The Paradox of Desire
Connecting Hegel’s idealism and Schopenhauer’s existentialism to PJ Harvey’s lyrics
For both Schopenhauer and Hegel’s philosophy, desire takes up important space in their work. Desire is for both at the center of the work. When we look at Hegel, his practice is based on optimist theories of the ultimate reaching of freedom, the Spirit/Geist having a central role in this. Believing that our destined desire as humans is to transform the other into an object to acquire knowledge about ourselves, we come to Hegel’s important theory of the Master-Servant dialectic.
In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel sets a scene where two consciousnesses are confronted with one another. In our daily lives we at times (some more often than others) would like to believe that we are the only ones around, so we’re only faced with our own consciousness. Walking around mindlessly, selfishly, and unconcerned about one another. When we are confronted with our supremacy and forced to realize another’s consciousness in this meeting Hegel wants us to imagine, we feel threatened, and conflict arises. After one begs the other for mercy there is a settlement of hierarchy: the beggar becomes the servant, and the other master. In this confrontation, Hegel wants to demonstrate our desire to possess the other, objectify them, and use them for our desire to reach self-consciousness. We want to take away the other’s independence. The only way for us to reach self-consciousness is through the recognition of someone else, and we transform ourselves into objects of each other’s desires to reach this state. We cannot be certain of ourselves without the other. This turns into a destined dependency on one another’s recognition, but this recognition can’t be attained by taking away the other’s independence and looking at them as an object of desire. This turns into a cycle where we repeatedly seek out an Other to attain recognition, without getting it.
How do we find ourselves in the desire of another? Where Hegel theorizes that this can be attained through a dynamic with the state, concluding that our desire for self-consciousness can be satisfied, further into this essay I want to explain how the agony of this dynamic in personal relationships is demonstrated in PJ Harvey’s lyrics.
Where Hegel’s philosophy is centered around the Spirit and optimism, Schopenhauer’s work is centered around the opposite. Lifting the veil of Hegel’s rationalism and idealism, he talks about reality as Will. The Will is described as an external force that exists outside of the material world and manifests inside of ourselves. It is an impersonal, universal, and irrational urge. There is no intellect, no self-actualization, and no meaning. Any reaction, or state of our body, is an expression of this Will. Schopenhauer calls the body the object of our will, and that this strives for something that can never be fulfilled. Because there is no fulfillment, there is no ever-long satisfaction, which leaves us in a state of wanting where we always strive for something more. This leaves us in a state of eternal suffering with short interludes.
Schopenhauer has some clear ideas about desire and the ways it manifests inside of ourselves. He states that striving is at the basis of every consciousness, but satisfaction is only temporality. He explains desire the same way: it is a bottomless abyss where our endless striving is met with a cycle of discontent and agony. Our desire is led by, as anything else, will. This makes the never-ending hunt toward its reaching selfish, self-serving, and embedded with frustration. It makes us no different than animals, who are led by this same will. In Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Schopenhauer used a metaphor to explain his theories on desire further, this popular metaphor goes by the name of The Hedgehog Dilemma. It explains our desire for intimacy and affection while being confronted with the inability to get truly close to ourselves and another. This inability is seen as social rules or psychological walls.
“A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter, but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However, the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way, the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse is the code of politeness and fine manners, and those who transgress it are roughly told—in the English phrase—to keep their distance. By this arrangement, the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied, but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself.” —Arthur Schopenhauer (2014, p. 99)
While the fundamental bases of Hegel’s and Schopenhauer’s philosophies are completely different, there is a similarity in the way they view desire. In both philosophies, desire is a persistent yearning that we’re unable to fulfill (in Hegel’s case only in certain frameworks). Desire itself is an unstable psychic state that chases us, narcissistic through ego-centered fantasies. We degrade and consume. Both are paradoxical: Our object, but independent at the same time. Chasing it all, but never getting it. Recognition through a cycle of dependency, wanting to be close but unable to do so.
In multiple ways, but through a modern lens, these paradoxes are shown in PJ Harvey’s lyrics. PJ Harvey (1969) is a British musician who made her breakthrough in the early 90’s with singles like Dress and Sheela-na-gig. From her first album on she started writing about unmet and desperate desires, often referencing Biblical and historical stories in her lyrics that mirror this same state. She visually writes about using the body as a philosophical weapon of desire. While PJ Harvey’s entire discography is incredibly interesting to look at from various viewpoints, I would like to focus on her 1993 sophomore album Rid of Me and Is This Desire? from 1998 to discuss Hegel’s and Schopenhauer’s philosophies.
In both albums, desire is at the forefront. Through a narration of shifting perspectives in her lyrics, she translates her views on desire through soft and low verses getting hijacked by hard and loud choruses. In Rid Of Me, there is a temptation and repulsion that shows the inability and refusal to live without the other. It speaks on Hegel’s trapping dependency, with Schopenhauer’s self-serving, frustrating, and relentless desire.
[I beg you, my darling/Don’t leave me, I’m hurting/Lick my legs, I’m on fire/Lick my legs of desire
I’ll tie your legs/Keep you against my chest/Oh, you’re not rid of me/Yeah, you’re not rid of me
I’ll make you lick my injuries/I’m gonna twist your head off, see
Till you say don’t you wish you never, never met her?]
The song serves as a violent opening to the masochistic nature of Harvey’s relationships and desires, which are further exploited in the rest of the album. In Hook, she describes her virtue while being at the receiving end of this violent desire. Throughout the song, the guitar mirrors this nagging and persistent yearning which gets interrupted by bleak, cutting drums. Melodically, her voice mixes with this nagging guitar complaining that she is once again reduced to nothing now that her lover is gone.
[Now I’m blind and I’m lame/Left with nothing but his stain]
[Good lord, he hooked me/Fish, hook and line]
PJ Harvey’s view on desire in this album is primal and haunting. I would say it leans more to Schopenhauer’s pessimist views on suffering because Harvey repeatedly gets confronted with this when someone refuses or disappoints (take her complaining about being left sexually unsatisfied in Dry) her desire. The album is filled with howling (f.e Legs) and crying out for the other, the agony of losing the other, or when Harvey is back to her natural state of suffering without the other.
In her 1998 album Is This Desire? Harvey’s desire is more complex. In contrast to Rid of Me. She now starts asking questions about desire, framing it as something inherently complex and perhaps impossible. In the album, desire never reaches its full potential: it never blossoms or settles. This is translated into My Beautiful Leah, one of the bleakest songs on the record. Hegel’s theory (you could also look at more modern philosophers like Lacan, who took a lot of inspiration from Hegel) is represented in a way that Leah is always looking for something greater. Desire is a consolation in both Hegel’s theory and Leah’s viewpoint. At the same time, this consolation is hunting, because of desire’s psychic nature. By the end of the track, she makes a bold statement about the repercussions if she never fulfills her desire.
[She was always so needy/Said, “I have no one”/Even as I held her/She went out looking for someone]
[The last words she said/”If I don’t find it this time/Then I’m better off dead”]
In The Garden, this desire is, just as in Hegel’s philosophy, described as something impossible or hard to sustain. The song describes the garden of Adam and Eve, where Adam is reflecting on desire. An other comes into the garden and Adam acts upon his sexual desire with someone else, this act is described as trouble and the other disappears which leaves Adam in the same position as he was before. Again, the unfulfilled destiny of desire is described through slow and tempting melodies that help us travel through the story but leave us in the same place we were in. Desire is chased but evaporates in the air.
[And he was walking in the night/And he was singing a sad love song/And he was praying for his life
And the stars came out around him/He was thinking of his sins
There, inside the garden/Came another with his lips/Said, “Won’t you come and be my lover?/Let me give you a little kiss”/And he came, knelt down before him/And fell upon his knees/”I will give you gold and mountains/If you stay a while with me”/And there was trouble/Taking place/There, inside the garden/They kissed, and the sun rose/And he walked a little further/And he found he was alone/And the wind, it gathered round him/He was thinking of his sins/And he’s looking for his songbird/He was looking for his wings]
The record ends symbolically, with a question about desire. In Is This Desire? PJ Harvey tells the story of Joseph and Dawn (which might be a biblical reference, but it’s hard to trace) who both question desire and whether it’s enough to take them along their journey. This journey is presented as physical but could also be referred to as their desire towards one another.
[Joseph walked on and on/The sunset went down and down/Coldness cooled their desire
And Dawn said, “Let’s build a fire”/The sun dressed the trees in green/
And Joe said, “Dawn, I feel like a king”/Said, “I’m not scared”/Turned to her and smiled/Secrets in his eyes/Sweetness of desire/Is this desire, enough, enough/To lift us higher, to lift above?]
Harvey ends the record with the philosophical question that, if desire could be reached, would it be enough? Desire is always paired with other troubles, like jealousy, longing, and envy. There is a push and pull: shifting into pleasurable states of desire that always get exchanged for troubled states.
Frequently listening to Harvey’s music, I have continuously questioned the nature of this nagging, frustrating, and questioning desire she often writes about. I chose to take both Hegel and Schopenhauer to analyze the framework of this music because I believe that art can be multiple things at once. There is beauty in the interpretation, especially in PJ Harvey’s music, since she rarely (consciously) spoke about the meaning behind her lyrics. This allowed me to take the analysis wherever I felt that it should go.
Bibliography
- Schopenhauer: Lifting The Rational Veil, Wayne Bowma, “Philosophical Perspectives On Music”, p. 112-125. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998
- Hegel: The Ascent Toward Absolute Idea, Wayne Bowman “Philosophical Perspectives On Music”, p. 94-112 Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998
- Pothast, Ulrich. “The Role of Desire in Schopenhauer’s View of Human Life”. 13/2015 Begehren / Desire, edited by Dina Emundts and Sally Sedgwick, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018, pp. 127-150. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110579802-007’
- Burns, L., & Lafrance, M. (2002). Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity and Popular Music (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315053820
- Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit Lecture Four Self Consciousness Life, Desire, Truth of Self Certainty, Chad A Haag Philosophy Channel, Youtube.com, 05 december 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpn7G_GRFxo&t=37s
- The Art of Transcending Desire: Lessons from Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopheasy, Youtube.com, 04 december 2023,
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CsQIhoEz1M&t=255s
- G.W.F Hegel on Self-Consciousness, Desire, and Spirit, Philosophy Core Concepts, Chad A Haag Philosophy Channel, Youtube.com, 01 august 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQi4ZM02yN0&t=194s
- Hegel’s Philosophy in 10 minutes, ARTFORINTROVERT, YouTube.com, 14 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04gH4fONZ7s&t=335s
- Why Schopenhauer Hated Hegel, Weltgeist, Youtube.com, 07 dec 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNP5O3GXKdo&t=1193s
- Hegel: the master-servant dialectic, Overthink Podcast, YouTube.com, 18 March 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKz-HtOPvjE&t=122s
- G.W.F. Hegel on Duplication and Ambiguity of Self-Consciousness – Philosophy Core Concepts, Chad A Haag Philosophy Channel, Youtube.com, 03 August 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3JNXihMTjQ
- PJ Harvey, Rid of Me Lyrics, Genius.com. https://genius.com/Pj-harvey-rid-of-me-lyrics
- PJ Harvey, Hook Lyrics, Genius.com, https://genius.com/Pj-harvey-hook-lyrics
- PJ Harvey, My Beautiful Leah Lyrics, Genius.com, https://genius.com/Pj-harvey-my-beautiful-leah-lyrics
- PJ Harvey, The Garden Lyrics, Genius.com, https://genius.com/Pj-harvey-the-garden-lyrics
- PJ Harvey, Is This Desire? Lyrics, Genius.com, https://genius.com/Pj-harvey-is-this-desire-lyrics