Mazlish and Freud on Civilization

In this week's individual webbog post I am eager to learn of your interpretations and/or readings of "civilization" as this phenomenon is understood by Mazlish and Freud. There are key differences between these two figures as well as significant similarities, so make it your goal to offer meaningful reflection on what they have to say about the advantages and disadvantages offered by the historic invention of this key concept. Both men convey distinct concerns about civilization and its implications for the modern quest for individual liberty and self-flourishing. And, in the course of our reading of their critiques of civilization, we learn much about the complex, intertwined history of self and its other. Clearly, civilization is not innate, a product of human invention, and its naming (as Mazlish frequently points out) has a distinct, and curious historicity. I cannot help but wonder if Freud would subscribe to Mazlish's recommendation that we jettison the term civilization, in order to replace it with a Norbert Elias-inspired "civilizing process"? Perhaps Freud's own conjectural history of the origins of human civilization in the ominous, unchecked aggression of the"brudderbund" and the longer evolution of human repression offers a prototype of the "civilizing process"?