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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. What does Freud say happens to things that are formed in the mind?

2. What does Freud say is the danger of intoxication?

3. How does Freud characterize religion?

4. What kinds of examples does Freud offer as examples of modern progress?

5. What does Freud say he will study in order to explore the question of how men find meaning in life?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How does Freud characterize the roles of Eros and Ananke in the development of civilization?

3. What role does Freud say genital erotic life plays in the development of the civilized man?

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

5. Where does Freud say suffering comes from?

6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of denying the world, in Freud's account?

7. What does Freud say the ordinary man understands by his religion?

8. What does Freud say is the end-result of a civilization?

9. What does Freud say is the difference between love and aim-inhibited love?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

According to Freud, guilt regulates the internal urges of each individual, although Freud says that by so doing, it engenders resentment that has to be repressed in turn, engendering further guilt. This cycle could result in an eternal spiral of repression and aggression and guilt—what keeps it from becoming psychologically damaging, or out of control?

Essay Topic 2

Freud does not say as much, but the ability to penetrate unconscious behavior, and bring invisible phenomena to light gives the analyst a real power over patients and in his culture. How does this authority fit within Freud’s explanations of religion, authority, dread and guilt? How does the analyst separate himself—can he separate himself from the fatherly or priestly role?

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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