…that doesn’t sound right since desire is an individual response to external stimuli…

It’s true that we distinguish between desires and needs, but that distinction is a structure imposed on our thinking that I don’t agree with — in this sense: desires, as you say, are a response to stimuli, but they are also a response to needs. The stimuli are sensed as being external, and the needs are felt as being internal or inner to our being.

Thus, being thirsty, I desire a drink. Being hungry, I desire food, etc. Those are physical needs, and then we also have emotional, psychological, and communal needs, such as reassurance and concern from another to satisfy an emotional need, a certain degree of self-assurance to satisfy a psychological need, and cooperation to satisfy a communal need, such as agreed to codes of behavior that assure our safety within society, so that we can go out to enjoy some music and comradry without risking our lives, for example.

…and we have the ability to learn to desire or not in the face of that stimulus.

I’m going to argue that this way is forced and is like swimming against the tide. It certainly is not an acceptance of what is at the present moment, and I think that most of us are not capable of always accomplishing such control over ourselves. Instead, I am going to focus on the ability that we all have — and exhibit frequently in our daily lives — to turn our attention away from one thing and towards another. It’s what advertising does to us all the time, for example.

Harnessing that capability is much easier when we accept that we will not always be able to not desire something, so we should accept it and move on, rather than getting stuck on the point… I am elaborating the process in this way, because I don’t want it to be overlooked when we say that we “learn to desire or not.” That’s not what I am saying we are doing — we are learning to turn away from a desire that will not be satisfied, which will cause us frustration, leading to our suffering. This we can all accomplish, and it allows for “give” in our comportment, so that we do not become so brittle that we crack under stress, or momentary failure.

I assume you will make the point later that we can become skilled in “not desiring” or preserving equanimity in spite of collective behaviour.

Yes, this is a kind of natural extension of the process as I described it above.

I like you description of power as the transfer of agency to a third party, but I think this transfer is one of authority rather than power although I guess the exercise of that authority is via power.

In another article here on medium I discussed what I call knowledge by authority, which is knowledge that we just accept from a trusted source and don’t even feel the need to test it, such is our trust in that source. The authority is the direct result of the transfer of power that we make, so yes, these two are intimately linked in some situations, such as this. An example, would be trusting a certain news organization to always provide us with truth.

Thank you for responding to the article Tim. I appreciate the engagement.