What is Desire?

Understanding the difference between desire in the culture of simulation and the culture of the real

If you pay close attention to what I write about here, you might have wondered how I came characterized desire in a seemingly contradictory way. On the one hand, I am positive. On the other hand, as I wrote earlier this year, I saw how our desires are used to manipulate us.

Defining Desire

Jessica Helfand, in her fine book, Design: The Invention of Desire, defines desire in the context of design.

“The word “desire” comes from the Latin, desiderare, meaning to long for, wish for, demand, or expect - a broad trajectory that aptly characterizes our relationship to and feelings about objects, from the loose pangs of longing to the bold drive of need. Desire can reveal itself as a passing craving or a full-tilt motivation, as lust or hunger - but how does the design process itself function within this mercurial narrative? In a capitalist society it is frequently impossible to divorce design from want, to disassociate the process of formalizing a thing from its intended objective, which rests upon its physical acquisition. (As a fundamental practice, design itself tends to be targeted, goal-oriented, and pragmatic. It’s about making stuff.) Yet the question of taste makes defining a near-impossible task. Identifying the qualities that convey that adrenaline-rich emotional punch - the factors, simply put, that motivate desire - is what designers often aspire to do, obliging us to conduct an almost epistemological leap into the material unknown.”

Desire points to our humanity. We desire things to fulfill our sense of being. Desires fuels our creativity. Our desires tell us who we are

When we desire, we want something.

We may want to acquire something.

We may want to achieve something.

We may want to become attached to someone or group.

We admire those things that we desire beyond our capacity to obtain.

Desire is a deep function of who we are as people.

However, I separate desire into two broad categories.

One is the desire for identity. The other is the desire for accomplishment.

The line that divides these two types of desires travels through two frameworks that I developed this year to explain the culture of simulation. It is not easy to grasp what it means to be subject to this culture of simulation. Here are two of the ways that I have come to describe this culture and how it relates to human desire.

Immanent Non-Materiality

In my post, Transcendence, Immanence, and Materiality, I present a perspective of the historical progression that we have gone through over the past 500 years. It looks like this.

Transcendent Materiality is a belief that the material world has value because it has a transcendent origin in a divine creator.

This age emerged out of the Renaissance to elevate the place of the individual in society.

Immanent Materiality followed as a way to understand the Age of Enlightenment that gave rise to the cultures of science and industry. Here the study of the material world was valued in and of itself. Questions of God were separated from consideration of the meaning of the material world.

Immanent Non-Materiality emerged as the digital age began. A shift took place from the material world viewed as finite and limited to the non-material world of bits and bytes represented as a boundaryless openness. From this transition came the culture of simulation that I first wrote about as The Spectacle of the Real.

This culture is captured well by Guy Debord’s statement.

The spectacle is not a collection of images,

but a social relation among people, mediated by images.

The context of the image is the simulation. Or as Marshall McLuhan might say today, the simulation/spectacle is the medium as a message. As a result, our relations with people lose their material context as a non-material context is adopted.

Non-materiality affects desire by disconnecting it from direct experience. Consider the multitude of young women who are providing sexually provocative programming through their OnlyFans accounts. A generation ago porn stars and other sex workers were considered not acceptable by mainstream culture. Today, pornography has gone mainstream. The perception is that there is nothing detrimental to those performing. This is how the culture of simulation seduces people into activities that promise fulfillment. But it is a culture of disconnection mediated by images.

The Culture of Simulation versus The Culture of Reality

The question for us is “What does fulfillment mean in a non-material context?” My observation of cultures of simulation is that they are ephemeral. They provide a rush of sensory and emotional experience that is not sustainable. The culture of the Spectacle online is a rapid sequence of hyper-real events that are intended to seduce us into an emotional space of attention. TikTok may be the best at this serial exhilaration of the moment of attention. Every 12-15 seconds we find a new performance by an engaging performer. I know this because one morning I found myself riveted for five hours by TikTok performers. Realizing what was happening to me, a guy so aware of the culture of simulation, I knew that I had to delete the app from my phone immediately. We are all susceptible to the false promise of online desire.

There is a sequence to the culture of simulation that manipulates our desire to want immediate gratification without really doing anything but suspending our critical faculties and passively watching the screen. We are seduced to feel like the rush of adrenaline is a real human experience. Yet, it is there and then gone, and we seek the next rush of emotion to fulfill our desire for satisfaction.

I hope you can see how insidious this process can be. In effect, it robs a person of their individuality. The result is an addictive need for this non-material fulfillment.

Rich Roll’s interview with Max Fisher the author of The Chaos Machine captures what I see.

https://youtube.com/shorts/VEqpZygP7pc?feature=share

What happens as the experience of the simulation takes over your sense of self is that you develop what I describe as a religious-like false sense of consciousness. The effect is to protect us from those who do not share our experiences.

Think of this as a kind of postmodernist spirituality that lacks real beliefs and real relationships of shared belief. The scary aspect of this development is a narcissistic-like absolute confidence that does not allow outside influence to influence change in our lives.

The end game of this sequence of steps is social control over the person. The masters of the simulation understand how to trigger the right responses to facilitate compliance by the individual. Do this on a mass scale, and you have a perfect set-up for a socially totalitarian society.

There is an alternative to the culture of simulation that I call the culture of the real. The real is a product of direct experience. It seeks to develop direct relationships with people. One of the most important steps that I ever took was the commitment to meet people in person with who I had first engaged through social media. Even an afternoon over coffee can be a transformative experience.

In the culture of the real, we venture out into the real world to test ourselves. We want to know what we can do and what we are not able to do. We should learn some of this as a child. But if you spend your childhood in front of a screen, you’ll miss out on experiences that not only help to define you but also guide you into the future.

Self-learning is a chief way to do this. We develop the discipline to master specific skills. We take a course in a foreign language. We go to the community college and learn crafts skills. We travel, explore, and discover new cultures. We go places with an open mind to learn and connect. The result is a growing self-awareness about who we are and what we are capable of.

Returning to the question of desire, we discover that our desire is to achieve something that we felt before we began was impossible. It replaces the desire to feel something.

I experienced this when I started my consulting practice, having never been a consultant or run a business. Everything you read from me over the past two decades is a product of that decision to test myself. It wasn’t easy. I failed a lot. A LOT! But I never quit. And now, well past retirement age, I am at the peak of my career. Still testing to see what I am capable of achieving. I would not trade the life that I have lived for anyone. It is because I challenged the culture of the real and it gave back everything I wanted from it.

The ultimate benefit is freedom. Freedom is the fulfillment of the desire to grow, learn, and discover who you are. You can’t do that living in a culture of simulation. That culture takes from you the best that you have to offer to the world. All it leaves in return is hunger and, for many, nihilism about life.

Human Agency and Our Desires

Let me approach this from another angle.

When you become aware of what you truly desire, passion for some people, you have learned something about yourself. You have learned what you want and what you don’t want. You realize that you are now cast in the role of being a person who takes responsibility for your life. When you make decisions, you are taking a step toward fulfilling your desires, but more importantly, you are realizing in real time and space, your agency as a person.

The way to understand human agency is to realize what you desire, know whether it is achievable, and be capable of taking action to bring your desire or purpose or goal to fruition. Agency is the capacity to discern and to act on your discernment as to the right steps to take.

The Emptiness of Desire

The culture of simulation thwarts our desire for the fulfillment of our agency as persons. As a result, desire’s focus shifts from what we can achieve - the impact of the Circle of Impact leadership for example - to the desires for things that we cannot have, that is out of reach, or are lost to us. There is an emptiness about the culture of simulation where we feel always on the outside looking a people who seem to have it all together. What you don’t see is the emptiness that comes to the performer on the screen when the screen is turned off and they are left alone with themselves.

To find meaning and purpose in the context of our desires is to seek ways to engage with life and with people. If you seek purpose, seek in the street, in the coffee shops, and wherever there are needs in your community. Do not settle for an association with a cause. Become a part of the cause. Remember many causes are often just a reflection of the culture of simulation. Seek to create an impact. Look for some changes that you have had a hand in creating. Do this and the emptiness of the culture of simulation will be filled with meaning and purpose for each day.

The Desire to Act, To Do, To Create, and To Fulfill Your Purpose

Above, I distinguished between two categories of desire. One is the desire for identity. The other is the desire for accomplishment.

The culture of simulation gives an identity without grounding in reality.

The culture of reality creates an identity through achievement.

If you desire fulfillment, take action.

If you desire to know yourself, take action.

If you desire significant, take action.

If you desire to be a person of influence, take action.

Chinese artist AI Wei Wei has helped me understand the difference between doing and being. There is no being without action. Here are two quotes that capture this truth.

“Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.”

“It’s never too late to do something.”