(December 22, 2022 at 5:18 am)Macoleco Wrote: There is no solution to this dilemma, only ways to cope and keep the desire under control.
Very roughly speaking, Buddhism and other Eastern approaches say that eliminating desire is the only way to deal with it, finally.
In the West, since Plato, there seems to be an acceptance that Eros is not only inevitable but good. The point is to channel desire into safe and socially acceptable ways. Plato sees desire for a beautiful lover as the first step in a fulfilled life -- though at some point one has to graduate to less carnal types of desire. But still -- desire is the driving force.
Freud, for example, whose foundational knowledge was in the Greeks, agreed with Plato that Eros is the driving force of mankind, and that all civilization arises from the proper sublimation (=redirection) of this basic desire.
What do you think? Can erotic desire be channeled in good ways? Or is it always going to be something that makes trouble?
