"Perhaps primitive economies can be distinguished from civilized economies as that pattern of economic behavior in which play and the pleasure-principle have primacy over the
ostensibly rational calculus of maximum gains - that is to say, over the reality-principle. Perhaps, more generally, the two levels of culture which sociology has distinguished under various labels - primitive and civilized,
Gemeinschaft and
Gesellschaft, folk and urban - can be distinguished psychoanalytically. Primitive is that level of culture in which the rhythm of what Freud calls the primary process - the rhythm of dreams and childhood play - is predominant. Civilized is that level of culture which effectively represses the rhythm of the primary process in favor of rationality and the reality-principle." [
emphasis my own]
Norman O Brown Life against Death - The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History (1959) p.37
