Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“Desire and the Sign In the previous Chronicle , I avoided speaking of desire in order to anchor the notion of paradox in the phenomenon of representation. Yet desire, as opposed to mere appetite, participates in the same paradoxical relationship as the sign between “horizontal” appetite and “vertical” deferral. In both cases, the object of what was an appetitive drive or gesture is interdicted and becomes thematized as an intentional object through its interdiction; this mediation is “recycled” into the original drive. The difference lies in how these phenomena relate to their cultural and natural environments. In the case of the sign, the aborted gesture, a sign of non-action in the animal world, becomes a communication to others of one’s renouncement, and hence of the sacred/interdicted nature of the gesture’s original objective. The reciprocal exchange of the sign makes deferral into a common project whose members form the core of the first human community. In contrast, desire “feeds on itself,” deferral making the object of appetite significant/sacred within the individual’s own scene of representation. The intentionality this gives rise to in the individual, unlike the expression of significance through the sign, makes him aware of his independence from the community.”

— Eric Gans, The Paradox of Desire and Art · Saturday, August 22nd, 2020 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment