IRST Institute of Religious & Social Thoughts
From desire I rush to satisfaction
From satisfaction I leap to desire.
~Goethe’ Faust
Introduction
Lack differentiates the human subject A kind of Lack pervades the human self. It could be the lack of divine union, the lack of existing in aesthetic imaginary, Lack of the Lacanian Real or despair of the phenomenal. The paradox of realization and non-articulation of it makes human suffering inevitable. Lack, belonging to the realm of the non-discursive, escaped the philosophes excessively concerned with chiseling the discursive. Modern Philosophers relinquished the inarticulation of Lack and altogether diverted the focal point maintaining an epistemological quietism regarding the noumenal other. The capitalist system favored the potentially exploitable phenomena. As the fundamental Lack was sidelined, the material emanations of it engaged the modern human resulting in an increased realization of the lack. The capitalist logic of fulfilling the lack with material objects failed miserably effectuating the anxiety emanating from the lack. The gullible illusion created by the democratic system marketed desire converting human subjects into consumerist spectators. Perversion of Lack, Desire and Freedom marks the modern age as excessively maligned in character sustaining despicable forms of human existence.
Desiring the non-perishable
The 2 meta-desires of desire- (I) Inner Peace and (II) perishing of the immediate object forming a loop of desire (desire to desire), commingles constantly providing the individual with what I call Lack. The interplay of these two registers of peace and satisfaction/desire characterizes the corporeal realm. Modern Sisyphean Man galloping in the ecstasy of free-desire and instinctive satisfaction is in actuality chained to the dialectic of desire. Further, the modern space differs from an enchanted order not in its logic of desiring the perishable but in its insistence on desiring it without an enlightened essence of its perishability. An object has a perishable value and its inevitable degeneration must be concomitantly realized with its satisfactory value. Desiring an object with a realization of its perishability subordinates the perishable object to the absolute non-perishable real. The realization of perishability makes the essence of the perishable non-perishable de-creating the loop of desire. The desire to continue desiring and the perishability of the object results in a non-satisfied search for object. For Goethe, the act of desiring involves desiring to desire. The de-creation of this desire that desires to desire requires an absolute non-perishable. Desiring the absolute non-perishable of the perishable involves a realization of desiring the perishable. Let’s take an example of marriage. An archetypal modern man marries the satisfactory and an archetypal traditional one marries the non-perishable. Marrying the satisfactory without the essence of the inevitable degeneration of the flesh symbolizes a failed marriage. Here, Lack recurs and the concerned subject, in order to fulfill it, cheats. The Lack enforces the desire and the circle of negating the perishable continues, causing depression, anxiety, suicides and loneliness. The traditional archetypal man symbolizes the requirement of the realization of absolute perishability, not the monkish insistence on perishability but an essence of it with the satisfactory. The later in most cases is a successful marriage characterized by commitment to the non-perishable and the satisfactory. The case of the modern failed marriage and the traditional successful marriage bases itself on desiring the non-perishable with the satisfactory. The satisfactory state of existence lasts momentarily as the immediate material perishes followed by the recurrence of the Lack. Realizing the perishability of the immediate material, the individual reaches a different state of being. This is the non-perishable divine state. This non-perishable state, realizing the decaying material object takes solace in the non-perishable while actively engaging with the perishable. It differs from the deceptive stages of Kierkegaard, aesthetic/ethical/religious as it regards the non-perishable divinity of the aesthetic object. In the non-perishable state, the individual reaches the non-perishable sacred only through the passage of the perishable profane. It regards the perishable but exists ultimately for the non-perishable. The capitalist world order follows the principle of transforming the immediate material in the hope of extending the perishability. It insists on the non-realization of the perishable for the sake of enhancing/upgrading the material. With the enhancement of the material whether it be the internet/digital revolutions, novel humanlike machines boasting the significance of human achievability in fact masks the actual loss of articulated lack. As the material progresses, lack recurs and with the continued recurrence of it, the abstraction increases creating an interminable void between the subject and the lack.
The fruit of Commitment
The non-perishable state of existence differs from the satisfactory in its insistence on commitment. In the satisfactory state, the individual chases freedom in its purity. As Byung Chul Han maintained in The Burnout Society, the modern state feeds the individual with the potential achievability of nearly everything. The failure to achieve one’s desired object becomes the cause of ‘oppressing your own selves’. In Arendtian terms, the universalization of the fetish of labor distorts subjective interactivity. Auto-exploiters interacting with the hope of downgrading the other. The modern logic of non-committed experimentation falls heavily on the individual sedated by the perversity of freedom. The recurrence of Lack becomes the state of perverse freedom for the modern man. Whereas, the non-perishable committed freedom comes out as a byproduct for an absolute goal. Freedom cannot be anti-commitment, rather it is annihilation to a self-created hinge. Annihilating oneself to a self-chosen vocation, binding oneself to a self-created hinge provides freedom as a byproduct. A slave of a dictatorial setup seems to be unfree and an experimental man in a democratic setup seems to be free. This sanctimonious illusion tethered with democracy of a perverse kind of freedom concerns me. While the traditional slave in a state of anti-freedom binds himself to the other-created hinge and the modern perishable slave refuses the hinge-bondage existing in a perverse freedom. The non-perishable fulfilled human subject creates the hinge for himself with a realization of the communitarian responsibility against the Kierkegaardian existential knight of faith focused on self-possession disregarding social commitments and familial expectations. The Kierkegaardian or the Sartrean Man rolls the boulder of meaning like a Sisyphean constantly under the burden of meaning formation. The solid institutions in a hierarchical positioning which used to provide solace to the internal troubles of the human subject were flattened upholding the latitudinal cosmos-self. As Taylor remarks, the loss of self takes place in the Sartrean phenomenology.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would take into consideration the case of Religion and New Age Mysticism. Religion fulfills the lack by transcendentalizing the perishability of the object. What new age mysticism symbolizes is a non-committed perverted kind of ugly theism calling for the de-institutionalizing of religion which corresponds to the modern logic of de-transcendentalizing the perishable. I reject eclecticism in the fundamental practicality of religion. The eclectic must be sought in a theoretical dialogicity with the other not in the fundamental practicality of the self, coalescing commitment and dialogue. Thus with the realization of the dialectics of desire, the perishability of objects and the significance of commitment, the human subject can evade the perversion of modernity.
