Re: Desire vs. Instinct, Determinism vs. Will -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 20:10:08 01/27/08 Sun
Author: JD
Subject: Re: Desire vs. Instinct, Determinism vs. Will
In reply to: HWAET! 's message, "Desire vs. Instinct, Determinism vs. Will" on 14:42:43 01/21/08 Mon

I think you have to be careful here in that you have to clearly define what you mean by instinct. When speaking of instinct as the defining quality of animals other than humans, then I think that we are speaking of operating based on natural and survival based urges. However, Girard has said that desire is something that is not based on our physiological needs. It seems that you are using "instinct" as our initial reaction to some sort of event or thing. You say that we have the ability to not react in this initial way, and so we are able to contemplate and weigh the consequences of this "instinct" or "desire". I guess it is unclear on what way you are defining instict here. If using the word as a way to describe our natural animal urges (or whatever you may wish to call them), I would ask you to look at any movie or book that examines human behavior during large-scale disasters. One example is the book "Blindness" by Jose Saramago, in which the entire world is struck with an epidemic of blindness. At this point human behavior seems to have regressed back to the instinctual/animal level. Then one must think that perhaps our struggles with desire simply arise out of luxury. Even if this is not true, there are some who would say that our choices boil down to what would ultimately be most beneficial to ourselves. Even if you were using "instinct" as the first urge felt, what's to say that our eventual choice is still not conditioned upon some other premise than the reason that we tell ourselves was the cause of our decision?

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Replies:

Re: Desire vs. Instinct, Determinism vs. Will -- Kiernan, 18:18:35 01/28/08 Mon