Civilization and Its Malcontents: An Introduction
You can go back as far as you like through recorded history, and one thing will make itself obvious. No matter what era, what society you’re talking about on what continent, no matter how wise and just the leadership, no matter how robust the economy, no matter how good-looking the populace, there will always be one person, man or woman, who will take a look around with a slight sneer, put his hands on his hips and say “Y’know, this really sucks.”
Sigmund Freud explained quite neatly why such ornery bastards exist in his 1929 thought experiment, Civilization and Its Discontents.
Civilization, he argues, is by nature both an external and internal control mechanism—an overarching super-ego that lays down rules to restrain fundamental, natural human impulses toward lust, aggression, and greed, and punishments for those who don’t play the game. If you want to take advantage of civilization’s benefits—a ready supply of food and water, police protection, 24-hour Greek diners, and the like—then you must follow the rules. If you don’t, you will be removed from civilization one way or another (imprisonment, exile, execution). Over time (and in theory) the threat of punishment becomes internalized and everyone lives together in peace and harmony as a matter of course.
But it seems there are always a few bad apples who resent these controls. Within that handful of simple grumblers, every generation gives birth to one or two who take it a step further, who cross over from merely “Discontented” into “Malcontented.” These are the rare individuals who take action. They step over the line with clear eyes, and are remembered to this day because of it.
Their resistance to control has spawned anarchists, nihilists, terrorists, bank robbers, murderers, rapists, artists, filmmakers, gangsters, bootleggers, pornographers, penny-ante crooks, con men, carnies, the Marquis De Sade, Nietzsche, Socrates, Charles Manson, The Unabomber, Willie Sutton, Henry Miller, Louis Ferdinand Celine, Dillinger, Valerie Solanis, Ma Barker, The Sex Pistols, Oscar Wilde, Jean Genet, Stockhausen, Ned Ludd, Sawney Bean, Lenny Bruce, Emma Goldman, the Marx Brothers, Satanists, beatniks, hippies, punks, people who just sit inside their small apartments casting baleful glances out the window at passers-by, hobos, and countless others.
No matter their crime, whether they terrify, infuriate, unnerve, disgust, or entertain us, there’s something to admire about the malcontents and the badasses. They add a little zing and pow to the mundane drone of daily life. These are the people with the guts to step over that line, to say the things and act on the impulses we’ve been told from earliest childhood are forbidden. They offer a new way of looking at the world, and a few of them might even get us thinking about our own choices and the things we believe to be true.
Of course Civilization has a little something to say about all this, and it’s impossible to fully understand the malcontents without also understanding the civilization that gave birth to them. The Yang makes no sense without the Yin, nor does a Hegelian antithesis without the original thesis. Which is why both will be of some concern on this page—because despite what the malcontents may have us believing, Civilization too has made some important and valid contributions to the culture, like Michelangelo, J.S. Bach, Car 54, Where Are You? and…umm….
Ah, screw it—you can come up with your own. Welcome to Civilization and Its Malcontents.
by Jim Knipfel