In response to my post yesterday about St. Valentine’s Day, a friend posted, “trading big wars for little ones”. I stopped and thought about those things we fight for, from parking spaces to ideology and wondered about those things that we most desire.

I find myself often coming back to French philosophers and psychoanalysts and reflected on “l’objet petit a’ from Lacan, that unattainable object of desire. What is it that we really want, that we are willing to fight for?

Edward Albee’s Zoo Story comes to mind,

You have everything in the world you want; you've told me about your home, and your family, and your own little zoo. You have everything, and now you want this bench. Are these the things men fight for? Tell me, Peter, is this bench, this iron and this wood, is this your honour? Is this the thing in the world you'd fight for? Can you think of anything more absurd?

Yet it isn’t the bench that Peter wants, it is “l’objet petit a’, some indescribable sense of wellbeing and security, love and self-esteem.

It is what we all want and we all fight for. We might see the threats to this desire being individuals who park in our parking space, as people of certain races, ethnicities, or religions, or even other countries.

Yesterday was St. Valentine’s Day, and as my friend suggested, sometimes we fight these battles as large wars, for example, in the Middle East. Sometimes, we fight them at home, as squabbles between lovers, as Les Petites Guerres. Perhaps we would be better off if we had more of these little wars at home than big wars overseas.

This weekend also saw the release of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. What is it that Christian and Ana are looking for in their relationship? Can strong relationships be based on contracts enforcing inequality? What are people looking for in going to see that movie? In a society where income disparities are increasing is it some effort to justify a Stockholm Syndrome between the ultra rich and those for whom the American Dream slips further and further away?

As a side note, a movie about a rich powerful man in a dysfunctional relationship with a young woman is nothing new. In 1977, Luis Bunuel directed “That Obscure Object of Desire”.

A dysfunctional and sometimes violent romance happens between Mathieu (Fernando Rey), a middle-aged, wealthy Frenchman, and a young, impoverished and beautiful flamenco dancer from Seville, Conchita... The story is set against a backdrop of terrorist bombings and shootings ...

So this weekend, do we have life imitating art with the latest shootings in Denmark and the opening of Fifty Shades of Grey? I think Bunuel’s film was done much better.