In Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents (1930), the pioneer of psychoanalysis reflects on the pleasure of long-distance communications by telephone or telegraph.
↪ Freud’s comments are not entirely celebratory. He notes that this kind of communication is only necessary because of the anxieties that come with long-distance travel.
“[Is] it not then a positive pleasure, an unequivocal gain in happiness, to be able to hear, whenever I like, the voice of a child living hundreds of miles away, or to know directly a friend of mine arrives at his destination that he has come well and safely through the long and troublesome voyage? [… But] a critical, pessimistic voice makes itself heard […] If there were no railway to make light of distances my child would never have left home and I should not need the telephone to hear his voice. If there were no vessels crossing the ocean my friend would never have embarked on his voyage and I should not need the telegraph to relieve my anxiety about him […] It seems to be certain that our present-day civilization does not inspire in us a feeling of wellbeing.”
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents (1930)
RESEARCH
Chris Mourant explores this quote in the chapter ‘Wired: Katherine Mansfield and the Telephone’ in Katherine Mansfield and London (Edinburgh University Press, 2024)
Who shared this example?
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Chris Mourant
Dr Chris Mourant is Lecturer in Early Twentieth-Century English Literature at the University of Birmingham. He researches twentieth-century literature and culture, with particular focus on modernism and networks of transnational connection, communication, and exchange.
