Amartya Sen on desire
“In fact, desiring plays a strategic role in making our wants credible and our aspirations viable. The importance of this aspect of the activity of desiring comes out sharply when interpersonal comparisons of desires are considered. It is not only that a poor person can offer less money for what he or she desires compared with a rich person, but also that even the strength of the mental force of desiring is influenced by the contingency of circumstances. The defeated and the downtrodden come to lack the courage to desire things that others more favourably treated by society desire with easy confidence. The absence of desire for things beyond one’s means may not reflect any deficiency of valuing, but only an absence of hope, and a fear of inevitable disappointment.”—
Amartya Sen
(Source: caminodistinto)
