Max’s Reviews > The Agony of Eros > Status Update
Max
is on page 20 of 88
Erotic desire is tied to a particular absence of the Other—not the absence of nothingness, but rather “absence in a horizon of the future.”
— Jun 03, 2026 10:51PM
Like flag
Max’s Previous Updates
Max
is on page 40 of 88
When borders and thresholds vanish, fantasies of the Other disappear too.
Without the negativity of thresholds or threshold-experiences, fantasy withers. The contemporary crisis in literature and the arts stems from a crisis of fantasy: the disappearance of the Other. This is the agony of eros.
— 2 hours, 10 min ago
Without the negativity of thresholds or threshold-experiences, fantasy withers. The contemporary crisis in literature and the arts stems from a crisis of fantasy: the disappearance of the Other. This is the agony of eros.
Max
is on page 38 of 88
Desire is not “rationalized” today by increasing opportunities for, and criteria of, choice. Instead, unchecked freedom of choice is threatening to bring about the end of desire. Desire is always desire for the Other. The negativity of privation and absence nourishes it. As the object of desire, the Other escapes the positivity of choice.
— 2 hours, 17 min ago
Max
is on page 34 of 88
However, nudity that is displayed without secrecy or expression approaches pornographic bareness. What is more, the pornographic face says nothing. It has no expressivity or mystery. […] In contrast, the erotic is never free of secrecy.
— Jun 05, 2026 10:10AM
Max
is on page 25 of 88
Capitalism absolutizes bare life. Its telos is not the good life. Capitalism’s compulsive accumulation and growth is specifically aimed against death, which counts as absolute loss. For Aristotle, merely accumulating capital merits scorn because it has no concern for the good life—only for bare life.
— Jun 05, 2026 08:30AM
Max
is on page 23 of 88
Today, through the increasing positivization and domestication of love, it is disappearing entirely. One stays the same and seeks only the confirmation of oneself in the Other.
— Jun 05, 2026 08:26AM
Max
is on page 17 of 88
Every religion operates with both debt (guilt) and relief (pardon). But capitalism only works with debt and default. It offers no possibility for atonement, which would free the debtor from liability. The impossibility of mitigation and atonement also accounts for the achievement-subject’s depression.
— Jun 03, 2026 09:51AM
Max
is on page 11 of 88
Depression is a narcissistic malady. It derives from overwrought, pathologically distorted self-reference. The narcissistic-depressive subject has exhausted itself and worn itself down. Without a world to inhabit, it has been abandoned by the Other. Eros and depression are opposites. Eros pulls the subject out of itself, toward the Other. Depression, in contrast, plunges the subject into itself.
— Jun 01, 2026 09:44PM
Max
is on page 10 of 88
In recent years, the end of love has been announced many times.
— Jun 01, 2026 09:30AM
Comments Showing 1-1 of 1 (1 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Max
(new)
-
added it
Jun 03, 2026 10:52PM
[…] Levinas interprets the caress and pleasure as figures of erotic desire. The negativity of absence is essential to both. The caress is a “game with something slipping away.” It reaches for what is vanishing into the future without end. Its desire is nourished by what doesn’t yet exist. The absence of the Other in the midst of shared sensuality is also what constitutes the depth and intensity of pleasure. Today, love—which now means nothing more than need, satisfaction, and enjoyment—is incompatible with the withdrawal and delay of the Other.
reply
|
flag
