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[[Lacan]] develops his [[concept ]] of [[desire]] by drawing on the [[master]]/[[slave]] [[dialectic]] of [[Hegel|G.W.F. Hegel]] (as explicated by [[Alandre Kojève]]).

Lacan draws almost exclusively on the [[work ]] of Hegel as it was popularised through Kojève’s lectures in [[Paris ]] in the 1930s.

The central [[Hegel]]ian [[text ]] for [[Lacan]] is the [[Phenomenology of Spirit]], particularly the section which elaborates the [[master]]/[[slave]] [[dialectic]] as a dawning [[moment ]] of [[individual]] [[self-consciousness]]:

Two individuals confront one [[another]].

Each experiences the confrontation as a [[threat ]] to its [[position ]] of uniqueness and supremacy in the [[world ]] (its [[identity]]).

Thus faced with the prospect of having the two axes of their identities disrupted, the two individuals are unable to acknowledge each [[other ]] as [[creatures ]] of the same [[order ]] without abandoning their own identities.

Each seeks [[recognition ]] of his supremacy from the other, but neither will grant it to the other, since to do so would amount to ceding the claims to supremacy.

The next step in this vignette is that each individual sets [[about ]] asserting his uniqueness and supremacy by attempting to destroy the other. This fight is the [[Hegelian ]] [[primal ]] fight to the [[death ]] which can have only two possible outcomes. In the first and more sterile possibility, neither individual cedes his [[claim ]] to supremacy and one eventually succeeds in slaying the other.

The second possibility is that one of the individuals will succumb to the [[instinct ]] for [[self]]-preservation and surrender to the other.

This is the point at which we are now able to [[speak ]] of the master (the victor) and the slave (the loser).

The master thus finds himself in a tautological position of pure [[self-referentiality]], demanding recognition from the slave (as a creature he [[knows ]] intuitively to be of the same kind as himself) and yet unable to accept the worth of that recognition since it comes from a creature whose innate [[inferiority ]] he has already established. As a consequence of his victory, however, the master does not simply execute the slave, but persists in his [[total ]] domination by putting the slave to work producing [[objects ]] for his consumption.

Thus, for example, whereas the master had previously eaten whatever food may have come to hand, he now [[demands ]] that the slave prepare the food in such a way as to make it more desirable and more completely consumable.

Whereas he may previously have had to eat whatever apples he found, the master now demands an apple pie of the slave, compelling him to produce an [[object ]] of desire that will be completely obliterated in its [[enjoyment]]; the master utterly absorbs that which he [[enjoys ]] in this fashion, thanks to the work of the slave in transforming the objects in the phenomenal world to render [[them ]] more assimilable.

In [[being ]] [[forced ]] to prepare objects in the world for the master’s consumption, the slave experiences the ultimate abasement of having to defer the [[satisfaction ]] of his own desire (an unpleasant [[experience ]] hitherto unknown to the slave) in order to gratify the desire of the master. That is, he is forced to [[repeat ]] the act of recognition over and over as he concedes the master’s [[right ]] of desire for a given object over his own. Even though he may be just as desirous of the apples as the master, the slave nonetheless must repeat the drama of recognition in [[recognising ]] the superiority of the master’s desire for the apples. The repeated drama of recognition is given its stalemate conclusion each [[time ]] the master consumes the [[object of desire ]] prepared by the slave, utterly negating the [[material ]] evidence of the slave’s recognition of the supremacy of his desire and re-setting the [[conditions ]] for yet another [[repetition ]] of the [[whole ]] [[process]].

The slave’s deferral of his own desire in preparing objects of desire for the master’s consumption is absolutely vital to the [[development ]] of the slave’s [[consciousness]], as he gradually overcomes his [[fear ]] of [[nature ]] (the fear of death that lead him to capitulate in his battle with the master) by altering nature through the suspension of his desire and the application of his labour. Whereas the master [[exists ]] in pure self-referentiality, then, the slave learns to interact with his world, elevating that which he finds around him by transforming it, and governing desire by suspending it. As the master becomes more and more dependent upon the slave’s production for the [[gratification ]] of his [[desire, ]] a [[dialectical ]] process takes [[place ]] whereby the slave comes to [[control ]] the master and each moves beyond his designation in the binary master/slave.

Whereas the master remains in an ignorant relation to the [[natural ]] world in which he moves and desires, the slave has learned to master that world and thus to master desire. That is, in suspending his immediate urge for satisfaction ([[pleasure]]), the slave has learned how to increase the [[value ]] of that desire by deferring it and displacing it. The end result of this drama is that the master expires in a well of self-referentiality, while the slave rises beyond his slavish [[state ]] to master the very nature of which his fear (i.e. his fear of [[mortality]]) lead him to surrender in the primal confrontation – [[human ]] [[community ]] is [[born ]] in the repeated suspension and deferral of desire.

This drama sets the [[stage ]] for our [[understanding ]] of Lacan’s conception of desire and its central [[role ]] in the [[formation ]] and function of [[subjectivity]]. The first important feature of the master/slave drama is that the nature of the [[relationship ]] between the master and the slave is only nominally that of establishing a right of precedence over a given object of desire. What is more to the point is that the [[struggle ]] between the two is a struggle for the other’s desire.

What makes this process existentially [[satisfying ]] to the master is that he knows that the slave desires the apple pie as much as he does. This [[knowledge ]] of the slave’s desire (whether actual or merely supposed) makes the pie all the more desirable, as it is now an emblem of the slave’s (the other’s) desire. Moreover, the more the slave must suspend his desire in order to produce a given object for the master’s consumption, the more the final product may be said to contain the [[sublimation ]] of that desire.

The [[model ]] of desire that emerges from Hegel’s drama, and which Lacan adopts, is thus one in which desire exceeds both [[demand ]] and [[need]]. Whereas demand and need can both be met, desire is an existential condition which no object or series of objects can ever satiate; it is a "[[lack ]] of being" as opposed to a "lack of having" (Evans 95).

Returning thus to desire as a constitutive feature of human [[existence]], we find a ready expression of how the desire for the other’s desire functions in the [[mirror ]] stage.

The essential component to such [[identification]], however (and the aspect that renders it [[impossible]]), is the [[necessity ]] for the other similarly to desire identification with the [[infant]].

This desire for the other’s desire is not a simple matter of mutual desire such as that experienced in [[erotic ]] [[love]], but a more all-encompassing demand for total recognition; the infant wants not some part (however large) of the other’s desire, but all of it – he or she wants to be the be-all and end-all of the other’s desire. The [[impossibility ]] of such a total identification is what keeps subjectivity moving from object to object in its quest for an object that will [[represent ]] and [[capture ]] the other’s desire and by possession of which the individual can absorb and utterly subjugate the other’s desire.

The second aspect of desire which Lacan exploits from Hegel’s model is that of desire as an [[aggressive ]] [[drive ]] not simply to possess an object, but to assimilate it completely, to negate it beyond all redemption. This aspect of desire is most clearly represented in the [[case ]] of the apple pie, which the master seeks not merely to possess, but to make a part of his identity by consuming it. The act of negating the pie by eating it is also a display of [[mastery ]] over the other’s desire, since the object is to some degree always also cathected with the desire of the other (whether because he produced the object or simply because he also desires it). And while the process is nowhere near as clear-cut with objects that are not so literally consumed, the basic [[dynamic ]] remains the same. Just as the infant in the [[mirror stage ]] perceives his or her [[specular ]] [[image ]] as an object of desire, but also as a rival which must be encountered and vanquished in the process of identification, so all desire is fundamentally aggressive and annihilating. Insofar as desire is a drive to possess, it is also always a drive to obtain the absolute right of [[life ]] and death (or being and non-being) over the object: "This is my (car, house, plant, book, sno-cone, etc.) and I’ll do what I [[want ]] with it."

Clearly this is an extremely basic version of desire, and one which does not take into consideration such variations on the theme as are generated by the desire for objects that are desirable only because they render a more desirable object attainable or objects which can never be completely possessed by one individual and are thus [[subject ]] to distribution and [[distortion]]. Nonetheless, it provides the basis for our consideration of desire in Lacan’s conception of subjectivity, and points to the fundamentally [[social ]] [[character ]] of desire: "The most important point to emerge from Lacan’s phrase [that "the object of man’s desire […] is essentially an object desired by someone else" (qtd. in Evans 38)] is that desire is a social product. Desire is not the private affair it appears to be but is always constituted in a dialectical relationship with the perceived desires of other [[subjects]]" (Evans 39). And while this aspect of desire is certainly important to keep in [[mind]], it is not simply "the perceived desires of other subjects" which motivates desire, but the [[prohibition ]] on fulfillment of desire which provides the most stimulus for its reproduction.

If we [[recall ]] Lacan’s reliance on the insights of [[structural ]] [[anthropology]], and the dialectical nature of his [[thinking ]] on desire, we can see that the establishment of human community and the [[formalisation ]] of desire is as dependent on its prohibition as it is on the [[perception ]] of what is desirable. As with the slave’s necessary suspension of his desire in the production of objects for the master’s consumption, each subject is governed by a series of prohibitions that make desire the ultimate motivational force in subjectivity. Analogous to the master’s prohibition of the slave’s enjoyment, the law (inaugurated by the paternal prohibition from enjoying the mother’s [[body]]) actually "creates desire in the first place by creating interdiction. Desire is essentially the desire to [[transgress]], and for there to be [[transgression ]] it is first necessary for there to be prohibition" (Evans 99). Interdiction effectively seals off certain objects of desire or kinds of desire as unlawful, thus endowing them with a mystique that allows for their conception as the final answer to desire. Tantamount to the curiosity-arousing command not to look in the one locked room in a many-roomed mansion, the law thus participates in the generation of desire as that which circulates endlessly around a prohibited core.