and Its Discontents

In civilization and its discontents, Freud tells us that, the humans have to live together in a society and, there would be no society without die Kultur, because the oceanic wills of humankind cannot be controlled by themselves, therefore, will destroy the unity of the society. However, die Kultur, on the other hand, always dictates for responsibility in the actions of the individuals and controls it by norms, laws and both social and legal penalties. This, in deed, strengths the society, but from the other view, in fact, gives so many pains –like hysteria– to the individuals. For Sigmund Freud, the individuals and die Kultur are in conflict, because of the dissatisfaction of the individual’s pleasures.

Freud’s explanation of the conflict between individuals and die Kultur is so similar to Hobbes’ idea of “state of nature” and “rule of law” in the theory of social contract. In state of nature, the humans have complete freedom over their actions, but as a result of this freedom, it is impossibility of existence of any rights. Therefore, the people are not secured from the dangers of their own kind, so they do not live as a society, but rather they have to survive on their own. Being alone in the nature also makes them insecure against the nature, also gives no way to develop their lives. The social contract is the thing that makes them secure and developed in the world, but this can only be done if the individuals give up their complete freedom.

Apparently, both authors are saying that; the humans are evil from their nature and it should be regulated for the sake of society and they explain the way of it by referring to some “human-made” institutions or disciplines. However, this seems to me deficient and dissatisfied because, if the disciplines and institutions are made by the humans i.e. created by individuals who have evil wills in their nature, then how it is possible to construct a well-just system in which the individuals are living together? There is no doubt that, the world accepts no mistake today and, it punishes mercilessly the ones who makes “mistakes” e.g. Jews in holocaust, September 6-7 in Turkey, Muslims in Israel/Palestine etc. Therefore, neither die Kultur nor any social contract are sufficient to eliminate the evil oceanic desires of the humankind, but one can only “acts like” they have regulated. I am not saying here, everyone should be in the state of nature to maintain their freedom; I am rather, asking the question that, “why do we have to follow ‘certain ways’ to live in a society?”. I have a problem with these ‘certain ways’ because their primary goal spoils after “certain extent” and harms many others per se.