This call to responsibility concerning our enjoyment needs us to listen to Socrates. Socratic idiotism which finds wisdom in the confession of ignorance can inspire us to live life in the abundance away from market economy or the order of market. Socrates teaches that Philosophia is the love of wisdom and not its possession. Love of wisdom belongs to the order that does not close to things. It remains in the order of things ready-to-hand and does not close to things present-at-hand.
We find the new movement of Object Oriented Ontology , (OOO) which remain into the order of things in the ‘ as structure’. It thinks things in the coming and does not close them to a form and destiny . But market does not keep things in the coming. It fakes this order of things in the coming. It makes us think that things are novel when they are actually repackaged. Hence, we like to buy the remodelled or slightly muted new cars, bikes, tvs, computers. Old is often repackaged and caged back into the order of things present-at-hand.
This novelty or otherness triggers our jouissance and we move to the market. The novelty that is packaged again makes us think that there is a hidden secret sitting in the new form that fascinates us or triggers . Our desire wants the secret be unveiled. It is this secret that attracts us and we become enslaved by the commodity. But as Derrida tells us that the secret is that there is no secret. There is nothing to unveil. But we have is fetishistic fascination of the absent.
Just like Freudian dream analysis does have to discern the hidden kernel that stays of behind the form or the content of the dream, we to do not need to discern the secret behind the commodity in the market. What is to be analysed is the dream itself. We do not have to enter behind the hidden core of the latent thoughts. We have to ask why this latent thoughts got ordered into a form dream? The same is true of commodity. We do have to ask what is hidden behind the commodity . Commodity being the product of labour , we do not have to ask how work that we have put in has constructed its value. The question to be asked is : why work of all things became the value of commodities. It means why work in its character in our society becomes consumed in commodity production.
May be we have to understand how the latent thoughts or work collapse into the form dream or value of commodity. They do collapse into a chain of signiers that takes the structure of the dream or commodity. This collapse is a shift away from the order of abundance. There are several ways that labour could be ordered. Ordering labour in multiple ways opens us to the order of abundance. The ordering of labour to make it become the value of a commodity is one that is reigning. It belongs to the market. Labour today is enslaved by the market. But there are other ways of ordering labour . Before the rise of capitalism, labour was ordered differently . These different orders produced jouissance differently. Right now we can only enjoy in this order of things present-at-hands. This belongs the order of desire. We can only enjoy at the back of the order of things ready-to-hand. We close the things into the order of things present-to-hand and enjoy them.
To resist this enslavement, we may have to understand the production of desire. Lacan says that ego is the first object of desire. What we know as ego is an empty master signifier. It pulls our name, status, position, possesions and several other signifiers that come on to create a sense of self that we enjoy living.
The commodities are also pulled by the ego , the master signifier. We are in the subject philosophy still fostered by the market . We still have to listen to Socrates who exhorts us to know our self. This knowledge of self is Socratic idiotism. It has to lead us to discover that there is no self. This realization is emancipative. There is no secret self that we have come to know. We simply have to accept with Derrida that the secret is that there is no secret. Why is that we think there is deep core self, hiding behind the dynamic ever becoming self. It is because we have moved from the order of surplus or abundance and have come to accept this limited order that closes the self to a name, status, position and possessions etc.
Self can glide on abundance. It can be opened to all that is and will be. It does not have to close its destinies. When one closes the destiny of the self, one puts the self in the order of things present-at-hand. This would indicate, we hand over the self to the forces of market. Self that is lack is then filled with all things that market can give. Self then glides on the possible lines of enjoyment that market offers. When one understand that desire is produced by a lack one may free oneself from the order of market.
The market, therefore, unleashes a chain of signifiers/ commodities that produce lack in the self at different levels. It is by riding these different lines of commodity chains that the self is seeking to fulfil its desire . Lack then become one that produces our life through jouissance that nurtures. This desire as lack , Lacan says cannot be fulfilled. Hence, we get immersed into a consumerist trap produced by the market. We can live beyond the market. We can always have another way of being-in-the-world. We then have to become aware how lack produces our desire and feeds the ego ( the master signifier) who always remain hungry.
