needs

in marcuse;s "1 dimensional man", he discusses the creation of "false needs" by capitalist society. makes sense right? we dont need i pods, we have discmans....but for the sake of free market capitalism, and consumer society, it is now something we feel we need.

i have often asked my parents, and asked of myself sometimes, how i managed without a mobile phone, without a laptop? i do really need my laptop now that i have it! i really rely on it for all sorts of important things!
should i feel bad when millions of ppl around the world lack such things, and historically also?

according to hegel, need......in a word.....is relative.
part of what makes us human is the fact that we actually do really need such things associated with our cultural situation.
it is incorrect to say that just because ppl didnt need laptops 100 years ago, that i dont really need one now. "need" is not an objective criteria....for hegel.

why?

why is it that:

on tv programmes, films or other forms of entertaintment one never comes across people who are gay, lesbian, disabled, blind or have mental health issues without being the centre, or subject of the film/ tv show showing them.

we never just regulary have a woman in a wheelchair in a tv show as just one of the characters, there must always be a justification for her being there.

and why do we rarely see old, ugly people kissing, let alone having sex!!!!!! maybe old and ugly ppl just dont have sex.

a counter example i have found is that of the lesbian scene in mulholland drive (david lynch). the scene happens,it just happens....it is not discussed, it is not a central feature .although in the story it is important, neverless the "lesbianism" of it is not what is at issue.


this is what we need more of.

empathy

is it a real possibility?

Translated from the Greek meaning of empatheia: physical affection. (Thanks wikipedia).


How can we conceive of truly EMPATHISING with an-other. This other's feeling, in its alterity....understood or appreciated with the same strength of emotion felt by the one it to who it exists. Transcending oneself's own feelings, histories, and facticity.....then having the ability to emphasizes with someone else’s????????? This makes little sense to me.

You cannot know…..this lies in the beauty of otherness. We can have a relation of expression, and acknowledgment that this person feels this way yet I can never understand fully or empathises…….my attempt to do so would be to accommodate such a feeling into my “self” knowledge, and this it is no longer the feeling, in it’s original state of the other’s and thus to focus on this altered feeling is shear inaccuracy, and trivialises the original thought.

This may lead to a vacuous feeling with, and through the other, and the existing dialogue. However, it is this that draws out, and draws together, the precise relations of difference by which the other’s difference can be of aid. You cannot understand, and it is from this position that you can BE with me….and that I can ask OF you….