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development are part of a larger evolutionary trend toward increasing
consciousness, subjectivity, and rationality? What ethical sense do we make of
Kropotkin’s assertion that desire grows more consdous, rational, and voluntary,
eventually losing its primarily “physical, instinctive character” as it develops
from first to second nature?
The assertion that the potentiality in first nature for mutualism,
differentiation, and development becomes increasingly consdous and rational
as it moves through natural evolution introduces a novel ethical question: If
humanity has the ability to consdously respond to its desires, then it has the
potential to be responsible for its desires as well. That second nature has the
potential to mediate, reflect upon its impulses, inclinations and yearnings,
implies an evolutionaiily unique expression of ‘desire5. Far from the Freudian
view of desire as primarily pre-rational and animalistic, an impulse that must be
suppressed by the rational ego, we may now appredate the rational and sodal
dimensions of desire itself. Unlike non-human spedes whose latent subjectivity
is highly mediated by biological instinct, humanity’s biological instincts are
largely mediated by consdousness, rationality, and history. We are, after a 11
sodal creatures whose desires are informed, for better or for worse, by the
idiosyncrasies of the particular cultures in which we live.
The fact that humanity can reflect upon, choose, and even
institutioivilize which shades of desire to act upon introduces an ethical
dimension to the idea of desire. For now we are obliged to ask: what kind of
desire ought humanity to express? Is it is equally valid to express an
individualistic desire that inhibits others from fulfilling their potential for
freedom as it is to express a sodal desire that enhances the subjectivity of
others? Would we assert that it is as valid to destroy ecocommunities to fulfill
individualistic yearnings for power and profit as it is to enhance ecological
complexity for the good of all? What criteria do we use to evaluate the validity
of our sodal desire? When we express the oppositional desire to transform
sodal and ecological reality, how do we distinguish between reconstructive
activity that is rational from irrational, sodal from anti-sodal, or erotic from
anti-erotic? As I have suggested earlier, the ‘desire for nature5 represents a sodal
construct that may be expressed in wide range of forms. For some, a romantic,
anti-humanistic desire to annihilate the human spedes to protect the natural
world is a valid desire for nature. For others, such as the CEOs of Novartis, a
capitalist desire to reduce the biological complexity of Amazon rain forests to
‘cell lines5 to be patented and sold represents a valid way to desire ‘nature5.
Still, for others, the desire to create directly democratic institutions to empower
dtizens to engage creatively and cooperatively with natural processes,
represents an ethical ‘desire for nature5.