Art's Role in the Battle between Nature and Civilization Page 3

While civilization has been established as a solid source of suffering, it has also yielded many positive things as well. Advances in science have given us an edge on the first cited source of suffering…nature. Science has helped relieve some of the suffering associated with nature as well as created other options for pleasure. Disease is being controlled by medicine, transportation is made easier to see the beauties of the world, and pleasures such as video games can be manufactured in the confines of a factory.

The gains versus loses argument is a hard argument to justify, however, because of the numerous additional alleys of argument that are opened with each analysis. For instance, if a scientist creates a cure for a disease, he has relieved suffering from many with the disease; but this does not take into account those who suffer from unknown side effects or that people now have to come up with money or services to pay for the cure. Furthermore, those who cannot afford to get their hands on the cure will then have increased suffering knowing that a cure indeed exists, but they cannot have it.

Thus negatives can always be associated with positive advancements. It would be impossible to come to a fair and accurate conclusion about whether or not society has provided more positive advancements than suffering because this would require one to be able to view the world from an others' eyes in an others' time, which is obviously impossible. Thus Freud chooses to look into the reality of the civilization that we are faced with every day rather than dwell on what is ultimately an impossible argument to settle that would require a look into a civilization that no longer has bearing on reality. This requires that Freud dig into the nature of civilization.

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