ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

Driving Pleasure to the Precipice: Disjunction of Culture in Crisis

The double edged sword of capitalism despite its pre oriented drive for pleasure at moments sees through the double binding of catastrophe and extinction and professes the yearning for the new civilizational process of co existence and inclusivity among human and the non human. But how durable or sustainable that ‘reality ‘is perhaps is the vital question that needs to be probed here. Freudian ‘Pleasure Principle’ and the contrastively connoted ‘Reality Principle’ are two such tenable axises that could be read alongside the individual and collective conscious with deep subterranean trajectories now in the contemporary time of Anthropocene! Desire, like capital becomes autonomous beyond conscious human intervention and moves along the tidal wave of profit , utility and self centric pragmatism and loses itself in the dark hole of self extinction bringing cataclysmic threat for an overall tragedy. Freud cited in his momentous treatise Civilization and Its Discontent , the dialectic of Eros and Thanatos and on the same plane brings his “Beyond the pleasure principle”, which as he says reiterates or insists repetition as a compulsive drive. He also refers to this principle of pleasure as the core drive that entails the “purpose of life”. But he also poses a counter premise and that is, It governs ‘ the functioning of the mind. But what is important and most relevant here is that , as said by him , all the institutions of the universe are opposed to the idea of man being ‘happy’ , because there is no such plan in the creation ! And it cannot be realized. So with this self centric agenda , humans or maybe the lords of the capital could now put up with a last endeavor to stall the self destructive victory march that would hurl everyone down the precipice. To revert this maybe the same norms need to be revoked , same ethics applied to the individual and the collective . In the wake of the crisis unfolding before the world , the endless growth capitalism needs to be curbed by rigid social and moral code of conduct , a rationalization of consumption , sustainable water distribution in equitable manner and production of renewable energy sources along with infrastructure development at a minimum pace etc. “ So ultimately the pleasure principle has to temper itself and under the influence of the external world transforms into “ the more modest ‘reality principle’. So our contention is ,the mad onrush of ‘Pleasure hunters’ needs to be curtailed, their desire for profit alone needs to be dissipated, for a broader human benefit that would be availed by both human and the non human. This honest partaking of the resources is the strict imperative in this moment of crisis. Keywords : Anthropocene, Capital, Desire, Pleasure , Real and Reality