The following work can be defined as a critical revision of the text "Civilization and its Discontents", by Freud. Our view of the text aims to reflect on the problem of alterity and on the theory of the social binding. Freud's text presents the afflictive meeting of the self with the other. We will reflect on the Freudian interpretation of the Christian commandment "Thou shall love Thy neighbor as Thyself", and on the moral problem of the meeting with the other pointing to the tragic dimension of this meeting. And, to finish, we will try to discuss the question of guilt and debt as basis of the social bond.
alterity; social binding; anxiety; abandonment; castration