The Assault on Our Desire

The battle of desire is not something that just takes place within us or even between us.

It is also taking place against us all the time.

Our desires under nearly constant attack.

We come into the world longings, as Gil Bailey, for we know not what.

We are desire, and desire is good, for it's what takes us to God.

But our desire is not hardwired to God.

We look to others to teach us what to desire.

We are intensely imitative creatures, as Aristotle pointed out.

It is how we learn language.

It is how we master just about anything in life.

It is also how we come to seize upon the objects of our desire.

We all know this, but we don't like to admit it.

One example should suffice.

I was at a garage sale looking for some tools.

There was a table saw at a wonderful price.

Another fellow was sort of browsing around, standing in front of the saw,

but not seeming particularly interested.

I opened my mouth and made the fatal error.

Wow, that's a great price on that saw.

You know what happened next?

Immediately, his nonchalance became intense interest.

And since he was there before me, he drove off with a table saw

that five minutes earlier he couldn't have given two hoots about.

Madison Avenue plays on this with the cynical brilliance.

Look at fashion, for example.

It lives on this dynamic.

We don't wear what we want to wear.

We wear what everyone else is wearing this year.

The new line of cars that rolls out each year survives on this as well.

Do we really imagine there's a significant difference in the actual car itself?

Or notice what happens every Christmas time?

Quite often, one toy emerges as the must-have toy.

A few years ago, it was a little doll called Tickle Me Elmo

after the Sesame Street character.

There was a rush on the doll.

Suppliers ran out.

People went mad, paying hundreds and thousands of dollars

to get their hands on a little red character

that retails for $29.99.

Incidentally, you can go to the store tomorrow

and get as many as you like.

The memetic fever is over or has changed focus.

Advertisers play on this constantly,

urging us to desire this and that by creating the image

that everyone who is anyone has the object for sale.

And we are surely a loser if we don't join the frenzy.

Sadly, the ploy works.

Bailey perceives that we live in a world

inundated by these memetic passions.

What we call modernity is a world of

feverishly memetic desires and fascinations,

with powers of telecommunication of which the Aztecs could not have dreamed.

We are given models to emulate incessantly.

We are inspired to envy, desire, compete, resent,

aspire and be ambitious.

From violence unveiled.

The constant effort to arouse our desire and capture it

can be described only as an assault.

From the time we get up to the time we go to bed,

we are inundated with one underlying message.

It can be done.

The life you were longing for can be achieved.

Only by this product.

See this movie.

Drive this car.

Take this vacation.

Join this gym.

What have you?

The only disagreement is over the means.

But everyone agrees on the end.

We can find life now.