IX. Desire

In all forms of life, desire is a major motivational driving force. Modernity is geared towards rendering the world—including our desires—(1) visible, (2) reachable or accessible, (3) manageable, (4) useful, (5) malleable, (6) manipulable, and (7) controllable. And yet, desire is not everything. We are driven, partly, by the impulsive power of our desires and, partly, by the attitudinal (and, in many respects, ideological) power of our strong evaluations. Desire is a paradoxical affair: the more we realize that we desire something we cannot have, the more we desire it. To desire what we cannot have (or at least what we cannot have immediately or entirely) means to desire something we cannot control (or at least something we cannot control momentarily or completely). Ultimately, every desire is an expression of our need for resonance. The instrumentalization of this need is one of capitalism’s greatest weapons.