Niya

“Spectacle is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“Eros concerns the Other in the strong sense, namely, what cannot be encompassed by the regime of the ego. Therefore, in the inferno of the same, which contemporary society is increasingly becoming, erotic experience does not exist. Erotic experience presumes the asymmetry and exteriority of the Other. It is not by chance that Socrates the lover is called atopos. The Other, whom I desire and who fascinates me, is placeless. He or she is removed from the language of sameness: “Being atopic, the Other makes language indecisive: one cannot speak of the Other, about the Other; every attribute is false, painful, erroneous, awkward.” Our contemporary culture of constant comparison leaves no room for the negativity of what is atopos. We are constantly comparing one thing to another, thereby flattening them into the Same, precisely because we no longer experience the atopia of the Other. The negativity of the atopic Other refuses consumption. Therefore, the society of the consumer endeavors to eliminate atopic otherness in favor of consumable —heterotopic— differences. In contrast to otherness, difference is positive. Yet today, negativity is disappearing everywhere. Everything is being flattened out into an object of consumption.”
― Byung-Chul Han, The Agony of Eros

“Capitalism’s compulsive accumulation and growth is specifically aimed against death, which counts as absolute loss.”
― Byung-Chul Han, The Agony of Eros

“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.”
― Byung-Chul Han, The Agony of Eros