What is love? As Alain Badiou, our good friend, put it in his wonderful book In Praise of Love, there is always something traumatic/extremely violent in love. Love is a permanent emergency state. You fall in love. And it’s crucial [to know] that in English and in French we use this expression; you “fall” in love. You lose control. I claim that love, the experience of passionate love, is the most elementary metaphysical experience, it’s a platonic experience. In the sense of, you lead your easy, daily life, you meet [up with] friends, go to parties and whatever, everything is normal, maybe here and there a one-night stand, and then you passionately fall in love, [and] everything is ruined. The entire balance of your life is lost. Everything is subordinated to this one person. I almost cannot imagine in normal daily life, outside war and so on, a more violent experience than that of love. And I think [this is] which is why all the “advisers” that we [supposedly] need today are trying precisely to domesticate or erase this excess of love. It’s as if love is too poisonous and then they, [i.e.] all the marriage and dating agencies, tell you that the trick is how to find yourself in love without falling in love. This idea came to me when on one of my Transatlantic flights I read one of those stupid airline journals and there was a text in there, in big letters, claiming: “We will enable you to find yourself in love, without the fall”, without this dangerous exposure. And I think this fits perfectly to our daily narcissistic metaphysics. You know the old story that I repeat all the time; we want coffee without caffeine, we want beer without alcohol, and we want love without its dangerous moment, where you get lost.- Slavoj Zizek, "On Love as a Political Category"
Monday, February 10, 2014
On Maintaining "Safe" Post-Modern Social Relationships...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
There is nothing safe about love...Eros or agape.
Perhaps that is what I'm discovering is so interesting about this peculiar relationship between social relations (Dominance, Communalism, and Recoprocity) and Knowledge (Individual and Mutual)... and how the transition of knowledge from Individual to Mutual can upset and/or overturn the social relationships we maintain with others. There is a tendency to try and reduce the awkwardness and/or abruptness resulting from transitions of Individual Knowledge to Mutual Knowledge so as to not disturb extant social relationships. For example, a man CAN have a relatively "safe" relationship to Eros, but he seeks it in the sphere of reciprocity rather than communal sphere (he pays a prostitute for sex instead of getting married)(also, to the extent that he prevents individual knowledge from becoming mutual knowledge with those in his communal and dominant relationships, he can preserve agape).
And so what I like about capitalism is that it creates pathways AWAY from Dominance/ Communal relations that facilitate reciprocity... you submit to a Dominance relationship with your BOSS so that you can then use your money to supplement your Communal relations and or break free of them.
In the realm of rhizomes, it facilitates de-territorialization and re-territorialization
I've never thought of capitalism in those terms. :-)
(also, to the extent that he prevents individual knowledge from becoming mutual knowledge with those in his communal and dominant relationships, he can preserve agape).
-----
But wouldn't agape survive any individual knowledge becoming communal?
I realize that wasn't the main point, but...
The Emperor's New clothes... revolution!
It would survive amongst the revolutionaries who had the individual knowledge previous to the "break" in social relations, but we'd all think the Emperor "ridiculous"...
ps - Don't tell the Mrs. about the prostitutes! ;)
Post a Comment