ABSTRACT
Durkheim saw human association as a creative process, not simply as an aggregation; he emphasized that the psychological potential of human society is dependent upon dialogue. In the one-to-one relationship of traditional psychoanalysis, context is deliberately excluded in order to explore the relationship of transference. Sigmund Freud formulated two fundamental drives: Eros and Thanatos; he saw the problem as one of providing facilities in which the two could be developed in a common context. In wider settings the distinction between people and their environment can be repeatedly seen in the anomaly of the brutal cultures created by kindly people. Culture is the outcome of a dialectical conflict between the individual system and environmental 'reality'. In relationship to nature, it takes the form of cultivation, e.g. agriculture, tool making, and science. Marriage has many features in common with incest and represents a successful transformation of incest from the familiocentric microculture to the social culture.
