Civilization and Its Discontent - Sigmund Freud

While I do not disagree that our guiding principle in life is the pleasure principle, I think it is an oversimplification to say that the suppression of our 'primitive' instincts (to rape, kill, commit adultery, etc.) is the main cause of our discontent with civilization/laws/social mores of society.

There is a never ending debate over whether the human-animal is inately good or inately bad - I think this is a futile and irrelavant debate.  It is perhaps more accurate to acknowledge that we have the capability to be both, with both nature and nurture as factors of our goodness or badness.

That said, I do believe that the pleasure principle is applicable to much more than just our pleasure instincts.  We take great joys in nature, in relationships with others (sexual and non-sexual), in art, in relationships with non-human-animals, in kindness from others.  To attribute pleasure/happiness from sexual and 'primitive' instincts is only one slice of the bigger pie.  Freud's text while useful, overgeneralizes and applies an absolute to all particulars.

While society does impose many rules on us and can create neuroses in many of us, this depends on what kind of society we live in.  I do not disagree that our current society/civilization has create much discontent but this is in no small part due to the authoritarian rule by governments who are not acting in the interest of its citizens at large but for themselves, for short term profit and for the corporations, industries and lobby groups that fund them, and in which they essentially work for/are accountable to.

I do agree that ethics is a way to make ourselves feel better over our consciousness of guilt but it is much more than that.  It is a way of life, a useful philosophy - in a way, more so that rigid laws imposed on us. Ethics is to me, the essence of all religion, the humanism minus the dogma of some almighty God(s).  And ethics is contextual rather than absolute.

In the context of my veganism, my discontent is with the treatment of animals as mere property, no different from an iPhone.  It is a sad state of affairs when someone shows more outrage when her iPhone is stolen/vandalized than over how the animals breed, used and abused for clothing, food and beyond is treated.  Civilization?  Are we really civilized with ILOs (Intensive Livestock Operations)?  Is this progress? How can one not despair and feel so much more than discontent over this supposed human 'progress'?  I will not eat tortured animals and misery.  My ethics/consciousness supercedes my base appetite instincts and as such, I derive far greater pleasure when I eat with more consciousness.