Between Desires and Addictions
Presented by Raphael Zagury-Orly, philosopher, founding member
Clotilde Leguil, psychoanalyst and philosopher
Charlotte Casiraghi, writer, president of the Monaco Philosophical Encounters
Desire itself is already an addiction, because willing not to desire is not enough to stop desiring, just as it is impossible to will oneself (not) to fall in love or to stop loving when one loves. Its spiral runs to infinity, for it never arrives at "lacking nothing," at satiation. Addiction too escapes the will: if one began smoking out of desire, taste and pleasure, one continues out of constraint (internal), out of necessity, which resists reason and will, no matter how many mortal perils they are capable of foreseeing. In other words, between desires and addictions lies the one-way bridge leading from desire to need, from the glass of water one drinks with delight on a scorching day, to the liquid one is "compelled" to inject to avoid dying of anxiety. But it is not so simple: even as necessity and need, even as a compulsion to repeat that one ends up detesting, addiction affords some measure of pleasure, of enjoyment, and… the desire to recapture it. A vicious circle.
Robert Maggiori
