Art's Role in the Battle between Nature and Civilization

Written by Michael Black

Although Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche carved out their own distinct patterns of thought throughout their collective works, there are times when their philosophies are very similar. Such is the case with their respective works Civilization and Its Discontents and The Birth of Tragedy. While these two works are very distinctive and unique, both take an in depth look at the growth of civilization and its effect on culture and art. By analyzing both Freud and Nietzsche works, we can find that art is at the boundary between civilization and nature. Art then serves as a bridge between the reality of nature and the order of civilization to ease the tension and to allow them to coexist.

To fully understand Freud and Nietzsche's stance on art as a bridge between nature and civilization, one must first come to grips with the foundation of the argument, which is the rise of civilization. Both philosophers take great measures to establish the implications of the rise of civilization in order to create a basis for comparison between the growth of culture and the non-identical.

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