Book, Freud: Cultural Discontents and Other Writings On Culture[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. “Civilization and Its Discontents” is not only Freud's most famous essay, but one of the seminal works of the 20th century. Without the category of "malaise" it is not possible to think about the destinies of the subject in the present. Why do we feel that happiness is incompatible with the demands of social life? Are there ways of life in which cultural restrictions and expectations of personal fulfillment can live in harmony? Why is it so hard to be happy? Questions of this kind made this essay the most read of Freud's work. In this volume, we gather the author's main texts on culture, society, and religion. Not by chance, most of them were written during acute moments in human history: World War I, the Spanish flu, the rise of Nazifascism. What threatens us is not only disease or death, but also the rupture of social bonds and the uncertainty of the future. The world crisis in which we are immersed today – the pandemic that, at breakneck speed, brought the east and the west, the north and the south closer together – is undoubtedly a decisive opportunity to test the topicality of Freudian categories.