Friday, May 06, 2011

Freud Is Just Like My Mom

From CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS: "This newly-won power over space and time, this subjugation of the forces of nature, which is the fulfillment of a longing that goes back thousands of years, has not increased the amount of pleasurable satisfaction which [people] may expect from life... One would like to ask: is there, then, no positive gain in pleasure, no unequivocal increase in my feeling of happiness, if I can, as often as I please, hear the voice of a child of mine who is living hundreds of miles away...?... If there had been no railway to conquer distances, my child would never have left his native town and I should need no telephone to hear his voice." Mom? Is that you?