The Origins of Civilization I: Freud's "Totem and Taboo"

Note: To any female and/or black readers, the following excerpt, as is characterisitic of Freud, contains currents of misogyny and racism, which may provoke feelings of distaste and loathing. Nevertheless, it is hilarious.

From Part IV of Freud's "Totem and Taboo," in which he speculates on the origins of cultural institutions such as law and religion:

"There is, of course, no place for the beginnings of totemism in Darwin's primal horde. All that we find there is a violent and jealous father who keeps all the females for himself and drives away his sons as they grow up. This earliest state of society has never been an object of observation. The most primitive kind of organization that we actually come across--and one that is in force to this day in certain tribes--consists of bands of males; these bands are composed of members with equal rights and are subject to the restrictions of the totemic system, including inheritance through the mother. Can this form of organization have developed out of the other one? and if so along what lines?

If we call the celebration of the totem meal to our help, we shall be able to find an answer. One day the brothers who had been driven out came together, killed and devoured their father and so made an end of the patriarchal horde. United, they had the courage to do and succeeded in doing what would have been impossible for them individually. (Some cultural advance, perhaps, command over some new weapon, had given them a sense of superior strength.) Cannibal savages as they were, it goes without saying that they devoured their victim as well as killing him. The violent primal father had doubtless been the feared and envied model of each one of the company of brothers: and in the act of devouring him they accomplished their identification with him, and each one of them acquired a portion of his strength. The totem meal, which is perhaps mankind's earliest festival, would thus be a repetition and a commemoration of this memorable and criminal deed, which was the beginning of so many things--of social organization, of moral restrictions and of religion." (141-2)

He goes on to clarify by saying that, prior to the killing, the murderous band of brothers felt strong ambivalent feelings toward their father--hatred of him as an obstacle to sexual fulfillment along with admiration and affection for him as an exemplar of male power. Thus, after satisfying their hatred by offing the father, the brothers experienced a resurgence of their love for him in the form of guilt. This guilt was so powerful that it compelled the brothers to honor their dead father by establishing laws that prohibited what the father prohibited--sleeping with their mother and sisters. They also established a primitive religion, with the dead father, in the form of a "totem animal", as the god, and in order to "revoke" their deed they forbade the killing of the totem animal.

That's the short version, at least.

Next: Ishmael Reed and playa-hating as the origin of the West