The main topic of Civilization and Its Discontents is the tension between individual human beings and the societies they organize and live in. The basic purpose of culture and civilization is to generate benefits for everyone, but this result requires cooperation. Meanwhile, each person has his or her own desires and fundamental yearnings to pursue, and often this quest leads to clashes with others.

The main purpose of a culture is to divert people’s energies toward useful group activities, including working together to build prosperous communities. Humans also need to reproduce, so they organize into couples and then families to provide for their next generations. A society tries to coordinate families so they support rather than conflict with each other.

In the process of diverting human energies toward cooperation, a society may resort to intimidation and threats to keep control people, thus heightening the struggle between individual desires and fellowship. Group values, for the most part, align with personal values, but where they don’t, individuals may find they are at war with themselves. Sometimes this battle breaks out into open conflict, a result the society wants very much to avoid.

For Freud, this tension between individual and group desires is never-ending, though progress toward harmony can be achieved.