Desire For the Other

Horacio is writing a paper using Lacan via Bruce Fink. In fact, he's looking up a quote for me as I type. Really we do have such a collaborative marriage (when we're not debating the finer points of theory).

"'Le desir de l'homme, c'est le desir de l' Autre,' Lacan reiterates again and again. Taking the second de as a subjective genitive for the moment, the following translations are possible here: 'Man's desire is the Other's desire,' 'Man's desire is the same as the Other's desire,' and 'Man desires what the Other desires,' all of which convey part of the meaning. For man not only desires what the Other desires, but he desires it in the other; in other words, his desire is structured exactly like the Other's. Man learns to desire as an other, as if he were some other person"(Bruce Fink, The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance, 54).

Despite an annoying tendency to use Man to represent human (H and I just had a heated debated over this), this is an interesting quote. And it perfectly describes what occurred this afternoon--an afternoon with the mommies. Today we had a homeschooling field trip. It was not only with my friends but with a group of women that particularly set me on edge about my life style. They've never said anything but I always imagined this sort of silent disapproval being directed at me. One of them inspires in me a horrible case of house envy. The other just has a husband who makes a lot of money so she pretty much gets to have and do what she wants. So I was not overly looking forward to an afternoon spent with them.

We drove out into the middle of nowhere to a really neat place called Black Swan Farm. The owners basically keep the farm afloat by offering really great educational tours (see Umberto's site for pictures and more details). The only downside is that it was hot...really hot....like hell hot. And it was a bad air quality day so just breathing was difficult. I had to keep moving to the shade because the girls were overheating, and Piper wanted to nurse. Of course all the scary mommies were there. I geared myself up and determined to not feel insecure about our lifestyle. I remembered all the kind of words shared on this site.

Some how the conversation turned to Florida. A woman mentioned loving it there. So I asked if she had been to Gainesville as we were thinking of applying to school there. Another woman told me her cousin went to school there, and loved it. But it was really hot...hotter than here (I'm thinking "NO!!!!!!"). Then they asked me where else I was applying. I mentioned Madison, WI, Chapel Hill, and Princeton. And then I said "If we don't get accepted we were thinking of putting everything in storage and trying to get jobs teaching English in Eastern Europe. " I was waiting for that moment of silent disapproval. Instead I get "You know I have some friends who are traveling all over Central America, and they just love it. I always feel envious when they tell me about their moves," "Wow, I just admire how much you guys live life, and how you just pick up and move," "Sometimes I feel like home ownership is a trap, and I think let's sell the house and move around." I was stunned. These women I have been envying, whom I thought thought we were freaks, actually desire what we have. I guess that in someways desire does work towards/in relation to the Other. Here we all are probably imagining that most people are happy, content with their lives only because we want those lives. Really they too have imaginings and yearnings towards difference.

I'm trying to work something out about desire. Horacio and I are at odds so I'll keep you all updated as we work this on through. I argue that this kind of thinking about desires is always about loss and want. What you desire you never really have. Really it creates a desire machine. Deleuze claims that capitalism has exploited this....