Desire
In Lacanian thought, a demand results when a lack in the Real is transformed into the Symbolic medium of language. Whether or not demands achieve their apparent aims, they are always successful in the sense that all parapraxes or slips of the tongue are successful - they faithfully express unconscious signifying formations. But because the Real is never totally symbolizable, a residue or kernel of desire is left behind by every demand, representing a lost surplus of jouissance for the subject. For Lacan, 'desire is situated in dependence on demand - which, by being articulated in signifiers, leaves a metonymic remainder which runs under it'. Inherently 'frustrated demand is what gives birth to desire': "Don't give me what I ask for, that's not it."
Read more about this topic: Demand (psychoanalysis)
Famous quotes containing the word desire:
“Publicity in women is detestable. Anonymity runs in their blood. The desire to be veiled still possesses them. They are not even now as concerned about the health of their fame as men are, and, speaking generally, will pass a tombstone or a signpost without feeling an irresistible desire to cut their names on it.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“There comes a time when the waltz
Is no longer a mode of desire, a mode
Of revealing desire and is empty of shadows.
Too many waltzes have ended.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Mutual repect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one’s own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)