History, theory, postmodernity

The foregoing discussion of the problem of desire brings to a close our analysis of the contradictions of subjectivity in relation to the culture of modernity. On the one hand, we have seen that a reconception of subjectivity in terms of desire is essential if the possibility of transformation essential to modernity is to remain alive; yet on the other hand we have seen that the modern conception of desire is subject to the consequences of a chronic indeterminacy in the relationship between desire and its ends, so that transformation can never satisfactorily be achieved. One way of explaining this problem is to say that the modern conception of desire provides no adequate basis for recognition, hence no way in which individual desires can be linked to society as a whole. As a result, desire is conceived as an iconoclastic force, and the desire for transformation is never stabilized. To be sure, one must agree with the Hegelian proposition that desire is integral to subjective self-consciousness and as such seeks satisfaction in another desire, but modern culture confronts the additional, and seemingly insoluble problem of positing desire-driven transformations having first rejected the possibility of transcendence; as a result, modern culture tends toward forms of self-transcendence that turn desire back ceaselessly upon itself. These and similar instabilities help account for the contradictory nature of subjectivity and for the destabilizing pressures at work within modernity itself.