Desire is the very essence of the human species, but this eternal glutton is insatiable. In his latest work, Cultivate desire and live to bursts!, the author Frédéric Lenoir recounts, from Plato to today, the troubled relationship betweenHomo sapiens with desire, this innate drive, inscribed in the depths of our genes.
Ah, desire, when you hold us! At first sight, one thinks of the new work of the French philosopher and sociologist devoted entirely to bursts of the libido, but it is not so. In humans, desire is omnipresent, from sex to the stomach, from social recognition to professional ambition.
“Animals only have primary desires, such as eating, drinking and sleeping, which cease once they are satisfied. In man, the notion of desire is infinite and extends to all dimensions of his being and his social interactions,” says Frédéric Lenoir.
A snag that stems in particular from the famous “ bug human” – amply described by the journalist Sébastien Bohler in his book of the same name. Humans are at the mercy of their striatum, the reptilian brain buried under gray matter, which gratifies them with a generous dose of dopamine each time a primary desire is fulfilled…until the next one. Hence the high felt after the purchase of a shiny car, after a new romantic conquest, obtaining a promotion or a victory against the opposing team.
What about desire?
Plato had decreed man to be a slave to this devouring drive which drives him to desire what escapes him. From antiquity, Lenoir explains, philosophers have associated desire with a destructive passion, a drive leading to envy, jealousy, destruction, even loss.
In man, the notion of desire is infinite and extends to all dimensions of his being and his social interactions.
“The codes of wisdom of Antiquity therefore advocated the control, even the eradication of desire. Then, Aristotle instead described desire as an inner force in humans, instilling in them the constant desire to learn, to discover, etc. he said.
But, quickly, this troubled relationship with desire will push most religions to regulate it, to confine it.
From the seven deadly sins of the Christian religion, intended to repress carnal urges, to the asceticism of Buddhism, religions have striven to frame desire in all its forms, argues Lenoir. “Civil law later took over many of these religious codes. A mistrust has emerged vis-à-vis desire, especially with regard to natural desires, such as sexuality. »
Lack being the fuel of desire, the prohibition imposed on several desires quickly became its accelerator, explains Lenoir.
Desire of others
Curiously, the desire is often for what the neighbor has, notes the author of Cultivate desire and live to bursts!. Social recognition being at the heart of the primary needs of humans, the object of their desire is essentially mimetic and stems largely from a social construction, specifies Frédéric Lenoir.
“The strength of the striatum (which regulates our primary needs) is amplified by this mimetic desire that makes us desire what others want,” Lenoir points out.
George Bernard Shaw summed up the two main tragedies facing mankind as follows: “First, not getting what you want most, then getting it. Hence the inflationary spiral imprinted on desire, increased tenfold by the consumerist who shoots the striatum with ever more objects of desire, mistakenly taken for needs.
Far from calming the striatum, the contemporary is often just a click away from the obscure object of his desires. “Today, it is consumerism that normalizes desires, it is no longer religion. You don’t naturally want a Rolex. This has imposed itself as a sign of social recognition. »
Even our economic model is based on this famous desire drive, undermined by the geniuses of marketing and advertising, explains Frédéric Lenoir. At this rate, our pseudo-desires will soon blow up the planet.
To see most of their desires – their desires – so quickly fulfilled, our fellow human beings are often in fact out of real desires, believes Frédéric Lenoir. A generalized drop in libido is also observed in young people exposed to too much of everything, trivialized pornography, desires too quickly satisfied, titillated by the mere repetition of the click.
“The success of porn reflects a real exhaustion of sexual desire, because eros always needs more to be titillated,” he says.
Revive real desire?
“To restore consciousness to our desires is an act of resistance! We must refocus on those who bring real happiness, get out of the striatum which brings immediate reward, to tend towards desires for knowledge, human links, creativity, which bring deeper joys. It’s about learning to redirect our desires,” says Lenoir.
A wish that Aristotle and Epicure already expressed, long before Rolex, Tesla and others derailed the list of our desires.
Eternal optimist, Frédéric Lenoir believes it is possible to rediscover this “momentum to live”, because more and more people and young people aspire to something other than the blissful quest for socially prescribed happiness. “Jung says that young individuals project themselves into the desire of others, then around 30 to 50 years old, experience deep dissatisfaction and wonder how to be happy. When we are in chronic sadness, it is because our desires are misdirected”, believes the philosopher.
“Many young people are now refusing to work all their lives to pay off the bank, and settle for less to have a better quality of life,” he adds. This movement, still timid, will spread through disasters, he believes.
Disasters? Yes, nothing less. This is what Hans Jonas calls the ethics of catastrophe, explains Lenoir, who believes that turns only happen in times of crisis.
“When there are no obstacles, you don’t change. We stay in the immediate future. The fate of the world depends on this radical change in the object of desire, to have or to be? The solution is there, but by then, we may have taken some disasters. Putting consciousness on our desires is the greatest challenge of our time. »