It is not an exaggeration to call modern society, where people constantly feel pressured to achieve something, an era of excess desire. Han Byung-chul (1959~), a philosopher living in Germany, defines modern society as a ‘fatigued society’ caused by ‘excess positivity.’ Is it really the excess of positivity that makes us tired, or is it the excess of desire?
Humans are the only subjects in nature who seek to satisfy their desires mentally beyond their physical instinctive desires. However, since desires can never be satisfied, a life that pursues only desires can only lead to despair. Lacan (1901-1981) defined this desire as a ‘subject’s deficiency that constantly pursues an ambiguous object that arises from the unconscious.
Desire has long been understood as one of the instincts that originates through organic union with the body (flesh), and the desire of the body that comes from physical deficiency has been philosophically evaluated more negatively than the desire of the mind that comes from mental deficiency.
This is mainly due to the influence of Western mainstream thought, which has traditionally valued the unchanging spirit over the changing body, and pure reason over emotions that are easily influenced from the outside.
Human desires, however, are fundamentally mental acts that have no limits, unlike general desires that are naturally generated from biological needs and demands and disappear when they are satisfied. In other words, physical desires have physiological limits, but mental desires are never satisfied.
The reason humans are ‘subjects of desire’ is not because they are a result of the body, but because humans are mental beings. However, this does not mean that desires are completely unrelated to the body. Since the body is a means of mediating the mind for humans, desires are also essentially impossible without the functions of the body.
Desires fundamentally come from trying to fill a lack, but there are various factors that incite desires. Modern society structurally leads humans to various desires by constantly provoking greed. Greed is one aspect of human desire that is not satisfied with the present and wants more.
McLuhan (1911-1980) argued that the development of media brought about the ‘extension of humanity’, modern society, with the dazzling development of media, the Internet, and artificial intelligence, overcomes the limitations of physical reality and realizes dreams that seem impossible, thereby creating a new desire for human expansion.
In contrast, Zizek (1949- ) defines modern society as a society dominated by everyday ideology and warns against it, saying that the ideology of modern society is a type of ‘fantastic construct’ that conceals the reality of fundamental human desires. This ideology of desire is used as a faithful tool to hide the interests and power of groups, especially in our society.
As Father Grün (1945- ), a theologian, said, greed eventually develops into pathological possessiveness; for a healthy life, we need to be wary of excessive greed that incites desire more than anything else.
