ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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ends of a room. In turn, we may express our desire for sensual association
through activities ranging from the breaking of bread to the sharing of sexual
intimacy. Hence, we may allow the ‘ring finger’ to symbolize associative desire,
representing the finger that is most associated with relationships, friendship,
and love.
As we think through the dialectic of social desire, we must regard the
metaphor of the hand as only a point of departure, asking our minds to do that
which the static symbol of the hand cannot: our minds can think dialectically,
allowing each dimension of social desire to be incorporated and integrated into
the next, bringing a cumulative and non-linear fullness to our understanding of
social desire. We may derive the idea of sensual desire from the idea of
associative desire, allowing the one to give richness and meaning to the other.
Hence, from the idea of sensuality, we may educe an idea of associative desire,
mediating the idea of sensuality with the idea of association.
Sensual,
associative desire is what we commonly call ‘love’; it is the expression of bonds
of friendship or lovership, the desire to create and maintain bonds with family,
community, and with the stranger for whom we feel empathy. While we may
not always express overt sensual desire to those with whom we feel a
connection, the very idea of ‘feeling’ a ‘connection’ conveys the ever present
dimension of sensual desire within the associative moment.
Social anarchists ranging from Peter Kropotkin to Murray Bookchin have
explored this desire for association, demonstrating its salience within the
revolutionary project. Human nature is marked by tendencies toward both the
social and the anti-social. It is however, the social tendency that represents the
potential to be cooperative, to exist within a vital social matrix on which all
depend. Associative desire acts as a glue which binds people together,
allowing them to express the yearning to enhance the richness of each other’s
material and social lives. Associative desire is precisely the human desire to
fend off alienation by creating rich relationships based on degrees of
interdependence and mutuality; it represents the desire to know others and to
be recognized as being integral part of a relationship, group, family, or
community. Associative desire is the desire to be part of a collectivity greater
than the self, a striving to be part of a larger identity. In addition, it represents
the desire to express and receive empathy, to care for, and to be cared for, by
others.
In contrast, liberal capitalist society, with its individualistic expression of
desire, confines associative desire to the romantic private sphere, believing it
‘unnatural’ for people to truly desire association and cooperation within the
public spheres of economics or politics. Whereas the Church attempts to
mitigate this ‘inherently’ selfish nature through the obligation of charity,
associative desire is generally regarded as inherently reserved for the private