What is the Meaning of Deisre? - by Dr. Bernard Roy

Philosophy Posted July 10, 2000

Summary of “What is the Meaning of Desire?” - by Dr. Bernard Roy
Held at Bamiyan, New York City on Thursday, June 29th, 2000

We had a huge crowd, among which I noticed many first timers. Anna and Brent were here for the first time. Sharon sent us Warren, and Ken brought Ralph from Washington, D.C. with him. I must say, I admire Ken’s dedication. He round trips from D.C. for the day just for the café philo. By the way he moderates his own in D.C., and I hear he is doing quite well. If ever you are in the nation’s capital, please do check on his schedule. There also were two of my students from Baruch summer school, Luisa and Livia. They came of their own will, uncoerced and without a bribe of extra credit. Welcome to all! And I hope you come back.

I announced that I had been invited this coming November to address the Second International Conference on Café Philo in Castres, France, and that the people responsible for the conference wanted some pictures of our gathering. Harvey, who had a camera in his knapsack offered to be the photographer. He promised to bring the results on the 13th. Somehow, the square tables ended up arranged in a T shape, and the two round tables adorned each side of the T like gigantic dots. I wonder what you thought of it. The air conditioning, which we needed badly, was not running at its best. I was glad to note, when I brought Shah, the owner of the restaurant, the announcements for the next café, that he had workers attending to the problem.

Leslie very generously invited all to a party at her home after our last café philo of the year on the 13th. Thank you Leslie, and I’ll be there. And now, I’ll try and reconstruct our discussion.

As I look at my notes, and try to identify the major spheres of focus, I come up with four. One sphere, let me call it the Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) view, seems to underscore a critical examination of desires before individual act upon them. On this view there seems to be more “bad” than “good” desires. The “good” desires are in sync with our godly nature. The work of our life consists in a proper discrimination between the two. Another sphere, the Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) view, insists that all desires are overt or disguised manifestations of sexual desires. In this view, which, in contrast to the first, is more descriptive than prescriptive, it would appear that we have very limited freedom in our desires. The third sphere, which can be attributed to Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), argues for a hierarchy of desires. The bottom rungs of the ladder of desires represent basic desires; the top rungs correspond to a desire of “self-actualization,” or of “self-centeredness.” In one respect, Spinoza and Maslow agree; desires ought to guide us to our nature. However, they disagree as to what the nature of that nature is. And finally, the last sphere is our familiar semantic sphere. While in its orbit we try to differentiate between will, need, velleity and desire. In what follows, I hope you can recognize the sphere from which each speaker comes from.

Ellary opened the discussion. She was curious about Spinoza’s distinction between passive and active desires, and suggested that desire was based on an illusion. Leslie added that active desires contributed to society and created careers, while passive desires had to do with sensations, and she cited the hero of Huysmans’ À Rebours as an example of someone in prey of passive desires. Her own view was that she tried to follow her desires. But Harvey denied the validity of the distinction between passive and active on the ground that there was no possibility to make a distinction between subject and object. Will thought that desires were the result of a lack, and that we can grade the lacks. Warren wanted to zero in on the forbidden dimension of desire. For him, desire brought to mind things like greed, covetousness. If desires can be graded, it is their intensity that will place them low or high. The gradation, then, is mostly subjective, but a desire for meaning seemed to be a noble enterprise.

Nathaniel commented on Will’s position, and, although he liked the bringing in of lack, he did not think that it was enough because there are many things that we don’t have that we don’t want. He also wanted to distinguish between will and desire, but Will didn’t think that will was basic; “it’s just a step before doing,” he said. Carlos contributed an additional distinction, that between need and desire. He argued that the former was instinctual, while the latter involved a consciousness. And Eduardo asked whether we could desire something we didn’t want. Harvey quickly supplied an example, “we can desire not to have something.”

Anna cited Maslow’s position as something that comes to her mind when she thinks of desire. Desire is about how well we can self-actualize, and how we can help others. Genadyi was suspicious about the way we identify our desires. He thought that the desire for something sometimes hid a desire for something else. Furthermore, he thought that desires could be used to control others or to have power over others. Warren concurred and noted that there was a moral connotation to desires. Christianity, for example, condemn vain desires. Andrea went further and said that the intensity of our desires was sometimes so strong that it drove us and made us lose control.

Harriett wanted to know about two things. Why do most religions ask us to eschew desires? And, what does culture have to do with our desires? Ellary thought that the questions could be addressed by examining the difference between material and spiritual desires. Culture defines our material needs and religion defines our spiritual needs. For her, a desire is an illusion and it could be understood as the sum of a drive with a consciousness of it. Thus, if I am driven toward an object (passive), and I am conscious of the attraction then I can desire it (active). But Eduardo did not think that desires were illusions because illusions, for him, were negative. Ellary responded that we could have creative illusions. “A creative illusion is not negative,” she said.

Leslie opened a new line of thought and suggested that desires were fundamental to us, but somehow they were devalued by society. She argued that desires permit us to realize our potentials, but also noted that most of us had a fear of reaching our potential. Thus, society put us in a state of mind that makes us fearful of our own potential. Warren added that we couldn’t escape the world of desires, and thought that our society overvalued desires. Consumerism is a manipulation of our desires; it works because we can’t escape desiring. Society tells us which desires to suppress. Will brought back the gradation of desires; some necessary desires cannot be suppressed. Harvey grew weary of our talk about valuation, “too many prescriptions, and not enough descriptions,” he said. He approvingly mentioned the Eastern view of being in tune with nature. Harry did not think much of the suggestion; it was too idealizing. But Anna picked up on the simplicity underlying Harvey’s message. “Why is it that people can’t accept simplicity?” she asked, and added that she was always told to seek and do simple things. Will answered that it had to do with the personality of individuals and with the constant reminder by society that we need “things.” Leslie agreed that society placed constant pressure on us to desire “things,” and she talked about television advertising teaches children to desire things. Warren agreed that culture was largely responsible for the gradation of desires, and added that Maslow’s hierarchy did not fit in all cultures.

Ralph breathed some fresh perspective into the nostrils of our discussion. He didn’t think that consumer goods were much of an object of passion. He also said that “desire was synonymous with being alive,” and that “the essence of humanhood was desire.” He told us of his admiration for William Blake (1757-1827) and approvingly quoted him as saying that all religion were oppressive in nature. He argued that it was a shame to rein in people’s desires. Carlos didn’t think that we ever lost desires. “Religion may suppress them, but they are not lost. One can never totally suppress a desire.” Genadyi concurred with Ralph, but added that desires tout court did not say much until the objects of desires were identified. A more interesting avenue to explore would be that, because we were the products of experience, we had to have different objects of desires. But Nathaniel came to the defense of the individual and said that the fact that culture imposed desires upon us could not devalue the desire. “Even though our desires are shaped by our culture,” he added, “if you’re a fetishist, you still desire that foot.” Harry introduced a distinction between primary and secondary desires, and noted that some desires were substitutes, and that having some things represented something else.

Linette startled the flow of thought by declaring that the desires in our heart had been placed there by God, and that we didn’t choose our desires. For her, the quintessential desire is love at first sight. Frank picked up on that last part of Linette’s declaration. “I am with Freud through and through,” he proudly announced, and proceeded to say that all desires were rooted in sexual desires, and our desires to procreate was rooted in our fear of death.. Ellary objected to the over sexualization of desire, and to an emphasis on procreation, “that’s too biological,” she complained. But she agreed with some aspect of Linette’s position. There was something about losing oneself in another, about being recognized or “known” by another. She also agreed with Frank that the fear of death shaped some of our desires. Genadyi thought that sex was more for recreation than for procreation.

Andrea returned to the issue of the role of society and culture on our desires. She argued that society devalued our desires because they are too intense, and intensity is so strong that it destroys the power center. She added that it was fundamental to us that we have conflicts in our desires., “that’s what makes us who we are.” Will balked at the hardship of conflicts; he asked to be put on the record as saying that simplicity was desirable. But Ken didn’t think that simplicity was so desirable. “What about a desire for a meaning of one’s life, for creating a narrative of one’s life?” he asked. And as to Ellary and Frank and their concerns about death, he suggested that “an engagement in life would ward off our fear of death.” That engagement could be as banal as going shopping.

Eduardo took us back to the issue of death. He thought that our ultimate identity was in death. What did he mean by that? In death, he said, “we move toward the person we are.” He also disagreed with his brother, Carlos, arguing that love could be suppressed by institutions, and that they did that in order to keep power over the individual. Luisa responded that all institutions wanted was to keep order, and Anna added that there had to be leadership in institutions for order to obtain.

Leslie wanted to explore further Linette’s vision of losing oneself. She thought that the notion of losing oneself was culturally informed. “That’s what the French want, bu not the Americans!” she said. But, then, she added a psychological account of desires, saying that many Americans suspect their desires because they fear to lose control. A human mind, contrary to a computer, can go out of control. She also added that dreams were expressions of our desires and that many discoveries had been made through dreams. Harvey came to the defense of computers and said that those that worked on problems of fuzzy logic were not “afraid” to lose control. Neither did he think much of consumerism; in his words “shopping hour is like Schopenhauer, it is dark.” He also attacked Freud’s pleasure principle as a myth. “Sex is a release of tension,” he said and “it involves intimacy. The orgasm is just one aspect of it.”

Nathaniel wanted to make a plug for anarchy. He said that the sight of evil hurt, and that evil could be traced to desire, greed or anger. He wanted to be comfortable with his desires, and didn’t think that it was necessary to demonize institutions because there were reasons to fear excessive desires. Harry contended that we were too cerebral, and that we placed too much emphasis on higher processes at the expense of the cultivation of our more primitive ones. And Ellary thought that there was something oxymoronic about being comfortable with one’s desires. But Nathaniel later would add that being comfortable means being calm.

Frank equated Nietzsche’s will to power our will to desire. But, as I was getting a bit tired and hot, his point escaped me. In relation to death and sex, he also said that the primary process is the creative process, and that the secondary process is the one that transforms. “We can know more about ourselves by pursuing sex,” he concluded. Later, he would add that all civilizations are a detour from desire, and that man is the for itself and in itself.

Kasuyo was not so sure about God’s negative effects on our desires. She read us a quote from Tibetan Buddhism where God is described as a companion. Ralph added that we were in a state of restraint, and that our notion of freedom was misguided. The root of violence comes from our being thwarted. He also quoted G.B. Shaw who had said that man liked to think of himself as bold and bad, but in fact he was a coward. That made him think again of Blake who had said that “man is energy enslaved.” He suggested that we cultivate our understanding rather than our desires.

Eduardo did not think that there was any malice in the realization that we had a desire for fame. According to him, we can self-actualize through the bond of fraternity. “Desire is something we share, we partake in desiring,” he said and added that “the goal of desire is to find a bridge between individuals.” Ellary added that we ought to find some way to desire meaning, of gaining some knowledge. Harvey got the last word and quoted a fortune cookie he had recently gotten: “Do not mistake temptation for opportunity.”