IJ study archive

The appetite-ratchet — desire that outruns any possible satisfaction

echoes

From: Big Red Son

  • Early text: the essay's opening ER cases — "The desire for perfect release and the real-world impossibility of perfect, whenever-you-want-it release had together produced a tension they could no longer stand." [opening ¶] [e-text]
  • IJ echo: IJ's Substance/Entertainment isomorphism — the addiction logic that gratification only deepens the need it relieves; Erdedy's quit/binge loop; the Entertainment as pleasure so complete it recreates nothing but the need for itself. The autocastration image is the appetite-ratchet at its most literal: the body destroyed to escape a desire that admits no satisfaction.
  • Weight: restatement (oeuvre-scoped)