Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory

There is a translation issue to be dealt with when we think of culture in these terms: the German word 'Kultur' can mean either 'high culture' or 'civilization' generally. Freud scorned the differentiation, but it is worth bearing in mind that the meaning of culture in german is not a straightforward translation into English, and that Freud's use of it at the time would have been loaded by the weight of these two meanings (translations tend to use civilization as a noun, and cultural as the adjective).
In Freud's meta-psychological schema culture is an expression of the struggle to overcome dilemmas, which are either instinctual, or a clash between instinctual drives and civilization. There is usually a conflictual schema being employed to look at warring currents. Freud's methods of looking at dreams, etc. can also be applied to texts and other cultural products: a surface with conflicting mental currents (manifest), with censored issues beneath the surface (latent).
Culture or the ...