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In a consumer society that values conformity and image, asserting one’s uniqueness becomes an act of resistance. Through the lens of desire, psychoanalysis and artistic creation, this article explores the paths to true otherness.
For philosopher Jean Baudrillard, consumption is far more than an economic act – it is a system of communication and social control. We don’t consume merely to meet our needs; we consume to be like others, to belong to the collective. Behind the apparent abundance of choice hides an insidious conformity: you need to have this object to be “in,” adopt this lifestyle to be seen as “good” or “successful.” Consumer society produces interchangeable individuals, driven by mass-manufactured desires. In this context, true personal difference is seen as a disturbing anomaly. Social media illustrates this paradox perfectly: it offers each person a platform to express themselves uniquely, yet ends up fostering herd-like behaviors – same viral challenges, same waves of outrage or enthusiasm, and a flattening of opinions into simplified slogans. This is reminiscent of what La Boétie already observed: the people (today, the masses of users and consumers) largely become complicit in their own subjugation, because they find comfort and pleasure in it. Servitude becomes voluntary – we chain our need for difference to swim with the current, which is easier and more reassuring. In doing so, we may avoid the anxiety of solitude or exclusion, but we pay the price of boredom and alienation.
And yet, despite the pressure to conform, some individuals resist and assert their uniqueness at all costs. These are often creative spirits, sometimes outsiders, or simply people who have tasted the bitter flavor of servitude and seek to reclaim the sweetness of autonomy. What drives these individuals to tirelessly assert their difference, even against all odds? It is desire, in its most essential form. The human subject is inhabited by a deep, irreducible desire that lies at the heart of their existence. Neither social conditioning nor educational repression can fully extinguish it. Each of us carries within a personal quest that can take many forms – a quest for love, for recognition, for meaning, for creation – but that is, at its core, a quest for self-realization, a unique fulfillment of one’s life. This fundamental desire is what makes every person potentially surprising, to themselves and to others. Even if someone outwardly imitates their peers, their unconscious weaves a unique story, made of childhood memories, fantasies, traumas and dreams that belong to them alone. In psychoanalysis, the therapeutic process often helps to rediscover the thread of this personal desire, hidden behind standardized symptoms or social masks. Jacques Lacan said that the only thing one can truly be guilty of is betraying one’s desire – that is, abandoning the most intimate core of oneself.
But this desire for difference coexists with interdependence. A subtle balance must be found: to be different without severing connection. Albert Jacquard, a passionate advocate of diversity, promoted a sense of brotherhood founded not on similarity, but on respect for difference. He said, “It is because we are different that our fraternity has meaning.” Freud, in Civilization and Its Discontents, noted how culture demands necessary sacrifices from the individual, but also how the individual remains in conflict with culture when it too strongly denies their singular aspirations.
Desire is the engine of each person’s unique existence, if it is discovered and acknowledged. It ensures that one’s life can never be a perfect copy of another’s, even if external circumstances are similar. In each person, there exists an unassimilable part, a radical heterogeneity that underlies their existence.
If there is one domain where otherness shines most vividly, it is in artistic creation. Artists, more than anyone, pursue this quest for the intimate and succeed in giving it a tangible form. Remarkable works – those that endure over time – are almost always born when their creators dare to draw from the depths of their subjectivity, stepping off the beaten path. As long as an artist imitates a master or conforms to audience expectations, they remain anecdotal; it is in asserting their unique, irreducible vision that they reach the universal. Here lies a fruitful paradox: the more an artist expresses what is most intimate and different within them, the more their work resonates with others. Think of Van Gogh’s torment, transformed on canvas into swirling, starry nights that turn solitude and madness into beauty; of Frida Kahlo, who painted her own pain and symbolic world without filters. Likewise, Picasso revolutionized painting by depicting what he thought of objects rather than what he saw – breaking classical perspective to show multiple facets of a scene at once, a radically personal approach that gave rise to Cubism. Examples abound: Charles Baudelaire transcribing his personal spleen into poetry of unmatched musicality; Marcel Proust recreating an entire universe from the memory of a madeleine; or the Surrealists exploring dreams and the unconscious to generate new artistic forms. In each case, the key was delving inward, embracing their inner difference to bring it to light.
What these artists do, in reality, is venture into their unconscious more boldly than most people and – never easily – manage to give it a communicable form: by embracing their difference (in style, content or form), they meet others at their deepest level. Great artists are often those who refused to conform to societal norms and dictates – they may have been misunderstood or solitary, but their fidelity to themselves left us with treasures. Despite discouragement, failure and agony, what compels the artist to persevere is the very act of putting their being constantly on the line. For them, creation becomes an existential necessity.
The difference Jacquard speaks of establishes no hierarchy; it is the foundation of our equal dignity, built upon each person’s capacity to relate. True difference is always humble, rooted in self-acceptance and the richness of human connection, not in a frantic race for recognition. Lacan wrote that “lack is the lack of being through which being exists” – in other words, humans live first and foremost from their inner emptiness, that fundamental absence which gives rise to desire. This lack is not filled by honors or public admiration, but through a quiet process of subjectivation: learning to know oneself, to face one’s own limits and flaws. It is in this often invisible inner journey that the subject’s authenticity is revealed. The true greatness of being oneself is not found in public spotlight, but in the humble conquest of one’s intimate identity. It is there, in the modest effort of self-construction and the recognition of one’s lacks, that human dignity undoubtedly resides.
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