![]() ![]() By its very nature, it can be no more than an episodic phenomenon. What we call happiness, in the strictest sense of the word, arises from the fairly sudden) satisfaction of pent-up needs. One is inclined to say that the intention that man should be ‘happy’ has no place in the plan of Like Carlyle, he completely dismisses the idea of happiness being a valid or attainable goal for a human being: Freud with a cigar, but maybe not just a cigar.Įarly on, Freud offers his thoughts on happiness. His psychoanalytic theories enter on occasion, but his thought ranges more widely and speculatively – more sage-like – than ever before. It is a fascinating and wide-ranging book, not concerned with developing the science (as Freud considered it) of psychoanalysis like many of his previous works, but in looking at life in modern civilization in its totality. ![]() A further dismissal of the concept comes in Sigmund Freud’s late work, Civilization and its Discontents (1930), a long essay or short book, covering 106 pages in the Penguin Great Ideas series copy I will be referring to. Slavoj Žižek is a more recent thinker who has rejected the relevance of happiness to humanity ( I discussed that here). Instead, he advocated the diligent performance of work as the central activity of a fulfilling human life. I have already discussed Carlyle’s thoughts on happiness ( here), and his stance that the pursuit of same was self-defeating. ![]()
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