Analysis On Sociological Theory In Freudism

Freud is world-widely recognized as one of the most influential thinkersthroughout the human being’s history, whose theory has been playing a vital role inthe development of the social theory in the20thcentury. His theoretical influence isnot only limited in the field of psychology, but also spread into many other humanityand social sciences’ fields, such as philosophy, sociology, politics and literature ect..Freud succeeded in finding out that there is a vast area of unconsciousnessbeneath people’s consciousness in a systematic way, which reveals the irration in thehuman nature.His finding gave a big shock to the social philosophers at those days.In the age of the dramatic social changes in the Europe, Frued and many socialthinkers was ready for exploring the reason of society existence and the driving forceof social changes. Such topic could be expressed as the "Hobbes problems", whichraises a question how the aggressive individuals live together very well in the socialcommunities.Freud provided a brand new explanation to this sociology-themed issuein the perspective of psychoanalysis. Freud’s theory system consists of fivesub-theories that are primary process and secondary process; sex development theory;libido theory; Id,ego and superego theory as well as the instinct of love and death.Theformer four theories could be categorized into the micro-level theory while the lattertheory is viewed as a macro-level theory developed well in the discussion of thereligion and civilization by Freud.In the micro-level discussion of individual socialization, Freud argues theprocess of how individuals transfer its natural being into the qualified social beingby the theory of five phases of sex development. Freud’s view on the individualsocialization is consistent with the Cooley’s sociological notion about "a looking glassego" and "primary group". In the macro-level social theory, Freud exploited theinstinct theory to discuss the development of religion and civilization,reaching aconclusion that those religious ideas being full of illusions and fallacy cannotcontribute to building a bright future for the human being, which means thecivilization based on the religion could be a illusion of future. Freud’s arguments onthe fallacy of religion got many sociologists’ approvals in his times, but thesesociologists hold a different idea on what would result in a social solidarity on the behalf of religion. Durkheim, Pareto and Weber presented their views to such question,which is science belief, emotion and "contract" respectively. In addition, Freud alsoexplored the nature of civilization to search for the relationship between instinct andcivilization, reflecting the tense relationship between individuals and society. InFreud’s view, the instinct, the instinct of death and destrution in particular, isinevitable. Therefore, the first step to develop a new civilization is to avoid theintervention of the instinct of death and destruction to the social life, to some extent.In this sense.What’s more, a great number of distinguished social thinkers gained plenty ofinspirations from Freud’s theory to refine their owns theories, such Parsons, Fromm,Habermas and Marcuse ect..At present, there is also a growing cross-disciplinebetween sociology and pyschoanalysis in the field of social theory, especially in theAmerica, entitled "Psychoanalytic Sociology ".