As much as I appreciate your style of writing, I can't help but think the poetic flourish has somewhat obscured some underlying logical leaps. Is it really fair to characterize civilization, or capitalism more specifically, as "repressive"? What is the basis for this? Is repression a denial of being able to do what you want? Am I repressed for not being able to piss in a fire? Am I repressed for not being able to murder whomever I please? Am I repressed for being unable to pick up a stone too heavy for me? The physical world applies constraints to our agency. The social world applies them as well. These do not equate to repression. I think this assumption, and subsequently normatively-charged argument, needs to be revisited.
Ah, I don't think I made it clear enough: I'm not personally backing either claim, that civilization is inherently repressive, or that capitalist society is. The first, characterizing civilization as repressive, is what Freud did in his "Civilization and its Discontents". The second, that capitalism is, was made by a series of mostly Marxists, but especially Marcuse in "Eros and Civilization". Marcuse and Freud are often put in dialogue (Marcuse's book was a direct response to Freud) on this point.
What I wanted to explore here was kind of a thought experiment. That if you enter into this debate between Marcuse & Freud, both of their arguments share the diagnosis that we're presently living in repressive conditions. Accepting either of their arguments is a big leap, as you point out! But they are certainly more substantive than haphazard assumptions.
And for my part, riffing off that shared diagnosis was fun, and not intended as an airtight logical argument. It was actually the absurdity of Freud's claim, that civilization began when the first man repressed the urge to piss on fire, that sparked this whole idea to begin with. Interestingly, there is a decent amount of anthropological and psychoanalytic evidence for it. But like you, it strikes me as a pretty wild claim.
Understood, that makes sense. Also, apologies for the surly tone above - I was in a bit of a rush and didn't have time to edit the first thought that came to mind before hitting send.
As much as I appreciate your style of writing, I can't help but think the poetic flourish has somewhat obscured some underlying logical leaps. Is it really fair to characterize civilization, or capitalism more specifically, as "repressive"? What is the basis for this? Is repression a denial of being able to do what you want? Am I repressed for not being able to piss in a fire? Am I repressed for not being able to murder whomever I please? Am I repressed for being unable to pick up a stone too heavy for me? The physical world applies constraints to our agency. The social world applies them as well. These do not equate to repression. I think this assumption, and subsequently normatively-charged argument, needs to be revisited.
Ah, I don't think I made it clear enough: I'm not personally backing either claim, that civilization is inherently repressive, or that capitalist society is. The first, characterizing civilization as repressive, is what Freud did in his "Civilization and its Discontents". The second, that capitalism is, was made by a series of mostly Marxists, but especially Marcuse in "Eros and Civilization". Marcuse and Freud are often put in dialogue (Marcuse's book was a direct response to Freud) on this point.
What I wanted to explore here was kind of a thought experiment. That if you enter into this debate between Marcuse & Freud, both of their arguments share the diagnosis that we're presently living in repressive conditions. Accepting either of their arguments is a big leap, as you point out! But they are certainly more substantive than haphazard assumptions.
And for my part, riffing off that shared diagnosis was fun, and not intended as an airtight logical argument. It was actually the absurdity of Freud's claim, that civilization began when the first man repressed the urge to piss on fire, that sparked this whole idea to begin with. Interestingly, there is a decent amount of anthropological and psychoanalytic evidence for it. But like you, it strikes me as a pretty wild claim.
Understood, that makes sense. Also, apologies for the surly tone above - I was in a bit of a rush and didn't have time to edit the first thought that came to mind before hitting send.