ABSTRACT
The financial crisis that took down the world’s economies and ruined countless lives in 2008 revealed a strange codependence between capitalism, architecture, and ethics. The crises exposed the unthinkable paradox of a modern global capitalist society, where one’s actions appear to be simultaneously guided by both the vital, creative, and harmonious drive of Eros and the self-destructive, delusional, pathological drive of Thanatos. This paradox surfaces from principles of both the American and French revolutions and free market ideology, whose primary maxim is the right of individuals to pursue happiness while in a state of perpetual liberty, on the condition that their actions do not adversely infringe on others. In psychoanalysis this paradox does not initially sound paradoxical because it first appears as the balance between the pleasure principle and the death drive. Where the pleasure principle regulates a balance between pleasure pursuit and pain avoidance, the death drive desires to return to a state of quintessence that is similar to life before human subjectivity, akin to death. However, the paradox appears to us, according to Jacques Lacan, from the fact that the pleasure derived from being human is unfulfilling because life is mediated through the Symbolic, a network of signifiers that stand in for actual things. Thus, there is always a terrifying feeling that we are missing out or lacking access to a real thing or experience. In capitalism this paradox appears as a normal state of affairs, where contradictions are experienced as non-paradoxical. The free market system strives for enjoyment that exceeds the limits of pleasure while it tries to access the real thing in the form of wealth and the freedom that equity (financial and ethical value) provides. Eros/Thanatos is a political-ethical dilemma manifested in our physical environment, specifically architecture.
