Desire ( for Che Bob)

An ongoing issue at recent IOPS meetings (International Org. for a Participatory Society) is the effect of Desire, from a psychoanalytical perspective, on any utopian project. We all agree that small d desire, as in want, need, avarice, greed, pleonexia ( look it up!) etc. ( Maslov's hierarchy)is a problem for any project of social engineering, be it emancipatory or exploitive. Aligning and regulating drives,incentives and values is always the necessary/impossible goal. But when we wander into the realm of Desire and try to pick up where Freud and Lacan left off, we have a much thornier thicket to wade through. Much much denser, in terms of text and discussion. I have always been hesitant when it comes to incorporating the unconscious into revolutionary theory and it has been pointed out that Participatory theory doesn't really go there either.You don't see Chomsky talking a lot about alienation or transference. Obviously, if we are looking at alienation and estrangement, valorization,reification, mystification, fetish, and ideology we are already deep into that tricky terrain. And we can't forget good old depression, anxiety and neurosis, since all of us are living " lives of quiet desperation",damaged in our own unique ways. Or like Beak, in ALL these ways. We have already dipped our toes in when trying to unpack the idea of "false consciousness" or "colonized minds" and now we run head on into the quagmire when we talk of systems of planned production, allocation and consumption. No one said this was going to be easy and we can't turn back now. So I say we "cowboy up" and grab a little Zizek, a little Laclau and maybe a little Julia Kristeva and see what we can make of pathology and symptoms and The Real. Onward though the fog!