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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. When does Freud say we are most susceptible to suffering?

2. What does Freud say is the first requirement of civilization?

3. Which development does Freud say is without prototype?

4. How do lovers, in Freud's account, detach themselves from the danger of encountering pain through love?

5. What does Freud say breaks the boundary between id and ego?

Short Essay Questions

1. What misconception does Freud dispel at the end of Chapter 3?

2. What role does Freud say the regulation of human relations played in the development of civilization?

3. What does Freud say is the relationship between love and aim-inhibited love?

4. How does Freud characterize modern progress?

5. Why does Freud say progress has not made modern man any happier?

6. What are the three palliative remedies to the unbearable difficulty of life?

7. What does Freud say was the consequence of man’s realization that his lot could be improved by his own labors?

8. What is the importance of the argument about conservation in the mind?

9. What is Freud’s personal feeling about religion?

10. How would you describe Freud’s style of argumentation?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

Essay Topic 2

According to Freud, the problem of guilt is the biggest problem facing the evolution of culture. How has this ‘problem’ been addressed, and how has it led to the further evolution of civilization? Using an example from contemporary culture, find the mechanisms Freud is talking about in.

Essay Topic 3

When is Civilization and Its Discontents most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

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