Sigmund Freud, in his book "Civilization and Its Discontents," states that people are unhappy due to the establishment of society which creates restraints on their instinctive impulses. On the other hand, Friedrich Nietzsche, in his book, "On the Genealogy of Morality," says that there is hope for happiness in the future. Freud believes that people are necessarily unhappy due to man's desire for security, man's ambivalence between Eros (love) and instinct of death, and the cultural super-ego's increasing demands on mankind. However, Nietzsche would propose that the man's future is full of hope by saying that security is not important, will to nothingness should be embraced, and mankind will be redeemed by an overman in the future.
Man's desire for security makes people necessarily unhappy because they have to give up their passions in exchange for the security. Freud said that if individuals are not put in check, they would enslave their neighbors, use them as sex objects, take over their possessions, humiliate them, make them suffer pain, and kill them. Thus, the civilization had to invent aim-inhibited libido that strengthens the bond between the relations of friendship by telling everyone to love their neighbors. However, since "instinctual passions are stronger than reasonable interests", people feel uncomfortable and unhappy to forgo the chance to be aggressive to their neighbor (95). Thus, a "civilized man has exchanged a portion of his possibilities of happiness for a portion of security" by letting go of his instinctual passions to gain a security against stronger men (100). Since security minimizes their pain and pleasure, they cannot let go of it, making them unable to fully achieve happiness since the instinctive impulses are left unsatisfied.
However, Nietzsche would say that security is not important and that people would have a more hopeful future if they do not desire it.
