Tentative Answer: Sublimation

What is sublimation and why does it become important in Freud’s theory of society?

In Freud’s writing on The Ego and the Id, he introduces the concept of “sublimation”. Earlier on, Freud describes how the id encapsulates our instinctual side—such as sexual and violent—whereas the super-ego consists of our moral conscious. The ego tries to regulate the id and its relationship with the super-ego. Freud states that since sexual energy—or libido—originates in the id, the ego needs to restrain or transform it so that we can behave in culturally appropriate ways in regards to our sexuality. Thus, Freud hypothesizes that the ego is able to “reign in” libido from the id and sublimate it. He writes, “…desexualized libido […] still retain[s] the main purpose of establishing the unity, or tendency to unity, which is particularly characteristic of the ego. If thought-processes in the wider sense are to be included among these displacements, then the activity of thinking is also supplied from the sublimation of erotic motive forces” (649). Thus, this idea of sublimation is crucial to Freud’s theory of society. Freud rationalizes that the process of sublimation did not exist, many key intellectual and creative processes “civil” society relies on would be impossible to achieve because our erotic urges and unrestrained behavior would take over our conscious. Freud also determines that people use the same process of sublimation in order to adhere to their religious beliefs while simultaneously having sexual desires.