[Critique of the Freudian cultural concept]

The author takes issue with Freud's understanding of civilization, pointing out that it is both functionalist and individualist and hence takes too narrow a perspective, the reason for this being, in the author's view, Freud's "methodological Hobbesianism". Freud operates on the assumption of drives that are both lower than and prior to the act of establishing civilization. Schmid Noerr contends, however, that as in the last resort Freud can only describe these in cultural/civilizational contexts, the conclusion must be that civilization is not only a normative standard placed over and against such drives but also a form of social organization of semiotic systems extending to the regulation of the emotional significantions incorporated in the drives themselves.