Saturday Forum | The History of Human Desire

The world of advertising is founded on a mechanism of desire: we desire to buy something because it is portrayed as desired by others. But the advertisement works only if it flatters us with the lie that this desire is somehow our autonomous creation. We do not want to be copycats; we flatter ourselves that it is our own personal choice that is the origin of our desire to buy the product. This forum considers the problem of whether it is an illusion that we construct our own identity. Is desire socially constructed, in a dark process of which we seemingly have some dim awareness, but yet still coloured with many more hues of self-deception?

Christopher Morrissey is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Redeemer Pacific College.