On Being Satisfied in a Dissatisfied Society I
The Concept and Function of the Dissatisfied Society
The term 'dissatisfied society' is used to illuminate a conspicuous feature of western modernity without being an essentialist term; it does not designate the absolute essence of modernity but captures it from the perspective of needs.
This perspective focuses on need-creation, need-perception, need-distribution, and need-satisfaction. It suggests that modern forms of these processes reinforce dissatisfaction regardless of whether concrete needs are satisfied.
General dissatisfaction serves as a powerful motivational force in the reproduction of modern societies. If individuals ceased being dissatisfied with their material wealth, social position, personal relationships, knowledge, or performance, modern society would cease to reproduce itself, encounter decay, or collapse.
Dissatisfaction is considered necessary to modernity, allowing a holistic yet non-totalizing view of the epoch. Institutions are kept operational by the dissatisfaction inherent in each of them.
The Logic of Western Modernity
Western modernity is characterized by distinct developmental logics: industrialization, capitalism, and democracy.
These three logics are not necessarily interlocked and often contradict one another; one logic can subordinate the others to varying degrees. Western modernity is thus not a single 'totality'.
The advancement of each logic requires the motivational force of dissatisfaction. For example, those committed to the logic of democracy are dissatisfied when it is limited by industrialization or capitalism, driving them to push for radicalization.
This perspective allows the combination of distinct discourses: social philosophy (focusing on social creation/distribution of needs) and existential philosophy (focusing on the individual's subjective relation to needs, including enjoyment, suffering, and cravings).
The Historical Evolution of Contingency: Premodern vs. Modern
Initial Contingency: This refers to the accident of birth; no biological or genetic endowment determines the specific age, society, or social stratum into which a person is born. This is a general condition of human existence.
Premodern Shields: Premodern societies used vast ideological resources to hide contingency and maintain hierarchy:
Aristotle: Taught that slaves are born, not made.
Brahmanism: Explained contingency via the theory of reincarnation.
Christianity: Attributed placement to God's will in the 'vale of tears'.
Fate in Premodernity: While the awareness of contingency existed (e.g., 'Had I been born an X instead of a Y'), it was bound by the consciousness of fate. Social arrangements transformed contingency into necessity, and birth determined the limits of one's possible way of life.
Transition to Modernity: Modernity replaced a stratified social division of labor with a functional division of labor. This shifted the perception of initial contingency from 'fate' to 'context'.
Napoleon's Dictum: Napoleon stated that every soldier carries the marshall's baton in his knapsack, illustrating that birth is a context rather than a pre-determined fate.
Secondary Contingency: This is the condition where both the individual's place and his/her relation to that place are contingent. The individual becomes the bearer of as-yet undefined possibilities; the person is a 'self-made' man or woman.
Destiny vs. Fate: Fate determines possibilities from the start; destiny exists among possibilities and must be 'caught'.
Philosophical Responses to Modern Contingency
Century Thinkers: Philosophers like Marx and Kierkegaard identified freedom through the awareness of contingency.
Marx: Emphasized that a worker's relation to their class is contingent. However, he invoked the philosophy of history to merge contingency with necessity (the 'laws of history'), reintroducing fate through the 'back door'.
Kierkegaard: Defined human existence by the category of possibility and eliminated fate, but viewed the modern world as a context that could never be transformed into a chosen destiny.
Late Century Trends: By the second half of the century, the concept of fate was largely discarded, leading to an increased awareness of contingency.
Sartre: Posited that humans are 'thrown into freedom'.
Unger: Argued that one can as easily imagine NOT being as being.
Structuralists: Argued for the elimination of the subject.
Escaping Contingency: The frightening nature of contingency without destiny leads people to various escapes:
Totalitarianism: An 'escape from freedom', as described by Fromm.
Love: Seeking destiny through a single person (the Other).
Success and Wealth: Attempting to become 'somebody' to overcome contingency, though 'mid-life crises' often reveal contingency lurking behind success.
The Existential Crisis of Modernity
The Problem of Death: Modernity views life's limitedness and the inescapable nature of death as an 'idée fixe'. People are afraid to witness death because the 'common fate' itself is seen as contingent.
Suicide: This is viewed as a gesture to translate the contingency of death back into the terms of fate.
The Core Question: How can we transform our contingency into our destiny without abandoning freedom or relying on the 'banister' of necessity, fate, social engineering, or redemptive politics?
The Taxonomy and Rationality of Needs
Definition of Need: A conscious feeling of 'something lacking'. It is a motivation to fill or eliminate that lack to preserve or expand the Self. Most needs are 'feeling dispositions' (e.g., hunger, curiosity, anxiety, love).
Dissatisfaction Conditions: Dissatisfaction occurs if the feeling of lack is perpetuated or intensified. This happens in clusters:
Cluster (a): Socially ascribed 'satisfiers' (means for satisfaction) are unavailable to a person/group (e.g., unemployment when work is a norm). These needs and the resulting dissatisfaction are categorized as rational.
Cluster (b): Satisfiers are in principle reachable but not socially ascribed to the individual; the person is 'informed' by the satisfier but cannot acquire it. This cluster keeps the dissatisfied society functioning and is the source of the gap between expectation and experience.
Cluster (c): The lack cannot be filled by any satisfier, or the person does not know what is lacking. Dissatisfaction here (e.g., need for immortality, anxieties) is viewed as irrational.
Secondary Contingency of Needs: In a dissatisfied society, all social arrangements and roles are seen as contingent (could exist or not).
The Generational Conflict and Recognition of Needs
Gap Between Expectation and Experience: As described by Koselleck, expectations are contingent while experience consists of hard, factual limitations.
The Parents' Perspective: Parents often view their children's dissatisfaction as irrational because the children have satisfied needs that were unmet in the parents' generation (e.g., college education, social acceptance of illegitimate children).
The Children's Perspective: Children argue that their needs are different because they live in different times; higher expectations change the quality and quantity of needs.
Withholding Recognition: Parents often withhold recognition of new needs by accusing children of being 'spoilt'. Conversely, children may withhold recognition of parents' needs, viewing them as 'outdated'.
Values, Claims, and the Legitimacy of Needs
Needs as Claims: In modernity, motivational forces appear as claims in the social/political arena, translated into the language of justice and equity.
Progress: Often defined as an increase in 'wants' or their satisfiers (e.g., per capita production).
Rationality of Claims: Formulated claims are rational because they provide reasons for why a need should be met. However, conflicting claims can lead one group to label another's needs as irrational.
Legitimacy: A need is legitimate only if its satisfaction does not involve using another person as a mere means (exploitation or domination).
Value-Rationality vs. Goal-Rationality: Making a need-claim relates a need to a value. Irrational needs (indeterminate discontent) fail to motivate toward specific goals until they are clarified.
Wants versus Self-Determination
Wants: Needs for satisfiers determined by external factors like technology, social circumstances, or political institutions (e.g., wealth, fame, power).
Self-Determination: Needs for goods of intrinsic worth (e.g., equality, mutual recognition, self-determination) whose satisfaction does not use power against others.
Direct vs. Indirect Self-Determination:
Indirect: Seeking self-determination through the accumulation of wants. This is often futile because wants are externally determined, and power-based satisfaction is insecure.
Direct: Concentrating on the development of personal abilities or projecting the self-determination of others alongside one's own. This involves 'self-abandonment to tasks' rather than self-deification.
Transforming Contingency into Destiny
The satisfied individual: A person is satisfied if they transform contingency into destiny, even if all concrete needs are not met. Unlike premodern people, moderns cannot die 'satiated with life' (per Weber) because the world offers infinite possibilities.
Destination check: One reaches destiny when they can say, like Luther, 'here I stand and cannot do otherwise', identifying that their existence makes a difference.
Rosa Luxemburg: Even facing death, she was satisfied with her life because she transformed contingency into destiny, stating 'ultra posse, nemo obligatur' (no one is obligated beyond their ability).
Conclusion: Satisfaction in a dissatisfied society is achieved by seeking self-determination directly and acting upon one's context without renouncing wants, thereby transforming the 'accident of birth' into a meaningful life trace.