Abstract
This paper criticizes the profit-driven hyperreality foisted upon consumer goods. The author references Lacan’s interpretation of Plato’s myth on the self-sufficient, solitary and spherical origins of humankind contained within the ancient work, Symposium. The division of these once-whole entities, as described by Plato, resulted in humans being instilled with an insatiable desire for completeness. The author reasons that contemporary marketing strategies prevail upon this desire: transmuting what is real (the product or service) into the hyperreal.
Highlights
The form of desire adopted here is Lacanian and having accepted this nature of desire we find it necessary to accept Lacan’s view that desire is infinite and total desire satisfaction is impossible
While we have explored the causation of desire we are still left with the reasoning behind the origin of desire as recognition of a lack in ourselves
To begin with marketers are obsessive with their attempts to attach the false reality to the indisputable realness of the product allowing for the material to validate the abstract and manufactured layer
Summary
This clinical understanding of desire leads to an abusive manipulation of the individual and a perpetuation of the capitalist society. Desire acts as a physical force, driving humans forward, to reach further and create social, technological and philosophical advancements in the hope that the distance between us and the horizon shortens.
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