Totem and Taboo

Description

Totem And Taboo – An Insightful Journey Into The Origins Of The Oedipus Complex And More

Sigmund Freud is perhaps one of the most influential psychoanalysts in the world, with numerous books treating various subjects that affect all aspects of human life. In his book Totem and Taboo, he tackles the unspoken taboo about incest, religious origins and our ancestry.

Totem and Taboo was written in a time when psychologists and psychoanalysts were just touching the surface of our emotions, sexuality and behavior. There were many subjects that were not being discussed because of social taboos. In this book, Freud tries to find an explanation to the totems of primitive cultures such as Australian aboriginals while also pushing some innovative hypothesis about our sexuality.

One of the main themes in Totem and Taboo is incest. Freud speculates that in our primitive days, tribes were more governed by rules which are now prohibited. Incest is regarded as a taboo nowadays, but Freud believes that in the past, it was the thing that ruled the hierarchic organization.

Freud combines anthropologic data with psychoanalysis, coming to a few conclusions that startled the scientists of the time. In this book, Freud traces the origin of culture and several important aspects of it such as morality, religion and social organization to times when there were no such taboos such as incest. A theory is that in the past, the sons killed the father not only to escape from his authority, but also to gain access to all of his females as well.

In Totem and Taboo, Freud finds similarities between primitive people, neurotics and children who he supposes to have the primeval instincts which are repressed due to modern rules and taboos. Totem and Taboo remains an intriguing piece of work which tries to find an origin to the complex culture humankind has developed.
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