You’re not really happy…You just feel happy. — As with most other social critics, Marx and his intellectual descendents are faced with the task of demonstrating to persons who profess to be happy that those persons are, in fact, not happy with the status quo. This is even more the case now, in developed capitalist societies of material plenty, than it was during the earlier industrial capitalist setting in which Marx wrote. It is rather easier to convince someone impoverished, despite working twelve hours a day in a factory or coal mine, that they are deeply unhappy with their lot than it is to convince someone working seven hours in a cubicle and suffering from no material deprivation at all. So, when an office worker points to their various possessions and various forms of diversion & entertainment and claims to be made happy by these things, do we not risk spouting simple gibberish in saying “No — you don’t really feel happy.” Of course, it may be that this person doesn’t really feel an emotion that they are inclined to call “happiness” and only purports to; however, it is equally possible that they really do believe themselves happy, and we could never know whether that is the case, so we must proceed assuming that individual’s honesty.
What I suggest to make the idea of “false happiness” a sensible one is that what we (should) mean by it is not that the person whom we are attempting to convince does not actually feel the emotion that they feel, or claim to feel — rather, that there is some other emotion or state of being with which they are not at all familiar, but which they would be much more inclined to call “happiness” if they were aware of it. This is not a nonsensical claim; there may be no practical way to prove it, and less so to prove that a revolution of the proletariat would achieve it, but at least it is not a “meaningless” term.
And you don’t really desire that…You just feel like you do — The concept of a “false desire,” I think, is equally if not more difficult to make sense of. A false desire is something that we are made to believe that we want or need by advertising or socialization. So, for instance, I might not really have any interest in owning a blackberry until I see the U2 commercials for them and am subsequently filled with warm feelings toward the product — But the fact that I didn’t always desire a product doesn’t seem to make the desire that I now feel like real or “true.” In what way, then, could such a desire be false? How can we use the term “false desire” without spouting nonsense?
Before pursuing this specific question I would like to comment quickly on the argumentative tactic of deeming the proposition of another writer or orator “nonsense.” This was the favorite tactic of the logical positivists; indeed, they considered separating nonsensical from sensible claims to be the primary activity of philosophy. When a claim is “nonsense” it is such that it could be neither true nor false, because it has no genuine content or meaning to be proven or falsified. I concede to the positivists that this test may be of use when considering which questions are worthwhile to be pursued by the hard sciences. I also think, however, that to apply it too readily is to lose an opportunity to gain further understanding of the world and of other human beings. Simply put — we generally intend some meaning when we speak, particularly when we make a claim; to analyze the diction used in making that claim, and conclude that because of the way the words were used that the claim had no meaning at all, seems an overhasty and uncharitable form of argumentation…and one lacking in true understanding of the argument’s content. I believe it is therefore, at least sometimes, important to look past the diction of the claim and try to discern what might be intended by the persons who make it.
In this spirit, I will refrain from interpreting a “false desire” as one that the person feeling it does not genuinely feel…because that would actually be nonsense. I will instead make two suggestions, neither of which I am prepared to argue for conclusively at present, as to what might be meant.
We might think that the problem with desiring a Blackberry because of the U2 advertisements is not the absence of true desire, but a confusion about what we desire. If I am lead to believe that purchasing a Blackberry will make me a hip, spontaneous individual, surrounded by likeminded & excited persons…well, that’s unlikely. It is also a desire founded not in the definite uses and properties of the Blackberry, but something else all together. In this sense, I falsely desire a Blackberry; what I really desire is to be accepted by a group of trendy & enthusiastic concert-goers. “False desires” come about in capitalism because advertisers make us desire their products based on qualities which do not actually inhere in those products.
Alternatively, using the way in which I defined “false happiness” above, we could think of false desires as those whose fulfillment leads only to false happiness, while genuine desires terminate in genuine happiness. As it stands, this is not mutually exclusive with my first account of false desires. It might be that those desires based on a false sense of what we are buying give us only a false sense of happiness when they are fulfilled, if any happiness at all; we might feel like we are part of a community because we bought a particular product — and so mistake this sensation for happiness– even thought the feeling of being part of a real community is quite a different sensation and one conducive to true happiness. Of course, I would be loath to suggest that the fulfillment of certain true desires is sufficient for happiness; there could be any number of other factors which make us unhappy — though perhaps those too could be described in terms of unfulfilled true desires.
Materialism v. Consumerism – I recently had a conversation with a friend who doesn’t have much background in philosophy during which we briefly discussed Marx; at some point while we talked, he mentioned that he agreed with Marx that our culture is too materialistic. I believe this is a misinterpretation of Marx, and I suspect that it is a fairly common one.
One could indeed criticize contemporary capitalism for placing too much emphasis on material goods while neglecting spiritual, or otherwise abstract, ones. Again, this may be a legitimate criticism, but it is not Marx’s central criticism. In fact, Marx called his theory of history “dialectical materialism.” His objection to capitalism was not its emphasis on material goods, but on the deeply unjust distribution of them and on the ways in which our use of currency in “free” trade prevents our appreciation, and the flourishing, of material life.
Really, this was just a brief note for any readers who might not be particularly familiar with Marx, but it seemed to me rather an important one.
