Civilizations and its discontents

by portersarah

From my experiences from readings, I have found that I tend to enjoy the more literary pieces, such as Frankenstein, The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, Medea, The Tempest, and the like. Freud was a good read and I particularly thought it was a read that was easier than most to follow. As stated in the lecture, the tone was conversational and not in your face. Also at first reading I had no idea what to think of the Oceanic feeling, since it was a response at the beginning of his book. I thought that his thoughts on the Oceanic feeling originating from being in the womb, and a babe in arms where you as a baby is just sensations was logical. Which comes to my next point. I personally find it very hard to look at more of the stuff written by psychologists and philosophers. Being so young, and less accomplished, than these men I find myself easily swayed this direction and that. And how they say stuff with authority is daunting to look against. However I guess that is why we are discussing them in Arts one, and also why I enjoy learning about the ways most were… oddballs. Though I would rather have read My Last Duchess or The Rape of the Lock, one of my personal favourites, since I feel like it is more fun to look at and dissect literature as an observation on the humans in the world. I particularly was struck by the thoughts of human advancement in the grand economics of happiness and what part it all had to play, whether it had positive gains and how he knocks them off on the next page by countering with the fact that had it not been for one advancement, we would not have had the need for another. All in all, I thought this was a better read than I initially thought it would be, not to say that I wasn’t looking forward to it because I was, the human mind is a curious thing.