The Libido and Work

First Paper Assignment: The Libido and Work

What is really behind the feeling that we get when we want something? Or the drive we get to put in work in this civilization we live in? To Freud, the culprit is the infamous libido. In the book, Civilizations and Discontents by Sigmund Freud, he explains the dynamics of civilization and how we are like animals being subjected to adverse conditions. For example, in work we are dissatisfied because the majority of us are not freely choosing to do the work we do. This leads to the main issue; the libido. The libido’s components and roots, its displacement, its role with work, and value of work to individuals are impeded in the below passage.

“It is not possible, within the limits of a short survey, to discuss adequately the significance of work for the economics of libido… The possibility it offers of displacing a large amount of libidinal components…onto professional work and onto the human relations connected with it lends it value…as something indispensable to the preservation of society. Professional activity is a source of special satisfaction if it is freely chosen one…And yet, as a path to happiness, work is not highly prized by men…The great majority of people only work under the stress of necessity, an this natural human aversion to work raises most difficult social problems.” (Freud)

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To fully understand the libido we have to know were it is located. The human mind contains three main things; the id, ego, and superego. The id is our unconscious state, or what we described in class as the “sex and donuts”. It contains our sex drive (libido), and other drives, as well as providing the body with the energy needed to initiate activities, like work and sex. The ego is our consciousness, meaning how we are in our normal state. The superego is our conscience, like the angel and devil. Freud believed that the id and superego clashed, because of the superego playing the role of the parent always regulating the id’s animalistic ways which the majority of the time is powered by the libido. The libido is the drive the Freud thought of as the basic and most powerful human drive. The libido is in a way like a hungry-drunk, the appetite must be satisfied. Freud’s believes we are pleasure seeking creatures, and what is stated by his pleasure principle.

“…manifold and unavoidable sensations of pain and unpleasure the removal and avoidance of which is enjoined by the pleasure principle, the exercise of domination.” (Freud)

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Individuals find ways to dominate, avoid pain, and seek pleasure as much as possible. The reality is our pleasures are never fully satisfied so we can’t fully avoid the pain that we get from the inside as stated in Freud’s reality principle.

“…if a man thinks himself happy merely to have escaped unhappiness or to have survived his suffering, and if in general the task of avoiding suffering pushes that of obtaining pleasure in to the background.” (Freud)

We can’t have sex twenty-four hours a day, everyday. Therefore, our libido is never fully satisfied, so there is an excess amount of libidinal components that needs to be displaced. The individual then takes the essential energy from displaced libido to work to acquire the material things in life to make us happy. This leads to the economics of the libido. By utilizing its energy we are able to put in long hours at work to have enough money to purchase things such as a car, house, clothes, etc. We must work to acquire the material things that we need to keep us sane, as well as the necessities to keep us alive, like shelter, food and water. This concludes that the more diligent a person works, the quantity and quality of his possessions will reflect their work habits. For example,