Needs presumably begin from the body, or the biological limits imposed on
the human by the fact of having/being a body. Desire, according to Kristeva,
Lacan, Derrida et al, is 'in language', i.e. unlike needs begins with
being-in-language (culture, history). Desire is always for/moving towards
the 'other', while need perhaps moves towards whatever completes the self.
If Marxist economics is founded on an analysis of needs, and the
enlightenment project had the satisfaction of human needs as its telos,
perhaps desire is what has interrupted both (consumerism, post-materialism,
post-modernism, post-historicism...)? Baudrillard's simulacrum satisfies and
renews desire, but does nothing to satisfy or even acknowledge need.
Helen
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul H.Dillon [mailto:illonph@pacbell.net]
Sent: 13 September 2000 3:01 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: freedom & responsibility
Judy,
Fine Judy, when you get the time, I'd like to know what's in your mind
about it or in any theory of mind you are aware of, that convinces you that
there is some great difference between the two. I also can make a
distinction -- my favorite example being the bob dylan verse, "Yes I know
about your debutante, but she just knows what you need, and I know what you
want" -- but it's very clear to me that something like Maslow's pyramid of
needs converts needs into desires as one moves down toward the base. So I'm
very suspect of the dividing line, and in any event can't see how it can be
located in the individual which seems to be the intent of your desire to
introduce a "discourse" about desire into the place of the discredited
"discourse" about freedom.
Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: Judy Diamondstone
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 5:13 AM
Subject: Re: freedom & responsibility
Paul, in my mind, and in any theory of the mind I'm aware of, there is a
clear distinction between "needs" and "desires." Sorry I can't say more
right now, I'm working under a deadline.
Judy
At 12:26 PM 9/11/00 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>
Judy,
What is the difference between desires and needs?
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu>Judy Diamondstone
To: <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 11:15 PM
Subject: Re: freedom & responsibility
I found this message helpful. However, I think there's a confusion
about the notion of freedom/agency that is being discussed; as I understood
it, "freedom" or "free play" is inherent in a semiotic system and a world
mediated by such psychological tools. Earlier this morning, I was thinking
that I'd be willing to relinquish the notion of "freedom" if a discourse of
_desire_ is admitted into the discussion. There needs to be some way to
account for individuals' orientation to take up one practice, not another;
use certain tools, not others; --the acquisition of different styles of
participation. Desire is also produced on a sociocultural stage, in power
relations, but it is peculiarly shaped by each individual's social
history -- Local Social in cultural hist. context. So it is HERE where
responsibility takes on the tones assigned to it by Alfred, Diane, and
others.
So what do others think?
Judy
At 09:27 PM 9/10/00 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>
Randy,
You have raised a very practical problem. "One question that
arises for me about Ilyenkov is to what degree
is the ideal universal or local?" The way I understand it, the
ideal is to be understood as an aspect of objective existence much in the
same way that hardness, heat/cold, color, and other qualities are aspects of
objective existence. It is not a phenomena that exists in the specific
neural patterns of our brains but is a quality of the real world. Its
peculiarity consists in that it is a property of the real world that we as
humans create through historical-practical activity. So in the broadest
sense of the word, the ideal is both universal and local.
A confusion arises, however, when we ask about a specific form of
the ideal as it pertains to our specific place in history and its
corresponding cultural/material context. The notion of freedom is one such
specific manifestation where this confusion tends to appear. As an
ideological concept comparable say to the Maori concept of "mana" that
Durkheim analyzes in "Elementary Forms of Religious Life"; it appears to us
in a reified form that we attach to physical objects, in this case, the
individuals of the species homo sapiens.
Although Ilyenkov might have written about this specific problem
(i only know the work translated into English), Felix Mikhailov does provide
an analysis of individual agency from this perspective that I consider the
genetic root (as labor is the genetic root of value) of the concept that we
encounter as "freedom". Fundamentally the question of agency is involved
with two dimensions the individual homo-sapiens social existence: *needs* of
various kinds (biological, psychological, etc.) and *purposes* which arise
necessarily in the context of realizing social activity. (see
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/mikhailov/works/riddle/riddle2e.htm>http://
www.marxists.org/archive/mikhailov/works/riddle/riddle2e.htm)
I'll quote two passages that I believe best adumbrate this
position. The first establishes a framework for viewing individual agency
and the second the nature of purpose as goal-oriented action:
"Human individuality is the inimitable originality of each
individual Homo sapiens realising his life-activity as a subject of
socio-historical development. The inimitability, the uniqueness of the
individual is determined by the organic unity and integrality of the process
of development of his needs and abilities, which are formed in active
intercourse with living, inimitabler bearers of social culture. The
essential media of this intercourse are the objective forms, ways and means
of culture: the instruments and products of all forms of socio-historical
activity (labour), language, knowledge, skills, abilities and so on." [ie,
the ideal]
. . .
"Purposeful activity can be performed only by an individual
capable of distinguishing himself from his own activity. Otherwise activity
cannot be treated as a guided process, a process directed towards some aim.
What is more the setting of the aim is a function of the indvidual's
abilitity to view his activity from the side.
Activity directed toward an aim. The image of what should appear
as a result of activity, but which is not yet and without this activity
never will be, hovers in the mental vision of the acting individual. And it
is this goal-oriented activity that Marx includes among the universal
(simple and abstract from all their real historical social forms) elements
of labour."
It would seem to me that the ideological concept of abstract
"freedom" amplifies the "goal-oriented" aspect of individual activity
without taking into consideration how the individual comes to view his or
her activity "from the side". To answer this both Ilyenkov and Mikhailov
propose that the entire history of human evolution (during which process
even the very biological nature of homo sapiens is defined) forms the
substance of individuality. As I interpret it, the ability to stand to the
side, the pure negation of the given, is the fundamental characteristic of
goal orientation, the difference between the worst human carpenter and the
spider that Marx alluded to in his well known example.
I guess the question about the ideal as universal or particular is
sort of like asking about color: yes color exists concretely (and this
concreteness is definitely not given as specific wavelengths on the
electromagnetic spectrum impacting optical neurons but a culturally and
historically determined maniforld) but always as particular colors and
furthermore always given in disappearing moments; ie, individuals.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Randy Bomer <<mailto:rbomer@indiana.edu>rbomer@indiana.edu>
To: <<mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: freedom & responsibility
> Hi all.
>
> I'm assuming that the freedom/responsibility discussion does
relate in some
> way to Ilyenkov, so I wanted to explore whether I could
understand how. (I
> know it spun off, but still...) Might it be seen as a case study
in the
> ways ideality operates in activity and social relations? There
is this
> sign/concept "freedom" that exists independent of any of our
thinking, that
> predates our existence, that has no material presence, and that
carries with
> it (but represses, abbreviates, enfolds) a history of relations
and
> activity. "Freedom" in the US and "Freiheit" in
> Germany surely aren't at all the same, as some have pointed out.
And
> "freedom" in the US is not identical across contexts, either. So
is
> Ilyenkov's notion of the ideal situated in particular contexts
or is it
> something that transcends those contexts? I tend to think that
ideality is
> really instantiated in very particular conversations and that
the
> intersubjectvity necessary to sustain the Ideal has to be
continually
> re-negotiated. Consequently, philosophical explorations of
notions like
> "freedom" can only be partial, and we can only see their
consequences if we
> are working to solve together some particular pragmatic problem,
like, say,
> what side to take on legislation regarding abortion, or how to
respond to
> the situation of Afghani women, or how to set up a classroom.
>
> Also, people invoke and employ terms that signify ideal concepts
always and
> only in social action. Like people use "freedom" as they
negotiate
> relationships along the lines of who gets to play the role of
being right,
> who gets to correct whose discourse, who can claim a
transcendent voice, who
> remains silent to signal their disinterest. I don't remember
this point in
> Ilyenkov, but it seems like the ideal not only carries material
history
> hidden behind it but also is always named in the new making of
new social
> and material history. I imagine that was behind Helena's earlier
question
> about whom Ilyenkov was writing for and what the conversation
was like, to
> re-situate his signification of the ideality of "ideality"
within social
> activity.
>
> That's what I'm thinking about...
>
> Randy
> ----------------------------
> Randy Bomer
> Language Education
> Indiana University
> 201 N. Rose Ave.
> Bloomington, IN 47405
> (812) 856-8293
>
>
>
>
>
>
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