This is the summary of a long discussion I have had with a number of people on a number of places.
My question:
Dehumanisation is usually conceived of as considering others as less_than_human. For instance, the collateral victims of the war in Iraq and women as represented in most porn production are often dehumanised, perceived as living lives which are less worthy than ours. These subjects are then seen as the ones who lack a life story worth telling.
This is crucially different from the temporary instrumentalisation which characterises our everyday social traffic - the checkout girl is only a checkout girl for me, but in this case I can be only a customer for her as well. So, I do not have to forget that "every human being, whatever her qualities, has her unjudgable splendor in a personal identity that is irrefutably her story" (Adriana Cavarero), I can just "suspend" this knowledge.
The question I would like to pose here is whether romantic love (as scripted in the popular culture, by which we are all influenced) is dehumanising. Does it amount to making others more_than_human? Does that also imply turning our head away from what we know from day 1 and what constitutes us as humans? Does the idea of "match made in heaven" actually imply depriving others of their story and rereading this story from our own perspective and for our purposes? Does the discourse of ultimate sense-giving through love (and making love qualitatively different from everything else in the universe of human interaction) give rise to an anxiety humans are not able to handle? Finally, don't we dehumanise ourselves by entering such an equation?
My answer (preceded by a huge quote from Secomb):
". . . he . . . who opposite you
sits and listens close
to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing . . .
(Sappho: fragment 31)
This may speak perhaps of an intertwining of jealousy with love or it may, as Anne Carson suggests, indicate the necessary triangulation of love (Carson 1986: 12–17). This is not just the re-enactment of the conventional love triangle but also the articulation of the three components necessary for love. If love is lack, as Diotima’s account of Eros as the lacking child of Poverty and Plenty suggests, there needs to be not only lover and beloved but also that which comes between. Love desires what it lacks and its fulfilment would quench the passion of love. Love, thus, requires an obstacle that defers or displaces, preserving the lack and ensuring the preservation of desire. The beloved’s companion is not simply a rival to be overcome but the principle of obstruction that keeps love alive."
(Linnell Secomb, "Philosophy and Love - From Plato to Popular Culture")
Reading Secomb I grew aware of the enormous number of paralels between the transcendental philosophy and transcendental (romantic) love. They both essentially try to overcome life and access the higher, the eternal and the transcendent. Romantic love is therefore life-denying, in that it requires one to overcome mortality (by lasting forever), corporeality (by denying presence of attraction to others) and contingency (by the meant-to-be narrative). In sum, if the norm of romantic love is dehumanising, this is because it recruits one for life-denying goals.
As usually, it costs one much creativity to come up with a sustainable counterpart of this life-denying institute, but that is the only way out I can imagine.
My question:
Dehumanisation is usually conceived of as considering others as less_than_human. For instance, the collateral victims of the war in Iraq and women as represented in most porn production are often dehumanised, perceived as living lives which are less worthy than ours. These subjects are then seen as the ones who lack a life story worth telling.
This is crucially different from the temporary instrumentalisation which characterises our everyday social traffic - the checkout girl is only a checkout girl for me, but in this case I can be only a customer for her as well. So, I do not have to forget that "every human being, whatever her qualities, has her unjudgable splendor in a personal identity that is irrefutably her story" (Adriana Cavarero), I can just "suspend" this knowledge.
The question I would like to pose here is whether romantic love (as scripted in the popular culture, by which we are all influenced) is dehumanising. Does it amount to making others more_than_human? Does that also imply turning our head away from what we know from day 1 and what constitutes us as humans? Does the idea of "match made in heaven" actually imply depriving others of their story and rereading this story from our own perspective and for our purposes? Does the discourse of ultimate sense-giving through love (and making love qualitatively different from everything else in the universe of human interaction) give rise to an anxiety humans are not able to handle? Finally, don't we dehumanise ourselves by entering such an equation?
My answer (preceded by a huge quote from Secomb):
". . . he . . . who opposite you
sits and listens close
to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing . . .
(Sappho: fragment 31)
This may speak perhaps of an intertwining of jealousy with love or it may, as Anne Carson suggests, indicate the necessary triangulation of love (Carson 1986: 12–17). This is not just the re-enactment of the conventional love triangle but also the articulation of the three components necessary for love. If love is lack, as Diotima’s account of Eros as the lacking child of Poverty and Plenty suggests, there needs to be not only lover and beloved but also that which comes between. Love desires what it lacks and its fulfilment would quench the passion of love. Love, thus, requires an obstacle that defers or displaces, preserving the lack and ensuring the preservation of desire. The beloved’s companion is not simply a rival to be overcome but the principle of obstruction that keeps love alive."
(Linnell Secomb, "Philosophy and Love - From Plato to Popular Culture")
Reading Secomb I grew aware of the enormous number of paralels between the transcendental philosophy and transcendental (romantic) love. They both essentially try to overcome life and access the higher, the eternal and the transcendent. Romantic love is therefore life-denying, in that it requires one to overcome mortality (by lasting forever), corporeality (by denying presence of attraction to others) and contingency (by the meant-to-be narrative). In sum, if the norm of romantic love is dehumanising, this is because it recruits one for life-denying goals.
As usually, it costs one much creativity to come up with a sustainable counterpart of this life-denying institute, but that is the only way out I can imagine.
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