Name: Civilization and Its Discontents
ISBN: 9780141395890

What Hacker News says

rendxSep 2025

Maybe not exactly what you're after, but you might like

https://www.traumaandphilosophy.com/ and https://traumatheory.com/

Other writings: For example the books by Vivian Broughton, a UK therapist: https://www.vivianbroughton.com/my-books/ Her latest book ("You were just a child...") contains critical essays, which you might enjoy.

Essential reading: The books by Judith Herman, who coined the term "Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" and lobbied to get it added to the DSM. Her latest book is all about justice for victims (and how the system is failing them).

The most famous critical essays about modern society from a therapist are by Sigmund Freud. You may want to start with "Civilization and Its Discontents" (1929). Quote:

"The present cultural state of America would give us a good opportunity for studying the damage to civilization which is thus to be feared. But I shall avoid the temptation of entering upon a critique of American civilization; I do not wish to give an impression of wanting myself to employ American methods."

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telxosserJan 2022

Is the single mother selling arts and crafts outside of society then?

If anything this is the problem. No one thinks they should pay any taxes. Everyone basically wants to free roll the structures built from taxes without paying anything.

I am hardly rich but I gladly pay taxes. I would prefer to pay less but that is the reason I vote.

If you want to blow it all up then I think the counter to that is Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.

I even might gain personally in that world but overall it is a miserable world to live at the systems level. It is better to just pay taxes.

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steveklabnikMar 2021

I really like DeLanda too. Other related folks I enjoy are Brian Massumi and John Protevi (who wrote the SEP page on Deleuze, IIRC).

I think the first order of business is to understand that there are kind of three Deleuzes: there's Deleuze, and then there's Deleuze and Guattari. Finally there's also his film stuff.

There's a connection between them, of course, but they're kind of two different projects. Deleuze on his own is a scholar of philosophical history; he wrote a lot of books on other philosophers. There's a sort of over-arching project though; he's creating a kind of "secret history" where all the folks he write about are all building towards something. They're generally regarded as good books, but they're also just as much a sort of product of how Deleuze sees them, rather than purely about them themselves. The most controversial (and arguably his best, IMHO) is Nietzsche and Philosophy. He draws a bunch from material that Nietzsche didn't actually publish before his death, and his sister kind of... selectively edited. It's a whole thing. Regardless, IMHO it's a good take. Reasonable people may disagree. In order, they're "Empiricism and Subjectivity," "Nietzsche and Philosophy," "Kant’s Critical Philosophy," "Proust and Signs," "Bergsonism," "Spinoza: Practical Philosophy," "Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature," "Francis Bacon: Logic of Sensation," and "Foucault." That is... a lot. IMHO, Nietzche, Spinoza, Foucault, and Kafka are the big ones, if you don't want to read like, ten books about ten people you probably haven't read yet. You can follow these up with "Difference and Repetition," his primary thesis, and "Logic of Sense," his final solo work before meeting Guattari. He wrote these in between some of those solo works, but IMHO, they make sense as a unit, with these as the end, even if they weren't written in that order.

Oh, and https://www.nadir.org/nadir/archiv/netzkritik/societyofcontr...

His mind-meld with Guattari has a lot of the themes of his solo work, but is much more experimental and out there. A Thousand Plateaus is, well, you already know this: pretty friggin' wild. So it's not so much "student of philosophical history" as it is "holy shit." To me at least. This is the stuff DeLanda and a lot of secondary literature engages with,

Oh, and I really love "What is Philosophy?" even if it's a less intense, more straightforward text.

Finally, film Deleuze. I've always wanted to study film but never managed to. I don't have much to say about this.

Oh gosh, that's a lot of works and orderings, but uh, yeah. Actual strategy. IMHO, if you don't have a foundation in Marx, all of this is going to be really tough. Make sure you understand at least a good chunk of Capital Volume I, the first three chapters (aka part i) are the most important, parts VI, V, and VIII aren't necessary, but Marx is pretty foundational. Even if folks don't agree with him, everyone is familiar with him, and often speak in his terms, and you have to be able to understand something to reject it. Many do agree, to be clear, just like... it's foundational. David Harvey can help there, he's not always perfect but he's better than most.

From there, what I personally did was read On the Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche. Then Discipline and Punish by Foucault. Then the Deleuze.

I am less well read with Freud than I should be to truly engage with Anti-Oedipus, but Civilization and its Discontents is worthwhile. Same with Marx, many many disagree, but all assume some level of familiarity.

Really, the best you can do is exactly what Massumi says about A Thousand Plateaus and "read it like a record":

> How should A Thousand Plateaus be played? When you buy a record there are always cuts that leave you cold. You skip them. You don't approach a record as a closed book that you have to take or leave. Other cuts you may listen to over and over again. They follow you. You find yourself humming them under your breath as you go about your daily business.

Read some stuff, if you get to things you don't understand, go follow the citation and try to dig into that. Get that you probably won't really grok things the first time you read them, be curious, dig into stuff you like, ignore stuff that doesn't resonate, maybe come back to it later if your tastes change.

Good luck :)

Oh, one final thing: Ignore the "dark deleuze" garbage. It's bad. I literally forgot it existed because I wish it did not, but this is the internet so...

EDIT 2: oh my gosh. also, for computer folks: Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization, by Galloway. Not strictly Deleuzian, but related, and useful.

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abhiyerraSep 2019

“Civilization and its Discontents” by Freud

“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly

“Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde

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jeffreyrogersDec 2018

I read a lot. These were the best books I read this year.

The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński. Kapuściński was a Polish journalist who traveled around the (mostly developing) world, reporting on civil wars, coups, revolutions, and other tumultuous events. This book recounts many of his experiences in Africa over several decades and is interesting in its insight into the lives of ordinary people. Someone told me Kapuściński had the most interesting life of anyone in the 20th century and I'm inclined to agree with that.

Congo: An Epic History of a People by David Van Reybrouck. Congo is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources, but one of the poorest and least functional in terms of economics and institutions. This book gives a good overview of the history of Congo and explains why the problems are so deeply rooted.

The Rise and Decline of Nations and Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships, both by Mancur Olson. Why do some nations develop into relatively free, relatively rich countries, while others stagnate in perpetual conflict and poverty? How can countries transition from one of these states to the other? Why is it so hard to get obviously beneficial changes to occur in developed countries? These books try to answer these questions. I don't think they have the entire answer, and they don't have much in the way of easy solutions, but they get a lot of it right.

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud. I thought Freud was largely discredited and his theories superseded by better ones, but reading this book showed me how insightful Freud really was. He is one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. This book helps you answer questions like: Why are most people unhappy? Why do our societies have so many problems? How can we simultaneously satisfy our desire to live in a community with our desire to be independent?

Spring by Knausgaard. I don't think I can do justice to this by summarizing it. It's a beautiful, sad, and short book. Definitely worth reading.

Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty. I'd been hearing a lot about postmodernism, mostly in a derogatory way, over the past year, but I had a hard time believing many of the criticisms of it were true. These two books do a pretty good job of articulating a postmodern worldview and you realize postmodernism isn't the boogeyman it's been made out to be. In fact, it seems like a fairly obvious step from the Enlightenment ideals of rational inquiry to postmodernisms primary project of questioning where the truths that this rational inquiry finds come from and whether they are valuable or not.

The Burden of Responsibility by Tony Judt. Only worth reading if you are interested in French politics. Profiles three French public intellectuals who stood apart from the mainstream in their opposition to totalitarian communism. Not a hagiography; this book offers criticism of these figures at times, though is largely admiring.

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pizzaFeb 2018

The Divided Self + The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise + The Politics of the Family - all by RD Laing

Civilization and its Discontents - Freud

Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher

Gateless Gate - Mu-men? Very old Chinese mystical text that somehow resonated w me considerably..

Neuromancer - William Gibson

Snowcrash - Neal Stephenson

Inherent Vice (currently reading and enjoying a lot! - loved the movie so much I got the book but I think I enjoy the book way more even) - Thomas Pynchon

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