Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo is a classic work of psychological theory that explores the origins of human society and culture. In this work, Freud argues that the primal horde, a group of primal males who lived in a state of primal aggression, is the basis for the development of human society and culture.
According to Freud, the primal horde was led by a powerful patriarch, who was the source of both physical and psychological strength for the group. This patriarch controlled access to the group's women and children, and his power was reinforced through the use of taboo rituals and the creation of totemic symbols.
Freud believed that the primal horde's relationship with the patriarch was ambivalent, as the members both worshipped and hated him. This ambivalence was eventually resolved through the process of sublimation, in which the primal males repressed their aggressive impulses and turned them into productive, cultural endeavors.
One of the key components of Totem and Taboo is the concept of the Oedipus complex, which Freud believed was a universal part of human development. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex arises during the child's phallic stage of development, when the child begins to develop sexual feelings towards the opposite-sex parent. This leads to feelings of jealousy and rivalry with the same-sex parent, and eventually to the resolution of the complex through identification with the same-sex parent.
Freud believed that the Oedipus complex was a crucial part of the development of human society, as it helped to establish the relationship between fathers and sons and facilitated the transfer of power from one generation to the next. He also believed that the resolution of the Oedipus complex was essential for the development of a healthy ego and the ability to form meaningful relationships with others.
Totem and Taboo is a complex and influential work that has had a significant impact on the field of psychology. While many of Freud's ideas have been challenged and revised over time, his ideas about the primal horde and the Oedipus complex continue to be influential and debated by psychologists and other scholars. Overall, Freud's Totem and Taboo remains a foundational work that continues to shape our understanding of human society and culture.
Totem and Taboo Analysis
He accused Freud of ignoring criticisms directed against his theories, and objected to Freud's basing his investigations on the theory of the Oedipus complex. Specifically, Freud chose to use Aborigines of Australia for his study. For there are only few tribes in Australia which show no other prohibition besides the totem barrier. The mother-in-law is unwilling to give up the possession of her daughter; she distrusts the stranger to whom her daughter has been delivered, and shows a tendency to maintain the dominating position, to which she became accustomed at home. We are therefore not astonished if some investigators simply assume that at first exogamy—both as to its origin and to its meaning—had nothing to do with totemism, but that it was added to it at some time without any deeper association, when marriage restrictions proved necessary.
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The historical relations of the marriage classes—of which there are found as many as eight in some tribes—are quite unexplained. Madison, Connecticut: International Universities Press. According to Freud, psychoanalysis has revealed to us that the totem animal is really a substitute for the father, and this really explains the contradiction that it is usually forbidden to kill the totem animal, that the killing of it results in a holiday and that the animal is killed and yet mourned. Elliott added that Freud should be credited with showing that "reality is not pre-given or natural", but rather structured by the social and technical frameworks fashioned by human beings, and that "individual subjectivity and society presuppose one another". A man will avoid hi smother in law.
Freud, S. (1912
His theories have been heavily criticized, and have been a source of major controversies since they were first put forward. The reality principle is transmitted through the agents of socialization and civilization—that is, parents, teachers, religions, and governments. At all events the tendency to such infatuation is very frequent with the mother-in-law, and either this infatuation itself or the tendency opposed to it joins the conflict of contending forces in the psyche of the mother-in-law. According to Freud, animism is the theory of psychic concepts and in the wider sense, of spiritual beings in general. Most of them are so organized that they fall into two divisions which have been called marriage classes, or phratries.
Totem and Taboo, 1913, by Sigmund Freud
So the whole tribe is then divided into four classes. The subclass c forms an exogamous unit with e, and the subclass d with f. In Totem and Taboo, Freud Sigmund explain the origin of religion of different tribe found around the world. A belief in magic and sorcery derives from an overvaluation of psychical acts, whereby the structural conditions of mind are transposed onto the world: this overvaluation survives in both primitive men and neurotics. People frequently discuss their astrological signs and comment that they are, for example, Leos lions , Pisces fish , or Aries rams.
