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THE FIVE FINGERS OF SOCIAL DESIRE
individual unconsciously responds to trauma by splitting the personality,
differentiating the self into a myriad of sub-selves, each of which endures and
copes with the stress and pain of abuse. In this instance, while the self
succeeds in the task of differentiation, it fails to develop into a coherent unity.
As a result, an individual suffering from this disorder serves as a host to a
diversity of differentiated sub-selves, each lacking the unity and maturity
necessary for true development and integration.
Developmental desire is precisely the desire of the , self to become
increasingly unified within the diversity of its own differentiation. For instance,
while we may wish to uncover our distinctive potentialities for creativity,
sensuality, and cooperation, we also yearn to discover an overriding logic that
can endow our lives with meaning and wholeness. We can all think of
someone in our lives who possesses a myriad of interests yet is incapable of
focusing long enough to sufficiently develop a single one. We would say that
their focus lacks the very unity or coherence necessary for self-development. In
this way,
whereas
differentiation rounds
out
the
idea
of association,
development rounds out the idea of differentiation, adding to it a dimension of
unity necessary to make the self not only diverse, but dynamic, whole, and
meaningM. Hence, development is qualitatively different than a mere process
of change or growth. According to Bookchin, the often painful dialectic of a
developmental desire is necessary for the differentiation or maturation of the
self:
Desire itself is the sensuous apprehension of possibility, a complete
psychic synthesis achieved by a “yearning for... ” Without the pain of
this dialectic, without the struggle that yields the achievement of the
possible, growth and Desire are divested of all differentiation and
content.13
So far, we have been exploring the idea of development on an individual level.
Yet such a utopian understanding of development may be applied to society as
well. Each society has the potential to express its collective developmental
desire to become increasingly differentiated and whole. However, under
capitalism, the naturalistic metaphor of ‘growth’ is deployed to naturalize the
immoral hoarding of capital. Within the social Darwinian view of development,
the ‘fittest’ that survive are those who accrue the most profit and power. Few
expect society to become ever more differentiated, dynamic, and whole. Rather
than
being
evaluated
qualitatively,
social
development
is
measured
quantitatively as the growth of capital itself. Developmental desire is reduced to
the individual desire to differentiate one’s self from the masses through the
accumulation of capital and social status.