Today, love is being positivized into sexuality, and, by the same token, subjected to a commandment to perform. Sex means achievement and performance. And sexiness represents capital to be increased. The body —with its display value— has become a commodity. At the same time, the Other is being sexualized into an object for procuring arousal. When otherness is stripped from the Other, one cannot love — one can only consume. To this extent, the Other is no longer a person; instead, he or she has been fragmented into sexual part-objects.

When the Other is perceived as a sexual object, “primal distance” (Urdistanz) erodes. Primal distance brings forth the transcendental dignity and propriety that frees —that is, distances— the Other into his or her otherness.

Today, more and more, dignity, decency, and propriety —matters of maintaining distance— are disappearing. That is, the ability to experience the Other in terms of his or her otherness is being lost. By means of social media, we seek to bring the Other as near as possible, to close any distance between ourselves and him or her, to create proximity. But this does not mean that we have more of the Other; instead, we are making the Other disappear. Nearness is negative insofar as remoteness is inscribed within it. But now, a total abolition of remoteness is underway. This does not produce nearness so much as it abolishes it. Instead of closeness, it entails crowding.

— The Agony of Eros

.

.

Ana de Armas

David and Goliath,
By Caravaggio

Today, love is being positivized into a formula for enjoyment. Above all, love is supposed to generate pleasant feelings. It no longer represents plot, narration, or drama — only inconsequential emotion and arousal. It is free from the negativity of injury, assault, or crashing. To fall (in love) would already be too negative.

The performance principle that dominates all spheres of life today also encompasses love and sexuality. Thus, the heroine of the bestselling novel Fifty Shades of Grey is surprised when her partner construes their relationship as “a job offer. It has set hours, a job description, and a rather harsh grievance procedure.” The performance principle cannot accommodate the negativity of excess and transgression.

— The Agony of Eros

Hegel’s dialectic of master and slave describes the battle for life and death. The party who emerges as master does not fear death. The desire for freedom, recognition, and sovereignty raises the master above concern for bare life. It is fear of dying that induces the future slave to subordinate himself to the Other. Preferring servitude to the threat of death, the slave clings to bare life. Physical superiority does not determine the outcome of the struggle. Instead, what proves decisive is the “ability to die,” or a capacity for death. Those who do not have freedom unto death (Freiheit zum Tod) do not risk their life. Instead of “following through to the point of death” (mit sich selbst bis auf den Tod zu gehen), they remain “standing alone within death” (an sich selbst innerhalb des Todes stehen). The slave does not venture as far as death, and therefore becomes a vassal who labors.

Today, the defense of bare life is intensifying into the absolutization and fetishization of health. The modern-day slave prefers it to sovereignty and freedom. He or she resembles the “last human beings” Nietzsche describes, for whom health per se represents an absolute value. It is exalted and made the “great goddess”: “one honors health. ‘We invented happiness,’ say the last human beings, and they blink.” Where bare life is hallowed, theology gives way to therapy. Or therapy becomes theological. Death has no place in the chronicle of bare life’s achievements.

— The Agony of Eros

Eros is the medium for intensifying life to the point of death.