This is all very Freudian...

Regardless of the veracity of Sigmund Freud's opinions (perhaps more on that in another post), the excerpt we read from Civilization and Its Discontents, written in 1929, is a good example of one the ways World War I affected European thought. Freud's basic spiel is that there is a "powerful share of aggressiveness," inherent in humanity that is both violent and sexual (it just wouldn't be Freud without some reference to sex), and in respect to the former type of aggressiveness, it's hard to imagine someone emerging from the "horrors of the recent World War," as a participant or just an observer, and still believing that deep down humans are actually just kind, caring creatures. Thus, I think it makes sense that Freud in his attempts to analyze the mind and human behavior would come to the conclusions that he does.