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Good evening. This is
Radio Free Beszel. I
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am Alphonse. Tonight:
Identity and Desire.
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The Industrial Revolution posed
a challenge for manufacturers.
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Because factories benefit
from making
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more objects rather
than fewer,
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the more you make the cheaper
each one is. So
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they wanted to make a lot
to stay competitive.
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But consumers didn't want
to buy that much. They
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needed to create new demand
- more desire. The
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solution, of course,
was advertising. Now
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early advertising was
informative: it would
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tell you about the features
of the product, and
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assume that therefore you
would want to buy it.
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So an ad for beer might
say, "buy this beer,
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it tastes good." An ad
for soap might say,
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"buy the soap, it'll keep
you clean." An ad for
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a car might say, "buy this
car, it goes fast."
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But advertisers soon realized
that's not the best
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way to sell a product. If
you really want someone
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to want the product, instead
of focusing on
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the product and its features,
you focus on
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how it makes you feel. You
focus on an identity.
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You suggest that if you own
this thing, then this
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is how you feel, this
is the kind of person
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you will be, this is how
people will see you.
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And these ads very
frequently show
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someone owning or using
the product.
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In fact, sometimes the
product itself is not
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shown at all, just the feeling.
So, for example,
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an ad for beer might say,
"if you drink this
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beer, you'll be this kind
of person with these
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kinds of friends. An ad
for soap might say, "if
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you use this soap, you'll
look like this person."
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An ad for a car might say,
"if you drive this
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car, you'll feel like the
person in the ad."
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In other words, advertising
makes us buy things
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by making us think that
we will feel or be like
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a certain kind of person.
It gives us a role model
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- something to copy, a desire
to copy, with the
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idea that that will make
us happy. Well, this is
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basically René Girard's theory
of memetic desire.
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Now Girard wasn't talking
about advertising - he
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based his idea on a study
of great 19th century
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novels - but what he says
is that most or all
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human desires don't come
from within. They're not
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unique. We copy them by
looking at other people
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and desiring what they have
or what they want.
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Imagine you have a room
full of all sorts
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of toys. And you put
a couple of boys in
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the room. And one of the
boys puts his hand on
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a red sports car toy. And
the other boy sees
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the first one - and now
he wants that car.
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Now a moment ago he was
looking around the
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room. He didn't know what
he wanted. But since
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his friend seems to want
the car, so does he.
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Maybe his friend never
wanted the car
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at all. Maybe he just
put his hand on it
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without thinking about it.
But now he wants it
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too - because his friend
wants it. This is how
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Girard describes desire.
We see what other people
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want, we see their desires
- and we share them,
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because we want to be
like those people.
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The child who sees the
other child with the
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red car thinks, "oh,
that car is making
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him happy - it'll make
me happy too."
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So we pick our desires not
so much for the objects
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as for the people who desire
the objects. We think
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he wants that thing,
and I want to be
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like him, so I want
that thing too.
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He gives an example of a
saint's robe. You know,
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a tattered piece of fabric
from a saint's robe is
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something that someone who
wants to be close to
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the saint spiritually would
want much more than
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they would want, say, a
goblet that the saint
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had touched at some point.
But the scrap of
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fabric isn't what matters:
it's that closeness,
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it's that identification.
Desire, in other words,
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is really about identification.
It's not about
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having things, it's about
identifying with people.
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It's about having an identity
ourselves. The
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problem, Girard says, is that
this creates strife.
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Because if I see what other
people want, and then
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I want it more, and then
they see what I want,
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and they want it more, you
get this this spiral,
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this vicious circle, this
whirlwind of desire,
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as more of us want more and
more and more. We all
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want the same thing, but
we can't all have it.
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So we end up in competition.
And this,
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Girard says, can lead
to violence. Also,
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it's unsatisfying. We
know this from being
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consumers. Often we buy
things thinking,
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If I own that thing,
it will make me
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feel good. But when
we get the thing,
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we're basically disappointed.
The desire before we
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had it was more powerful
than the feeling after.
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Because it didn't change
us. Whatever we
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bought did what it was
supposed to do,
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but that wasn't the thing
that we were trying to
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address. We were trying
to fill a void inside.
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Girard says that modern
people are basically
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given the message that they
are free: that each
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of us has the potential to
realize our desires, to
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realize our dreams, to become
the person that we
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want to be - identity and
desire, again, are
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basically the same thing
- but we fail. And,
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he says, we fail because
we're copying. If that
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desire came from within,
then maybe we'd be able
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to satisfy it. And if we
satisfied it, maybe we'd
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feel whole. But since that
desire actually comes
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from outside, it doesn't
fill up that void but
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that leaves us feeling like
we've been betrayed.
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We were given the message,
the promise, "you can
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be happy, you can be whatever
you want to be":
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but even when we achieve
our dreams, even when
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we achieve our desires,
just like the consumer
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we end up not satisfied.
And then, Girard says,
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we look around at everybody
else who seems to be
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satisfying their desires,
and we think, "What's
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wrong with me? How come
everybody else is happy?
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I've been given the same
freedom that they have,
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yet I've failed. What's wrong
with me?" And so we
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keep that a secret. We don't
tell anybody else.
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He quotes a line that Dostoevsky
gives about the
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feeling of one of his characters
- that "I am
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alone," he says, "but they"
- meaning everybody
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else - "are together."
The irony, of course,
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is that everybody is together
in the sense
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that everybody feels alone.
Everybody feels that
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they have failed but nobody
shares the truth.
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There are other reasons
to make secret
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what we really desire,
Girard says,
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because if we're in
competition with
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everybody else for
what we desire,
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the best way to get it is
to conceal it. Don't let
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them know. If I don't let
them know what I want,
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then they're not
going to compete
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with me, and maybe
I can get it.
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Of course at some point I
have to actually admit
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it, I have to actually go
for the thing that I
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want but, it's sort of
like a game of chicken
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we're the first person
to admit what he wants
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is the first person to lose,
and the person who
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holds out the best, who
pretends disinterest,
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may be the person who
succeeds in the
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end. There's another
problem, of course.
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Just as we believe that we're
free to be whoever
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we want to be, we all want
to be unique. We all
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want to be special. We
don't just want to be
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someone who's copying what
somebody else wants.
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We don't just want to be
like somebody else. We
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want to be ourselves. But
that romantic idea that
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everybody is unique, with
our own desires that
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come from within, Girard
says, just isn't so.
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But what happens when you
realize that? What
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happens when you realize
that all of your
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desires are copies, that
you're just imitating
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other people? Well, he
suggests there are two
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possible outcomes. One
is to just give in and
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say, "you know what, I'm
copying my desire
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but I'm going to go with
it. I'm just going to
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imitate this person and
try to be like them."
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He describes that as
being like a slave.
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The other option is to
maintain one's pride
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and say, "I'm not going to
let other people control me.
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I'm going to be my own person."
But the only way
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to do that then is to give
up desire - to say,
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"I don't want anything.
I don't care." It's a
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nihilistic perspective that
Girard compares to
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progress toward death. Girard
says there's another
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way that we can resolve our
problems around desire
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if we're failing to satisfy
our desires, if we're
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failing to become the people
that we want to be.
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If we're all competing for
the same thing we find
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that there's strife among
all of us, then we can
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turn on someone else. We
can turn on someone who
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seems to be different,
an outsider, and blame
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them. Maybe they caused all
of this strife. Maybe
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they're the one who's blocking
me from finding
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my identity. Maybe that person
is the person who
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needs to suffer, to be punished
for creating this
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whole problem. And then
the desire for objects
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turns into the desire to
victimize that person,
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the desire to scapegoat that
person. And then the
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group that might have all
been competing and might
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have been hating each other
turns out now to all
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be in agreement, all on the
same side all against
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the one. And that one is
scapegoated. And then
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the problem is resolved,
at least temporarily.
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So Girard proposes that
collective violence is the
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result of people imitating
one another's desires,
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trying to achieve their
identities, failing,
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and finding a scapegoat
to resolve the issue
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and restore some harmony.
And Girard proposes
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that throughout history
one of the most common
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solutions for competition,
where everybody has
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the same desire, for the
failure to achieve our
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identities - although he
doesn't use that word -
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is scapegoating. It's collective
violence. This
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is Alphonse for Radio Free
Beszel. www.beszel.ca.
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Good Night.
