Do humans hate civilization?

[Rippounet]

More or less unconsciously, that is.

I've been trying to read (as in really read) Civilization and its Discontents, and that seems to be what Freud is hinting at. According to my -possibly erroneous- reading, it seems that he believed that civilization can only exist if people can repress -at least some of- their aggressiveness. And Freud had a pretty dark view of human urges, saying everyone secretly wants to "exploit [their neighbor's] capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him."
So how come we don't constantly murder each other? Well for starters everyone needs affection and recognition so you can't be aggressive with everybody. Freud wrote it was perfectly possible to unite people in love "so long as there are other people left over to receive manifestations of their aggressiveness."
Why do we even have civilization then (instead of tribes throwing stones at one another)? Our life force -our will to live- apparently binds us together. Then, of course, there are mutual benefits to having a human society. This would not only create the idea of a "greater good" but also give us an urge to altruism, which opposes our primal urge to egoism. The greater the altruism, the greater the civilization.

Now, with all that in mind, I'm wondering whether civilization, by definition, doesn't require humans to value altruism. In other words, whether civilization doesn't require humans to truly believe and adhere to altruistic norms (not just pay lip service to them), especially in political (or religious) thought, even if that runs counter to their individual urges.
On the contrary, political or religious theories based on individualism or conflict would mechanically lead to less civilized societies, and possibly even, in the worst-case scenario, to the breaking down of the social order and of civilization itself.

Would it be crazy to say that shit really starts hitting the fan when we let our hatred of civilization take hold of our political institutions?

[Happy Ent]

They don’t hate it, but it is stressful. Popper calls this the “strain of civilisation.” This strain, and the resulting stress, is the price we pay for living in the open society, and all of our stone-age psychology wants to resist that cost. Hence the eternal intuitive preference for closed-society thinking (censorship, authoritarianism, tribalism, magical thinking, intellectual purity, loyalty etc.), which we need to be vigilant about.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

I just think that Humans are pretty damn tribal and find it very difficult to care about anybody outside of their own 'family unit'. The size of that family unit seems to be flexible and gets bigger as in it can become 'a tribe' or 'a nation', but essentially we only really care about ourselves and those closest to us. 

I think we all lock ourselves into a set of behavioural norms in order to keep a society together and that is reinforced by culture and laws and the fear of being ostracised. 

[Stubby]

Anything after version IV was pretty silly, IMO.

I liked the gameplay of the earlier versions much better.

[Theda Baratheon]

ehhh freud just wanted to justify all his own weird thoughts tbh 

And what kind of definition of civilisation are you using here as In do you mean all areas of civilisation and social development 

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

30 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Anything after version IV was pretty silly, IMO.

I liked the gameplay of the earlier versions much better.

We as a people have never really adapted to 1 Unit Per Tile. Its a shame

[Rippounet]

3 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Hence the eternal intuitive preference for closed-society thinking (censorship, authoritarianism, tribalism, magical thinking, intellectual purity, loyalty etc.), which we need to be vigilant about.

Shouldn't xenophobia and cultural supremacism be added to that list?

3 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I just think that Humans are pretty damn tribal and find it very difficult to care about anybody outside of their own 'family unit'. The size of that family unit seems to be flexible and gets bigger as in it can become 'a tribe' or 'a nation',

If we extrapolate based on Freud's theory, wouldn't civilization mechanically benefit if we, as humans, continued to continuously increase the size of what we perceive to be our family?

2 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

ehhh freud just wanted to justify all his own weird thoughts tbh 

And what kind of definition of civilisation are you using here as In do you mean all areas of civilisation and social development

I don't think Freud's thoughts were particularly weird. Does that make me weird?

I'm really playing on words, because I'm saying humans hate forcing themselves to feel too much empathy for their neighbor, without realizing that such empathy is what has permitted the building of our modern civilizations in the first place. Collective hatred for things like globalism or anti-racism may thus be equated with a hatred for human civilization, in the broadest sense of the term.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

30 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Shouldn't xenophobia and cultural supremacism be added to that list?

If we extrapolate based on Freud's theory, wouldn't civilization mechanically benefit if we, as humans, continued to continuously increase the size of what we perceive to be our family?

I don't think Freud's thoughts were particularly weird. Does that make me weird?

I'm really playing on words, because I'm saying humans hate forcing themselves to feel too much empathy for their neighbor, without realizing that such empathy is what has permitted the building of our modern civilizations in the first place. Collective hatred for things like globalism or anti-racism may thus be equated with a hatred for human civilization, in the broadest sense of the term.

I think that we have something inside of us that makes us hate or distrust 'the other', which works in combination with our urge to co-operate with those who are similar or are part of our tribe. Maybe this is an extension of our own survival instinct I don't know, but its there. This can be in the form of wars with other countries, or distrust of immigrants, racism, or hating people who like Marvel movies! 

I read somewhere that humans find social groupings of more than about 250 people stressful and are unable to cope with anything much larger than that (roughly.. might even be smaller). 

So if we all think in terms of small tribes and feel like there are limited resources out there, we feel we are in constant competition with the other tribes for those resources.

[Theda Baratheon]

I like my neighbours 

[Theda Baratheon]

I have good thoughts and feelings for most people and I refuse to believe im in some kind of minority in feeling that I mean I know a lot of people are shit but it's just so exhausting being misanthropic I would rather like and care about people 

[DunderMifflin]

Granted I never put the mount of work in that Frood did but I question that claim. There are other forms of life that don't seem to have that need so idk where the argument is grounded really. 

[maarsen]

I have to disagree with your thesis.  Civilization is the preferred state for almost all of us.  First, humans are domesticated animals and show all the traits of such. Second, the preferred environment for most people in which to live are urban areas. Third, show me feral humans living anywhere on this earth. I would even settle for non civilized humans.

Giving up civilization means giving up culture,  our single greatest tool that we as humans have ever created. We may talk about getting away from it all but we never do. Civilized life is much too sweet to give up.

[Rippounet]

54 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I read somewhere that humans find social groupings of more than about 250 people stressful and are unable to cope with anything much larger than that (roughly.. might even be smaller).

I've read something similar.

28 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I have good thoughts and feelings for most people and I refuse to believe im in some kind of minority in feeling that I mean I know a lot of people are shit but it's just so exhausting being misanthropic I would rather like and care about people 

I dunno if it's really people being shit since no one should be blamed for the urges they repress. We're not necessarily talking about counscious thoughts here ; in our civilized Western societies, most of that aggressiveness will never make it to the point of conscious thought (save in the most expreme people, of course).

I'm postulating however, that although individuals don't necessarily have consciously aggresive thoughts, the repressed aggressiveness still influences their ideas and actions, thus translating into political movements.

And @Channel4s-JonSnow 's point about limited ressources is interesting. There's this theory that our economic system is entirely based on scarcity. Which means in rough economic times individuals will experience the psychological pressure of limited ressources (even if their survival is not actually at stake). Such individuals would then feel the urge to protect and identify with a smaller group than usual.

13 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Granted I never put the mount of work in that Frood did but I question that claim. There are other forms of life that don't seem to have that need so idk where the argument is grounded really. 

What claim, what need, what argument?

Most apes adopt comparable behiavors. Primatologists have even shown that our cousins do in fact have civilizations.

I think Freud's argument is persuasive, but that he takes it one step too far. I would say most of us actually like civilization, as long as we feel we remain in control of our lives. This is because apes highly value the social ties binding them to one another but seek to be the "alpha" of the tribe nonetheless. What Freud described as a "death drive" (using someone else's concept, as it is) seems to me more of a "desire for power," in other words I don't see it as being as dark and nihilistic as Freud did.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

5 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

 

And @Channel4s-JonSnow 's point about limited ressources is interesting. There's this theory that our economic system is entirely based on scarcity. Which means in rough economic times individuals will experience the psychological pressure of limited ressources (even if their survival is not actually at stake). Such individuals would then feel the urge to protect and identify with a smaller group than usual.

 

 

You could probably suggest that one of the reasons that you find higher levels of racism (or at least more overt racism) in economically challenged areas is that people feel pressure for what they percieve to be limited resources, whereas 'soft middle class liberals' who don't feel that pressure are more altruistic. I think if you grow up in these poorer areas there seems to be far more focus on family, or at protecting your own group and at the same time more aggression towards anyone who is not in that group. 

This all reminds of the common misreading of Dawkins Selfish Gene. Dawkins message isn't that we are all driven by our genes selfish desires and so we always look after ourselves, but in fact we understand our survival and furtherence of our genes depends on others. This also leads to us having strong bonds with our family unit, but less so with others.

 

[DunderMifflin]

48 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

.

What claim, what need, what argument?

Most apes adopt comparable behiavors. Primatologists have even shown that our cousins do in fact have civilizations.

I think Freud's argument is persuasive, but that he takes it one step too far. I would say most of us actually like civilization, as long as we feel we remain in control of our lives. This is because apes highly value the social ties binding them to one another but seek to be the "alpha" of the tribe nonetheless. What Freud described as a "death drive" (using someone else's concept, as it is) seems to me more of a "desire for power," in other words I don't see it as being as dark and nihilistic as Freud did.

 

That there's a want to humiliate and kill and torture. Apes like humans vary in the amount of violence they engage in and there can be periods of heightened violence within chimp communites that can go on for months or years that would appear to be wars. That could just as easily point to there not being a want. I'd say the real reason for killing and taking and torturing is because they actually work and are pretty effective. As long as you are more powerful than the one you want to take from there is relatively little risk in it to yourself. As far is there being a want to harm, the evidence of it is that people that don't need to still hunt for food and people still fight each other for entertainment. But that could just be some form of keeping those skills sharp rather than humans as a whole prefering to harm others.

[Iskaral Pust]

6 hours ago, Stubby said:

Anything after version IV was pretty silly, IMO.

I liked the gameplay of the earlier versions much better.

You won the thread.  I still play Civ2 and overlook my later versions.

Happy Ent reminded me that I wanted to read Popper.  I need to put it back on my list.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

 

1 hour ago, DunderMifflin said:

That there's a want to humiliate and kill and torture. Apes like humans vary in the amount of violence they engage in and there can be periods of heightened violence within chimp communites that can go on for months or years that would appear to be wars. That could just as easily point to there not being a want. I'd say the real reason for killing and taking and torturing is because they actually work and are pretty effective. As long as you are more powerful than the one you want to take from there is relatively little risk in it to yourself. As far is there being a want to harm, the evidence of it is that people that don't need to still hunt for food and people still fight each other for entertainment. But that could just be some form of keeping those skills sharp rather than humans as a whole prefering to harm others.

Just look at our popular culture. Books, movies, games, older stories and legends... a huge proportion of them contain significant amounts of violence, regardless of if they are aimed at children or adults, or if they are hundreds of years old or modern. 

If popular culture reflects what most people find interesting or entertaining, which I think is a reasonable assumption, then that paints a perhaps not entirely positive picture of the human mind. 

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

Giving up civilization means giving up culture,  our single greatest tool that we as humans have ever created. We may talk about getting away from it all but we never do. Civilized life is much too sweet to give up.

Keep in mind hatred for civilization would largely be unconscious.

3 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Just look at our popular culture. Books, movies, games, older stories and legends... a huge proportion of them contain large amounts of violence and death, regardless of if they are aimed at children or adults, or if they are hundreds of years old or modern. 

If popular culture represents what humans find interesting or entertaining, which I think is reasonable, then that paints a perhaps not entirely optimistic picture of the human mind. 

Yes. On the other hand, much of the violence in popular culture seems to be legitimized by giving it some form of altruistic purpose.

I started noticing it after reading about the "Christic" nature of Frodo's character in the Lord of the Rings movies. Of course, people see this kind of altruistic message as part of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Such messages are common to all human cultures however, so I believe their function is to bind together the individuals of any given society.
I tend to believe that instead of popular culture stemming from our Judeo-Christian traditions, it is monotheism and popular culture that have a similar origin and purpose: the preservation of human civilization.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

11 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

 

Yes. On the other hand, much of the violence in popular culture seems to be legitimized by giving it some form of altruistic purpose.

I started noticing it after reading about the "Christic" nature of Frodo's character in the Lord of the Rings movies. Of course, people see this kind of altruistic message as part of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Such messages are common to all human cultures however, so I believe their function is to bind together the individuals of any given society.
I tend to believe that instead of popular culture stemming from our Judeo-Christian traditions, it is monotheism and popular culture that have a similar origin and purpose: the preservation of human civilization.

Oh, for sure. People have consciences after all, so the violence needs to be directed at some sort of "enemies", or justified in some other way. But the desire for it definitely seems to be there. 

I also agree that I don't think that has much to do with any particular religion. 

[DunderMifflin]

I think the violence is often there for reaction in entertainment. And it seems as civilization gets more peaceful society accepts less violence in its entertainment. People used to take children to beheadings and now art gets put on trial for being too graphic.