Friday, April 15, 2011

Desire Versus Need

Desire vs. Need: the difference between man and animal

Philosophy: can we consider that the man would wish that when the animal would need?

Can we consider that man is the desire that the animal is in need? In other words, the desire is it's own rights?

Need and desire: two opposing concepts
If the need arises as a necessary outcome of nature, requirement of social life, under a constraint of instinct, desire, it seems to be a desire, an instinct, a feeling. In addition, while the need is innate, fundamental and permanent, the desire is characterized by its ephemeral nature, its superfluity. Born of a cultural conditioning, it is of the order of the acquis.

However, can we oppose need and desire to rigidly and final?

Man as animal is required
In the 1940s, the American psychologist Abraham Maslow made a pyramid of needs, with five main levels: physiological needs come after the security needs, then those belonging and socialization which follow esteem needs and finally those of personal accomplishment.

This pyramid shows a ranking of the most basic needs at least necessary. In fact, it is only when the imperatives of survival met that man will address its social condition and his emotional situation.

The animal feels, of course, also physiological needs, safety and emotional needs.

The man, an animal desire conditioned by society
Desire, which can be tangible, sensory or physical, is widely exploited by advertising that each of us has submitted several thousand times a day. The purpose of advertising is to keep us in a state of permanent anxiety and dissatisfaction, its ideal target is frustrated or neurotic, ill at ease and struggling to find its place in society. The good candidate will try to compensate for the sense of lack and inadequacy he feels by taking refuge in materialism exacerbated, presented as a panacea to their problems.

You may remember this commercial for a laundry aired in fall 2010 and showed a young woman who lost her beloved because his laundry had tarnished the little top that he loved. Fortunately, thanks to its new detergent, such blunder never happen again and the good housewife was finally able to keep her new man to her. The message here clearly anxiety - in addition to being stupid - playing on fear and trauma carrying potential of the target.

In modern society, there is a blurring between the concepts of desire and need
The modern Western man, conditioned by its environment, is no longer able to distinguish desires of its needs. The omnipresent advertising, materialism and consumerism as well as ambient mode extremely volatile, in our mind transforms desire into need. For proof, just consider the common phrase "I need" used to say "I want". It is obvious that when one says "I need an I-Pad, it does not imply that it is a vital necessity.

Where does the desire?
The desires of modern man seems underpinned by instincts. Thus, conformity is justified by the herd instinct, the need to find its place in the pack. Why this fear of being isolated? By simple survival instinct, perhaps ...

Uncertainties
The lack of communication between man and the animal should it lead us to decide conclusively that the animal anthropomorphic and does not desire? Do not we see a dog choose his food and his manifest desire to be cuddled?

Other distinctions most relevant?
However, the animal appears more logical than the man because he is not subject to this incredible hormonal disorder that is the feeling of love and also irrational impulses and anti-constructive passions. In fact, no animal collects logs as some of us hoard piles of beer caps that are struggling to make the bike every day with a wooden leg and foam teeth!

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