Civilization and Its Discontents Study Guide

1. The "oceanic" feeling, according to Freud, can be best characterized in psychoanalytic terms as:

• the dissolution of the boundary between the ego and the outside world
• the inability to contain one's emotional expressiveness
• the fear of suffocation that people experience in the presence of water
• the desire of the psyche to plunge into unconscious memories

2. Freud draws an analogy with which of the following branch(es) of science to describe the structure of the mind?

• Darwinian theories of evolution
• neither of the above
• archeology
• both of the above

3. In his critique of religion, Freud views God as

• an aloof but ultimately benevolent figure of authority
• an enormously exalted father figure
• the amalgamation of various pagan mythological figures
• a mystical, omniscient force in the universe

4. Men exhibit which of the following coping mechanisms to counter suffering?

• substitutive satisfactions
• planned distractions
• intoxicating substances
• all of the above

5. Isolation fails to work as a strategy for avoiding suffering because

• society stigmatizes misanthropic tendencies
• lack of human contact leads to paranoid and neurotic behavior
• the reality of the outside world intrudes far too forcefully
• men are fundamentally communal beings

6. Freud objects to the commandment "Love thy neighbor" mainly because he

• considers man's fundamental instinct to be aggression, not love
• is adamantly anti-religion
• sees no ethical obligation to love his neighbor more than anyone else
• all of the above

7. What does Freud consider to be the most intense source(s) of "unpleasure"?

• our relations to other men
• our body
• the external world
• all of the above

8. In discussing man's advances in technology, Freud compares man to

• a sleepwalking monster
• Hercules
• a wolf
• a prosthetic God

9. Which factor(s) determine(s) an individual's happiness?

• both his own mental constitution and his level of adaptation to the external environment
• his submission to religious faith
• his own mental constitution
• his level of adaptation to the external environment

10. The primary aim(s) of civilization, according to Freud, is/are to:

• protect man from the perils of nature
• restrain the inclination to aggression
• both of the above
• none of the above