Response Paper: Sigmund Frued's "The Pleasure Principle"

Drew Stewart
English 1000
Varnes
9/10/05

The Pleasure Principle: Rubbing Freud the Right Way

“We believe, that is to say, that the course of [mental] events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering of that tension.”

~ Psycho-analyst and all around heavy thinker, Sigmund Freud.

In his 1962 work Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sigmund Freud would outline a theory that English 1000 students are still mulling over today. True to the book’s title, the psychologist’s idea was coined “the pleasure principle.” Freud’s theory stated that the human mental process, as a whole, is driven by an urge to reach satisfaction of instinctual desires, or “pleasure.” Conversely, the author made the point that every action that initially leads the mind away from the fulfillment of its desires was to be defined as “unpleasure.” Throughout the text, Freud makes his point clear: every action of unpleasure- be it walking the dog, mowing the lawn, waiting in line at the DMV, or even switching through 300 channels on the television- were only made as a necessary step towards eventually realizing the pleasure that the psyche desired (e.g. eating, sleeping, killing your father and marrying your mother, etc.). Every action that wasn’t directly leading towards satisfaction was simply prolonging it, meaning that every conscious decision the mind made was one that was working towards the eventual fulfillment of pleasure. Quite pleasing, indeed.

Although Freud’s pleasure principal can be well understood through study of the text, perhaps its most easily digested through analogies and campy examples. A fine one is as follows: Meet Johnny College. Johnny has a full day of classes ahead of him but, regrettably, stayed out way too late the night before. Although Johnny is taking notes for his Psychology class, the only thing on his mind at the moment is sleep. Oh, what Johnny wouldn’t do to just pull the covers over his head and shack up for the rest of the day?! At the moment, sleep represents Johnny’s pleasure. But one may notice that Johnny isn’t snoozing. Quite contraire- he’s taking notes about ancient psycho-analysts. His long day of classes is keeping him away from his main desire, meaning that they represent Johnny’s unpleasure. But why does Johnny undergo all of this sleep deprived class work? According to Freud, the answer is quite simple. As pertaining to the pleasure principle, Johnny’s mind is working towards satisfying its major desire (snoozing); meaning that everything that is diverting him away from it is his unpleasure. Johnny’s subconscious psyche knows that if he can drag through the day, he can eventually fulfill his pleasure, even if that means suffering through a healthy amount of unpleasure along the way. Ultimately, every decision that Johnny makes (attending all of his labs and lectures) is simply prolonging his eventual satisfaction and, in turn, is a direct result of Freud’s pleasure principle. Satisfaction is always the end result. It just doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Even after nearly 50 years, Sigmund Freud’s pleasure principle still holds relevance to the modern mind. The fact that the human psyche is always working towards eventual fulfillment of desires is a concept that hardly seems farfetched amongst today’s society. Once one stops to evaluate their own personal motives and reasons why they sit in traffic, iron their culottes, and watch bad movies with their significant other, they may find Freud’s pleasure principle quite plausible. Sigmund would be very satisfied, indeed.