e here a product of our own desires or that of society’s? The point of this reasoning is only to point out something we may not immediately recognize regardless of what our own free will may dictate, we cannot help but be influenced by the values and morals of modern-day society(GRAMSCI’S HEGEMONY). And it is because of this influence, the rewards which it offers and the punishments which it threatens, that the individual has found himself actually being manipulated by this larger body. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud expresses this point in his greatest achievement, Civilization and Its Discontents. Pointing out this conflict between the individual and society Freud concludes, “. . . the two processes of individual and of cultural development must stand in hostile opposition to each other and mutually dispute the ground.” (Freud, 106) And then after describing the affects of civilization as a “drastic mutilization” of his desires, Freud goes on to conclude that “. . . the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt.” (Freud, 97) Again we see a sharp contrast as the desires of the individual and those of civilization. Now it seems that the term “free will” could be grossly misunderstood because everyone’s will is in some way bound by society. Freud describes this overbearing consciousness of society as the “superego.” In his studies, Freud has dissected the mind into three separate spheres, the “id”, where instinct and desire resides; the “ego”, which is ones conscious self; and the “superego”, the origin of morals and of the conscience. Regardless of the physiological relevance of this schism of the mind, what Freud is trying to theorize is how the human being thinks. But the implications of this model are unique because Freud takes it a step further and appl...
