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In our contemporary societies, domination no longer asserts itself through force. It wins us over through pleasure and the promise of happiness. This article reflects on the “gentle dictatorship” of the socio-economic sphere, a power that seizes our desires and quietly shapes the course of our lives.
Domination does not always present itself through harshness. Some forms advance gently, not through coercion but through the pull of seduction. They show no signs of authoritarian rule and present themselves instead as paths that promise freedom. The current socio-economic order belongs to this quiet family of tyrannies. It draws individuals into a world of pleasures, gratifications, and immediate rewards while weakening their ability to think, to desire, and to feel for themselves. This gentle dictatorship is scarcely perceived as oppression. It is experienced as something natural and legitimate. It does not impose, it entices. It replaces you must with you may, yet this you may soon turns into a silent command, a discreet summons to enjoy, to conform, and to foster addiction.
Freud showed that human desire is shaped by lack, arising from an original emptiness that nothing can fill. Building on this, Lacan emphasized that desire is always directed toward the Other and is formed through language, attention, and recognition. The subject is thus bound to pursue endlessly what constantly slips away, chasing an object that always eludes them. Neoliberal capitalism has learned to turn this structure into an economic engine. It recognizes lack as an inexhaustible resource. It produces objects that present themselves as solutions to this lack, while ensuring they can never truly satisfy it. Desire is thereby transformed into captured, directed, and exploited need. The consumer believes they are buying a product, but in reality, they are buying a promise: a promise of happiness, youth, strength, or recognition, which the product can never deliver and is immediately replaced by another, in an endless spiral.
Consider the smartphone. With each new version, advertising promises greater satisfaction: smoother, more connected, more powerful. The device is not just a tool; it becomes a mark of distinction, an expression of identity. Those who do not own the latest model feel marginalized, almost excluded. Desire is thus focused on prestige and the way the object shapes one’s self-image. The product becomes a narcissistic mirror, a fetish condensing the fantasy of an ideal self. But as soon as the object is acquired, the pleasure fades. The sense of lack reappears, along with the need for yet another purchase.
This logic does not apply only to technological objects. It extends into every area of life: fashion, beauty, travel, gastronomy, sport, and culture. Each sector constantly creates new needs, new standards, and, always, new promises. An anti-aging cream does not simply promise smoother skin, but the illusion of eternal youth, the denial of aging, and the refusal of death. A stay on a paradise island does not offer only a view, but the idea of a carefree life and complete happiness. A roaring SUV does not simply provide a way to get around, but conveys phallic power, though ultimately illusory. In every case, the object itself matters less than the story that surrounds it. This story acts as a modern myth, a tale that tells the consumer: “Your life will be far more enjoyable if you own this object.”
But this promise is subtle and deceptive because it rests on a worldview that leaves no room for contradiction. In this view, sadness, melancholy, fear, illness, and death are seen as problems to be erased, gaps to be fixed. The individual is expected to be happy, productive, and optimistic. Misfortune becomes a fault, a weakness, even a disorder. Those who suffer are encouraged to consume to forget, to distract themselves so they will not think, to fill themselves so they will not feel the emptiness. Pain is no longer recognized as a human experience but seen as something to be corrected. Grief should be cut short, solitude erased, anxiety numbed. Everything that reminds us of human fragility is pushed aside and replaced by products, substances, experiences, and entertainment.
This repression of life’s tragic realities has paradoxical effects. The more people are expected to be happy, the guiltier they feel for not being so. The more they consume to fill the emptiness inside them, the deeper that emptiness becomes. The more they chase pleasure, the more frustration they encounter. Consumer society produces exhausted, anxious, and depressed individuals who cannot understand why they fail to achieve the promised happiness. They are caught in a cycle beyond their control. Their suffering is a symptom of a system that exploits desire while denying personal subjectivity.
In this context, any critical thinking becomes a risk. To think is to pierce the illusion, expose the promise, and reject the norms imposed upon us. The system favors individuals who are obedient, compliant, and easily shaped. It provides prepackaged opinions, standardized feelings, and regulated behaviors. Social media plays a central role in shaping desires, steering choices, and dictating conduct. Algorithms do more than show us what we like. They create what we are meant to like and turn it into a need. People believe they are choosing, but they are being chosen. They believe they are thinking, but their thoughts are shaped. They believe they are free, but they are programmed.
Yet the individual cannot be reduced to a mere consumer. They are shaped by impulses, conflicts, and fantasies that lie beyond the logic of the market. They are a being of speech and of lack. This lack is not a flaw. It is what makes us human. Trying to fill it with objects strips away their subjectivity and turns them into a pleasure-seeking machine. Market-driven pleasure is an illusion. It promises ecstasy but delivers only dependence. It presents itself as freedom, yet keeps us trapped in a system of control.
It is therefore crucial to recognize that sadness, doubt, and vulnerability are not flaws to be fixed but essential parts of being. They remind us of our finitude, our fragility, and our uniqueness. They create space for thought, creativity, and resistance. Rejecting the dictatorship of illusory happiness means accepting that we cannot always say “everything is fine” when it is not, that we cannot own everything, and that we cannot control everything. It means claiming the freedom to desire differently, to dream beyond limits, to think against the grain, and yet still to pursue happiness.
The gentle dictatorship of the socio-economic can only be challenged through speech that gives voice to our lack, acknowledges tragedy, and claims the right to sadness. This speech refuses to be colonized by slogans, images, and advertising narratives. It thinks, doubts, dreams, and resists being bound. Above all, it dares to live.
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