Art, Love, and Violence: Enduring Insights in Civilization and its Discontents

Rome is a baroque city, with the largest number of churches—over 900—of any city in the world. Amidst the artistic and architectural treasures to be found, there is also a certain amount of repetitiveness that reveals, nonetheless, a tremendous and insatiable energy and drive. The only thing more insatiable is the perpetual stream of visitors seeking out these cultural artefacts. Freud famously said that psychoanalysis "...has scarcely anything to say about beauty." But his theories in Civilization and Its Discontents do have a lot to say about the enduring products of civilization as the positive outcome of the sublimation of aggressive and sexual drives. The co-existence of so much beauty and so much violence, and the impossibility--as Freud describes it--of loving others as we love ourselves, are puzzles that are as relevant today as they were for Freud, emerging as he was from the depth of one world war and teetering on the verge of another. This presentation will offer some thoughts about what I think to be Freud's enduring insights into phenomena that are as present and relevant today as they were during Freud's time.

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This talk is part of the 🧠 NYC Philosophy & Psychology Readers Conference 2025 (#NYCPPRC2025).
For full event details—including venue, schedule, and attendance info—visit:
👉 https://www.meetup.com/reading-philosophy/events/308631821/
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