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keifer_lud's review against another edition
3.0
Academic Review Coming Up:
Sigmund Freud's THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION features many interesting arguments and revelations about civilization, mankind, and the illusions we construct for ourselves. While I loved critically engaging with Freud and rethinking about some basic assumptions about society (e.g. by constructing a civilization, we sacrifice some freedoms that leave us feeling empty), I ultimately disliked this book because of two reasons.
One, I did not like how Freud dispassionately went about disavowing the entire institution of religion. For Freud, religion is merely an apparatus to keep us comfortable. An illusion. To make us feel like there is an incomprehensible hand in delivering out the justice we do not see. And to make us feel more secure in our own deaths. When, for Freud, religion focused as a means to anesthetize the masses and give them a common morality (that makes them more or less buy into society). This whole approach seemed rather shortsighted to me and highlights a modern impulse to only believe that which we can see. This cuts off a whole range of human experience. To maybe put it a little pretentiously, Freud's sole focus on rational thought cuts us off from addressing the infinities within reality that cannot be proven to us.
The second thing I did not like was that Freud only focused on Western religions. I do not know how exposed he was to other religions, but it nonetheless felt like a grand swooping rebuke of religion that did not take a holistic approach at all.
So while Freud made some good points (like saying that religion has protected itself by framing questioning as heretical, and that everything should be questioned), I only ended up giving this three stars. I know I come to this book in a very different place and time than Freud was when he was writing it, but I think that I probably wouldn't like Freud very much if I were to meet him. This quote infuriates me the most: "...the problem with the nature of the world without regard to our percipient mental apparatus is an empty abstraction, devoid of practical interest. No, our science is not an illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that was science cannot give us we can get elsewhere," (71). Three stars!
Sigmund Freud's THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION features many interesting arguments and revelations about civilization, mankind, and the illusions we construct for ourselves. While I loved critically engaging with Freud and rethinking about some basic assumptions about society (e.g. by constructing a civilization, we sacrifice some freedoms that leave us feeling empty), I ultimately disliked this book because of two reasons.
One, I did not like how Freud dispassionately went about disavowing the entire institution of religion. For Freud, religion is merely an apparatus to keep us comfortable. An illusion. To make us feel like there is an incomprehensible hand in delivering out the justice we do not see. And to make us feel more secure in our own deaths. When, for Freud, religion focused as a means to anesthetize the masses and give them a common morality (that makes them more or less buy into society). This whole approach seemed rather shortsighted to me and highlights a modern impulse to only believe that which we can see. This cuts off a whole range of human experience. To maybe put it a little pretentiously, Freud's sole focus on rational thought cuts us off from addressing the infinities within reality that cannot be proven to us.
The second thing I did not like was that Freud only focused on Western religions. I do not know how exposed he was to other religions, but it nonetheless felt like a grand swooping rebuke of religion that did not take a holistic approach at all.
So while Freud made some good points (like saying that religion has protected itself by framing questioning as heretical, and that everything should be questioned), I only ended up giving this three stars. I know I come to this book in a very different place and time than Freud was when he was writing it, but I think that I probably wouldn't like Freud very much if I were to meet him. This quote infuriates me the most: "...the problem with the nature of the world without regard to our percipient mental apparatus is an empty abstraction, devoid of practical interest. No, our science is not an illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that was science cannot give us we can get elsewhere," (71). Three stars!
hassanalsaeid's review against another edition
3.0
Loved the part about melancholy and mourning and how related they are. Aside from that, there’s a lot of waffle.
ichirofakename's review against another edition
3.0
Won't change anybody's mind. Possibly useful to atheists who want to pat themselves on the back.
aerithb's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
2.25
This was my first Freud book and I really didn’t enjoy it. I found his writing style to be overly complicated like he was trying to sound intelligent and complex. It made this 75 page book feel like 300 pages. I also didn’t enjoy the content itself. Everyone he discusses in this book is not revolutionary. It’s really just an extremely boring book about the most basic opinions on religion.