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4 comments:
i think freud severly undermined the strength of goups and numbers.... there has been a lot of research in psychology and sociology in which the importance of peer or group pressure on a persons actions is presented... basically a lot of human action alltogether depends on how they have been socialized- even thier development of the self!! Nazi germany most likely didnt happen because all of germanys population wanted to instinctively kill the Jews.... but the power of numbers helped...... Jesus wasnt stoned because people wanted to see his blood..well most ppl.... what im trying to stay is that if we look at a lot of examples people can be extreme factors in shaping other ppl....... also i think it was easier for freud to stay there was something called an id which was evil and innate in all humans so that he could take away the blame from each individual for any evil action they may have wanted to commit...... this way we are all collectively doomed humans who have a part of us that is evil and therefore when we act out violence, etc. we were just being natural...... its a lot harder to say we had a big choice and that we are just as capable of being naurally good as evil...Locke or Hobbes??? Naturally good or evil??? Easier to say naturally evil.... gives us lower things to strive for ethically and less to feel guilty about....
I believe that Freud does this because the past has taught us that the behaviour of societies is reflective of the behaviour of the individual only on a much larger scale. This is displayed especially in war. I believe that the most basic and possibly ONLY true human instinct is survival which was probbaly the cause of violence and agression in the first existing civilization. The need to survive might have turned into greed which could have lead to violent methods of getting the means to survive which could have eventually been blown out of propotion and turned into the desire for domination of a country of even the world. BUT I don't agree with the idea that every living person is violent and sex driven in nature. It might appear this way but nowadays there are people who spend their lives fighting for peace and happiness. I believe that every human has the potential to be a great person with good values. It is when many minds get together that violence begins to sow it's head because the majority of people don't use there potential to be good. In conclusion, large groups of people together seem stupi and violent, but the individual can be good and brilliant.
Freud played down the role of group dynamics because the individual human consciousness is separate from all others. As Descartes so delightfully pointed out the only thing that can be known to be true is that all thought is isolated to ones self, and because of this any action or decision made by an individual is a repercussion of unique thoughts and influences. I feel that Freud, by diminishing the role of the group was trying to exemplify that groups themselves do not make collective decisions with a unified memory; each individual in the group makes their own decision, one independent from the consciousness of others.
I personally think Freud up plays the role of instincts and down plays the role of society because he likes the easy way out. By saying all our actions are due to instincts, he pretty much is talking about unconsciousness, which means we aren't to blame for what we do. Instincts also mean things which are innate, therefore really...can we change anything? NO! So does this stop the conversation there? Of course it does, are you seriously going to sit there and argue about your INNATE instincts? I wouldn't. If he was to put it on society for the way we act and what not, he would have to then explain how this could be put under control. He didn't want to, so personally, he took the easy way out.
I would however, fight for both, instincts give us options on what it is we want to act on, and society gives us reason to choose one or few of the options. They both are very important in the choices we make on a daily bases. We want something sweet, society tells us "WAIT! you'll get fat...who will love you if your fat?" So you eat an apple instead, OR a mango, thats sweet, only you eat more to take care of your sweet tooth. They both play their roles in every single choice we make in life. I wouldn't under play any of them.
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