The Delphi International Psychoanalytic Symposium
Invites you to an online presentation and discussion of
David Bell’s paper
Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud, 1930), a Contemporary Perspective
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 26, AT 18.00 H LONDON UK TIME
Presenter: David Bell
Discussant – Moderator: Dimitris-James Jackson
SUMMARY
Through his reading of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, David Bell explores the paradox that civilization both enables and frustrates human life. The very laws, moral codes, and repressions that sustain communal existence also produce deep unhappiness and tension. Beginning with the “oceanic feeling” as a remnant of infantile unity, Freud turns to aggression and the death drive as fundamental forces in human nature. David Bell distinguishes between ‘noisy’ and ‘quiet’ form of destructiveness. The first expressed through raw violence, the latter, through a pull towards nothingness, the ‘quite deadening of thought’ and meaning, seeking ultimate peace through death. Civilization redirects outward violence inward, creating guilt and self-punishment mediated through the superego. This repression maintains social order but also breeds neurosis and discontent. Hostility is displaced onto outsiders through the “narcissism of small differences,” while religion and ideology function as shared delusions that bind communities yet can perpetuate violence. Later thinkers such as W. Reich and H. Arendt reveal how repression and thoughtlessness can open the way to atrocities. Ultimately, Freud’s tragic vision endures: civilization remains a fragile defence against humanity’s own destructive impulses.
David Bell is past president of the British Psychoanalytic Society and retired in 2021 after 25 years at the Tavistock. Throughout his career he has been deeply involved in interdisciplinary studies- psychoanalysis and literature, philosophy and socio-political theory. His most recent paper ‘ Psychoanalytic reflections on the Gaza’ was published in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2024). His 2018 report was a major factor in the decision to close the gender service at the Tavistock. Books include Reason and Passion( 1997), Psychoanalysis and Culture(1999), Living on the Border (2013), Against the tide: the work of the Fitzjohns Unit (2018), Paranoia (2003).
Dimitris-James Jackson is a Training Analyst of the Hellenic Psychoanalytical Society and a Guest Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He has served as the European Representative on the Board of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), and since July, he has taken on the role of Chair of the Applicant Societies Committee — part of the International New Groups (ING) — which reviews applications from new societies seeking membership in the IPA. He also contributes as author and European editor to the publication of the Interregional Encyclopedia Dictionary of the IPA. Recently, a new book titled Bion’s Vertices: On Truth and Lies (Karnac, 2025) has been published, in which he is a contributing author, alongside David Bell and others.