Essay on Philosophy of Wantlessness Is Utopian, While Materialism Is a Chimera

“Philosophy of wantlessness is Utopian, while materialism is a chimera” appeared as Topic 3 of Section A in the UPSC Civil Services Mains Essay paper held on 7 January 2022. Two clauses, one judgement on each — and a question buried inside about how a human being is supposed to live. This guide breaks the topic down the way it should be tackled in the hall: first the meaning, then the angles, then the time map, then the paragraph-by-paragraph plan, and finally a complete 1,200-word model essay you can study, dissect and adapt.

When this was asked and what UPSC is really testing

The topic was set in UPSC CSE Mains 2021, Essay paper, Section A. Three hours, two essays, one from each section, roughly 1,000 to 1,200 words each, 125 marks per essay. The 2021 paper was unusually philosophical — wantlessness vs materialism, hand that rocks the cradle, what is research, the philosophy of life. There is no policy hook, no neat current-affairs anchor. The page is yours to fill, and that is exactly the test.

UPSC is checking four things at once. One, can you read a double-barrelled quote without picking one half and ignoring the other. Two, can you organise unfamiliar material — economics, ethics, ecology, Indian philosophy — around a clear thesis instead of dumping every fact you remember. Three, can you move comfortably across the Upanishads, the Gita, modern behavioural economics and the climate crisis without sounding like a textbook. Four, can you write 1,150 disciplined words that examine both extremes rather than 1,500 loose words that pick a side and shout. The aspirant who handles all four scores in the 130s. The aspirant who handles only the fourth — moralising prose with no spine — scores in the 90s.

Five angles that unlock “Wantlessness is utopian, materialism is a chimera”

The trap with a two-clause quote is to argue only one half — usually condemning consumerism and forgetting that the topic also calls wantlessness utopian. The mark-pulling answer holds both judgements at once and looks for a third position. Here are the five most defensible readings of the topic. You do not need all five — three, treated well, is the sweet spot. But you should know all five so your choice is conscious.

1. The two extremes as ideal types — Buddhist sannyasa, Jain aparigraha, Gandhian voluntary simplicity at one end; Black-Friday consumerism, status competition and the GDP-as-god creed at the other. Most lives are lived in the space between. The essay’s job is to map that space.
2. Why pure wantlessness is utopian — most humans need material security before they can renounce it. Maslow’s hierarchy, Amartya Sen’s capability approach, and the Buddha’s own decision to abandon both extreme asceticism and palace luxury for the middle path are evidence that wantlessness, preached to the hungry, becomes cruelty.
3. Why materialism is a chimera — the hedonic treadmill, the Easterlin paradox (beyond a modest income, happiness stops tracking money), the Diderot effect, Alain de Botton’s “status anxiety”. A goal that always recedes is by definition a mirage.
4. The Indian middle path — the purusharthas name four legitimate ends of human life: dharma, artha, kama, moksha. Wealth and desire are not denied; they are placed under the discipline of ethics and ultimate meaning. The Gita’s karmanyevadhikaraste maa phaleshu kadachana sets the same instruction in verse.
5. The planetary stake — the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s planetary boundaries, IPCC AR6, the fact that humanity now consumes the equivalent of 1.7 Earths each year. Materialism’s chimera is not only psychological; it is ecological. Wantlessness’s utopia is no longer a personal choice; it is a civilisational necessity.

A strong essay picks angles 2, 3 and 4 as its backbone (extremes diagnosed, middle path proposed), uses 5 as a contemporary urgency and keeps 1 in the opening as the frame. That gives the essay rhythm — diagnosis, complication, resolution — instead of a single straight line.

A time map for the 1,500-second window

One essay deserves about 75 to 90 minutes inside the three-hour paper. Spending more on Essay 1 starves Essay 2. The single biggest source of below-100 essay scores is poor time discipline — beautiful introductions, panicked conclusions. Use a rough breakdown like this:

Notice what is not on the list: rewriting the introduction halfway, hunting for the perfect Sanskrit quote, fancy diagrams, decorative underlining. None of that earns marks. Discipline does.

What to add — and what to avoid at all costs

The essay paper rewards what most aspirants under-do and punishes what most aspirants over-do. Memorise this list before you walk into the hall.

Add liberally

• One precise thesis, stated by the end of paragraph two and not abandoned. “Wantlessness without prior security is utopian; wealth without inner discipline is a chimera; the liveable life sits at the purushartha mean of both.”
• Concrete examples across three or four domains — historical (the Buddha abandoning both asceticism and palace, Gandhi’s three-rupee wardrobe), economic (Easterlin paradox, hedonic treadmill, Doughnut Economics), Indian (the purusharthas, Gita 2.47, Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness) and personal or literary (Tolstoy’s “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”).
• Two or three short, named references — Gandhi on need versus greed, Amartya Sen on capabilities, Kate Raworth on the Doughnut. One per major section is enough.
• One Indian philosophical anchor used substantively. The purusharthas, aparigraha, the Isha Upanishad’s tena tyaktena bhunjitha — “enjoy by renunciation”. An anchor used as scaffolding, not decoration.
• Counter-arguments handled briefly. “It may be argued that consumption is the engine of growth and employment for the still-poor…” — then resolved in two lines. Acknowledging the other side earns more marks than ignoring it.
• A clean conclusion that returns to the opening image — not a fresh argument, not a new example.

Avoid — even when tempted

• Restating the topic in the first sentence. “Wantlessness is utopian while materialism is a chimera is a profound statement…” — this signals that you have nothing to add. Open with an image, a scene, a paradox.
• Picking only one half of the quote. A 1,150-word rant against consumerism that never tests wantlessness is a half-essay. The topic gives you two judgements to weigh.
• Romanticising poverty. “The poor villager is happier than the rich businessman” reads as a slogan and is empirically dubious. Sen’s capabilities and Maslow’s hierarchy disagree.
• Unsourced statistics. “Indians waste 40% of their food” — if you cannot name the source, do not write the number. Examiners cross-mark this.
• Naming current parties, leaders or court judgments. The Essay paper is graded by humans across the ideological spectrum. Use institutions and historical figures instead.
• Moralising. “We must all give up our smartphones and meditate” reads like a sermon. The essay paper rewards examination, not exhortation.

A paragraph-by-paragraph blueprint

Twelve paragraphs at roughly 95 words each gets you to 1,140. Thirteen at 90 each gets you to 1,170. Either works. What follows is a 13-paragraph plan that maps cleanly onto the model essay below. Each line is what that paragraph is doing, not what it is saying.

1. Opening image — Siddhartha at twenty-nine leaving the palace; or a Black-Friday queue at dawn. A scene that physically embodies the two extremes. No mention of the topic yet.
2. The pivot to thesis — name the topic, state the double judgement, propose a middle path.
3. Define the terms — what is “wantlessness” (aparigraha, monastic renunciation, voluntary simplicity), what is “materialism” (consumerism, status competition, GDP fetish).
4. Why pure wantlessness is utopian — Maslow, Sen’s capabilities, the cruelty of preaching renunciation to the hungry. The Buddha himself rejected extreme asceticism.
5. Why materialism is a chimera — hedonic treadmill, Easterlin paradox, Diderot effect. The goal that always recedes.
6. Indian anchor — the purusharthas as a 2,000-year-old framework that legitimises wealth and desire while subordinating them to ethics and meaning.
7. The Gita’s instruction — work without attachment to the fruit of work; yogah karmasu kaushalam. The middle path put as practice, not posture.
8. The planetary stake — Rockström’s planetary boundaries, IPCC AR6, the 1.7-Earth footprint. Materialism’s mirage is now ecological as well as psychological.
9. Contemporary India — rising middle-class consumption alongside persistent rural deprivation. Neither extreme is the right prescription for both halves of the same country.
10. Counter-argument handled — consumption is also growth, jobs and dignity for those still climbing out of poverty. The middle path is not a brake on aspiration; it is a guard against its excess.
11. Way forward — individual — mindful consumption, the discipline of “enough”, Gandhi’s distinction between need and greed.
12. Way forward — institutional — circular economy, Kate Raworth’s Doughnut, ESG investing, Bhutan’s GNH, sufficiency-aware tax design.
13. Closing image — return to Siddhartha or the Black-Friday queue; close with one resonant line about the middle path.

How to make an examiner stop and read

An essay examiner reads several hundred scripts in a sitting. The first paragraph decides whether they read the second with attention or with autopilot. Four small habits separate the essays that get attention from the ones that get skimmed.

• Open with a scene, not a statement. A monk’s bowl at dawn, a queue outside a megastore, a discarded smartphone in a landfill. Concrete images cost no marks and earn attention.
• Use both halves of the topic phrase across the essay. Once in the thesis, once at the turn, once at the close. It signals discipline and prevents drift.
• Vary sentence length. A short sentence after three long ones lands. Examiners feel rhythm before they parse meaning.
• End paragraphs with the takeaway, not with examples. Place the example mid-paragraph. Let the last sentence be the thought, so the reader carries it into the next paragraph.

The complete essay — “Philosophy of wantlessness is Utopian, while materialism is a chimera”

What follows is a 1,200-word model essay built on the blueprint above. Read it twice — once for the argument, once for the moves. The moves are what you can carry into your own essay; the argument is one of many you could make.

At twenty-nine, the prince Siddhartha walked out of a palace stocked with every desire a human being can name and into a forest where he tried to live on a grain of rice a day. Six years later, half-starved and no closer to wisdom, he stood up, ate a bowl of milk-rice from a village girl, and discovered what he would later call the middle path. Two and a half millennia on, queues form before sunrise each November outside megastores while smartphones blink notifications urging the next buy. Between the empty bowl and the overflowing trolley, every adult must work out a life.

“Philosophy of wantlessness is utopian, while materialism is a chimera” passes judgement on both scenes at once. It calls renunciation a dream beyond ordinary reach and calls accumulation a mirage that never delivers what it promises. The two clauses are not equally pessimistic; together they push the reader towards a third position. The thesis of this essay is that wantlessness without prior security is utopian, wealth without inner discipline is a chimera, and the liveable human life sits at the purushartha mean of both — wealth and desire pursued under the discipline of ethics and ultimate meaning.

Some definitions help. By “wantlessness” the topic means doctrines that ask the individual to want less, own less, and depend on less — the Buddhist sangha on alms, Jain aparigraha, Gandhian simplicity reducing a barrister to a three-rupee wardrobe. By “materialism” it means the modern creed in which acquisition is the measure of a life — consumer credit, status competition, GDP per capita as a proxy for human flourishing. The first is a philosophy; the second is a default condition of late modernity.

Pure wantlessness is utopian for a straightforward reason: most human beings need a floor of material security before they can choose to stand below it. Maslow’s hierarchy placed food, shelter and safety beneath every higher need for good reason. Amartya Sen’s capability approach refined the same insight: freedom is not the absence of possessions but the substantive ability to live a life one has reason to value, and that ability has material preconditions. Preaching renunciation to a hungry villager is not philosophy; it is cruelty in Sanskrit clothing. The Buddha himself abandoned extreme asceticism precisely because starvation, like luxury, deadens the mind it is supposed to liberate.

Materialism, for its part, is a chimera because the satisfaction it sells is structurally impossible to deliver. Behavioural economists call it the hedonic treadmill: each new acquisition lifts mood briefly, then resets to baseline, prompting the next purchase. Richard Easterlin documented, across decades and countries, that beyond a modest income threshold national happiness stops tracking national income. Diderot’s parable of the scarlet dressing-gown remains the perfect illustration: one beautiful object makes every other object in the room look shabby, and the spending cascade begins. A goal that always recedes is, by definition, a mirage. The customer is permanently approaching, never arriving.

Indian thought saw both these traps two thousand years before behavioural economics gave them names. The purusharthas name four legitimate ends of a human life: dharma, righteous duty; artha, material well-being; kama, desire and pleasure; and moksha, ultimate liberation. The scheme is significant for what it refuses to do. It does not condemn wealth or desire. It does not place renunciation on a pedestal and the householder in the gutter. It places artha and kama in a frame — bounded above by dharma, oriented finally towards moksha. Wealth pursued within ethics, desire pursued within wisdom: this is the original Indian middle path.

The Bhagavad Gita gives the same instruction in operating form. Karmanyevadhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachana — “you have a right to action, never to the fruits of action.” The verse is often misread as a counsel of detachment from work. It is in fact a counsel of detachment from outcomes — do the work well, do not let the craving for its reward distort the doing. Yogah karmasu kaushalam: skill in action is the practice. Wantlessness, in this reading, is not the refusal to work or earn; it is the refusal to be owned by what one earns.

The case against unchecked materialism has acquired in our generation a stake that earlier centuries did not face. The Stockholm Resilience Centre’s planetary-boundaries framework shows that six of nine ecological thresholds — climate, biosphere, biogeochemical flows, freshwater, land use, novel entities — are already transgressed. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report dates the 1.5-degree budget to the early 2030s on current trajectories. Humanity now consumes the equivalent of roughly 1.7 Earths each year. Materialism’s mirage is no longer only psychological; it is civilisational. The chimera is melting the glaciers.

Contemporary India sits inside this tension acutely. A rising urban middle class consumes — credit, cars, packaged food, fast fashion — at rates that converge year by year with Western patterns. Rural India, meanwhile, still lacks consistent piped water, reliable electricity and basic nutrition for substantial populations. To preach wantlessness uniformly across both Indias is to mistake monastic ideal for public policy. To preach uninterrupted consumption uniformly across both Indias is to mortgage a planet to fund a treadmill. The prescription has to differ by the floor a citizen is standing on.

It may be argued, fairly, that consumption is also the engine of growth, employment and dignity for those still climbing out of poverty, and that any sermon against materialism is a luxury of the comfortable. The objection is partly right and entirely insufficient. The middle path is not a brake on aspiration; it is a guard against its excess. The villager who wants a refrigerator is not in the same moral category as the consumer who replaces a working phone yearly. The framework distinguishes need, comfort and surfeit — and applies discipline only at the last.

For an individual, this points to small disciplines: Gandhi’s distinction between need and greed; mindful consumption as a daily habit; the practice of “enough” as a measurable line one draws and revisits; the Isha Upanishad’s striking instruction tena tyaktena bhunjitha — enjoy by renunciation, possess by letting go. None of these require a forest dwelling. They require attention.

For institutions, the agenda is denser. Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics offers one usable diagram — a social floor no one falls below, an ecological ceiling no one breaches, a safe and just space between them. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness measures what GDP misses. Circular-economy design reuses what linear economies discard. ESG-aware investing prices in externalities markets ignored. Tax design can favour sufficiency over surplus. None of these instruments is new; what is new is the urgency of stitching them together.

Return to the empty bowl and the overflowing trolley. The bowl, alone, is utopian — it asks of the many what only the few can carry. The trolley, alone, is a chimera — it promises a satisfaction it cannot deliver and a planet it cannot sustain. The middle path between them is older than economics and more demanding than either extreme. The republic that finds it lives well; the individual who finds it lives free. The philosophy that names it is not wantlessness, not materialism, but the disciplined sufficiency of the purushartha ideal — wealth in the service of meaning, desire in the service of dharma.

Word count: approximately 1,200.

How to use this model essay

Do not memorise it. Memorised essays read like memorised essays, and examiners spot them in two paragraphs. Use the model the way a chess student uses a master game: study the opening move, the pivot, the way each paragraph hands the reader to the next, the placement of the Indian anchor, the way the counter-argument is brought up and then closed. Then take a different two-clause essay topic — try “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” or “Need brings greed, if greed increases, it spoils breed” — and write your own essay using the same blueprint. Repeat that exercise eight to ten times and the structure becomes muscle memory. On the day of the exam, the only thing you should have to think about is the topic itself.

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