Admit "powerlessness"? -Death of desire

An efficient society is completely controlled by the modal verb "neng". On the contrary, a disciplined society is ruled by prohibitions, punishments and the modal verb "should". When productivity rises to a certain extent, "should" is quickly marginalized. In order to improve production efficiency, "can" replaced "should". The pursuit of motives, initiatives and projects is far more effective than piety, command and the exploitation it brings. For an entrepreneur, he doesn't have to succumb to a "other" who exploits and constrains himself, so he is a free labor subject, but this is not true freedom, because he breaks himself down into countless free parts and then exploits himself inward. The exploiter is also the exploited, just as the injurer is also the victim. Self-exploitation is more efficient than exploitation of others, because the former brings a feeling similar to freedom, or this kind of exploitation can be realized without being ruled.

Foucault pointed out that the neo-liberal economic man can't adapt to the disciplined society, and entrepreneurs are no longer the subject of listening to someone or an institution. But he hides another fact: entrepreneurs are not free. Freedom only exists in speculation. In fact, people are exploiting themselves. Foucault's position on neoliberalism is absolutely positive and uncritical. He believes that the neo-liberal regime is the "smallest national system" and a "free steward", which makes freedom exist in civil society. He completely ignored that the definition of "freedom" by neoliberalism is also a mandatory and binding framework. He called it "freedom on the road to freedom": "I will provide you with the conditions on the road to freedom. I will try to set you free. " Neo-liberalism's definition of freedom is like the contradictory imperative sentence "Please be free!" , make the labor subject depressed and exhausted. Foucault's "Ethics of Self" criticized the reactionary regime at that time, that is, the rule form of exploiting others, but ignored the powerful characteristics of freedom itself, which itself is the basis of self-exploitation.

The strong pressure brought by the word "you can" can usually destroy a labor subject. Forcing the self to constantly update seems to be a free practice, but in fact it makes the subject ignore his compulsion. "You can" is even more compulsive than "you should". Self-coercion can bring more obvious effects than forcing others, because you can't resist your will. The neo-liberal regime cleverly hides this compulsion under the superficial personal freedom. Individuals no longer regard themselves as subjects, but as projects that can be planned for the future. This is its cunning: whoever fails will bear the responsibility and no one should be blamed. There is no possibility of pleading and atonement, which is not only a crisis of responsibility, but also a crisis of return.

The premise of responsibility and reward is the existence of the other. Lack of contact with others will lead to a crisis of responsibility and reward. Contrary to popular inferences such as Walter Benjamin, these crises clearly show that capitalism is not a religion. Because all religions operate through crime and atonement. Capitalism is "borrowing", and there is no possibility that "debtors" can be exempted from the responsibility of "paying debts". Being unable to atone and be forgiven is also the reason for the depression of the working subject. Depression and job burnout) * * * have caused an irreversible "ability" crisis-mental "inability to pay" behavior.

Love is a kind of relationship with others that transcends work performance and ability, which is manifested as a modal verb to admit "helplessness". A constructive condition of love experience is that a person admits that he is "powerless" in front of "the other person". The "heterogeneity" of the other is the basic feature that determines its existence, and it is also the feature that we pursue in the most primitive relationship of love and desire and cannot be transformed into "ability". Pursuing the absoluteness of "ability" will destroy the existence of "the other", and the premise of communicating with the other is only a sense of powerlessness. Only by acknowledging "powerlessness" can the other party appear: "Should we say that our love for each other is a failure of powerlessness? If we use the usual definition to describe this term-for example, love is controllable, possessable and identifiable, the answer is "should be". Because there is no possession, no guarantee and no approval in love. If a person claims that he owns, masters and recognizes another person, this person is not the' other'. Possession, mastery and recognition are synonyms for' ability'. "

Today, love is simplified to sex, completely succumbing to mandatory performance and output. Sex is acting. Sexiness is a kind of capital that can be continuously increased. A body with exhibition value is equivalent to a commodity. Others are objects of sexual arousal. The other without "heterogeneity" cannot be loved by people and can only be consumed by people. Therefore, if the other is fragmented into one of many sexual objects, he does not have philosophical personality. Sex has no personality.

If you treat the other person as a sexual object, the "original distance" will also disappear. Martin buber regards "primitive distance" as the principle of "being a man" and thinks that it is the premise to arouse sexual excitement and transcend sensory intuition. "Primitive distance" can avoid transforming the other into an objective object and materializing it. We don't call the other person as a sexual object "you" because there is no substantive relationship with him. "Primitive distance" can give birth to an intuitive sense of ritual, liberate "heterogeneity" from others, and thus keep a distance from yourself, which makes the title "you" very useful. For a sex object, you just need to give orders without naming names. There is no so-called "face" for sexual objects, because "face" is very important for creating distance and reflecting the "heterogeneity" of the other party. Nowadays, the qualities of setting the distance between people, such as decency and integrity, are dying out from contemporary people, and the ability to experience "heterogeneity" in others is dying out.

Today, with the help of digital media, we strive to bring the distant other closer and even achieve zero distance. "Close distance" still means keeping a distance, while "zero distance" completely destroys this sense of distance. In this sense, "short distance" has become a negative sense of distance in everyone's heart. In today's society, the behavior of eliminating "sense of distance" is very popular, because "sense of distance" is negative and will create tension and pressure. Zero distance is therefore a positive result. However, the negative side is often the basis for a thing to become active by resorting to the positive side. Simple positive aspects are lifeless.

Nowadays, love is actively regarded as a kind of enjoyment. First of all, it must create a pleasant feeling, which should not be a plot, a story or a drama, but a constant emotion and excitement. There must be no negative behaviors such as injury, attack and blow. The fading of love itself is already a rather negative thing. But these negative aspects are actually part of the essence of love: "love is not a possibility, it does not exist based on our efforts and positive attitude, it can hit us and hurt us for no reason." However, in this performance and ability-oriented society, everything must have the characteristics of possibility, enthusiasm and project, and can not accept the harm and pain brought by love.

The principle of performance has dominated all fields of social life today, including love and sex. For this reason, the heroine in the best-selling novel Gray Shadow is surprised that her partner's requirements for the relationship are like "job advertisements, clear and fixed working hours, clear and complete task settings and strict and clear management methods to ensure work performance and quality". The principle of achievement cannot tolerate the negative effects of excesses, excesses and cross-border fouls. Therefore, in the "agreement" they signed, the obedient party, that is, the slave, has the obligation to meet the corresponding conditions, such as regular exercise, healthy eating, adequate sleep and so on. In addition to the necessary fruits, "slaves" are even forbidden to eat between meals. Slaves are not allowed to drink, smoke or take drugs, nor are they allowed to put themselves in any unnecessary danger. Even in sexual life, we must take health as the premise and prohibit all negative behaviors.

This long list of terms of the agreement even includes the use of excrement, and all symbolic or actual filth is excluded. The heroine shoulders the obligation of "keeping clean at all times and removing body hair with razor or beeswax". The operation mode of SM described in the novel is another embodiment of this sexual relationship. It is forbidden to transgress and violate the intention, and it is marked as "sexual taboo" in Ba Taye. A woman who participates in SM must not violate the "hard restrictions" agreed in advance in the agreement. The so-called "safe word" is only to ensure that she will not be subjected to excessive and unrestrained coercion. The frequent use of the adjective "delicious" also embodies a compulsory meaning of catering, which transforms all behaviors into a mode of enjoyment and consumption. So fifty shades of grey even used the word "delicious punishment". In the "positive world", only consumable things are allowed to exist, and pain must also exist in a way that is enjoyed. There is no negativity or negation contained in Hegel's "pain".

One-off "now" is a secular world full of homogenization. On the contrary, the future is unpredictable and full of surprises. The relationship with the future is similar to the relationship with the "other" and cannot be described in the language of the same world. Today's "future" rejects all the negatives from the "other" world and is regarded as a better present, excluding all disasters. To list and classify existing things is to destroy the "past" Through the replicable present, the "past" got rid of the irretrievable negativity. Memory is not only an organ to restore existing things, but also to constantly change them. This is a continuous, active and narrative process. Different from memory, data storage is a technical medium that completely deprives the stored things of vitality, and memory transcends time. Therefore, what we have is an absolute "present", which obliterates the instantaneity and fragmentation of time and turns sometimes into timeless. Time is just a simple superposition, no longer limited by situations and circumstances, just like a clock ticking, it is not driven by everything, and every moment makes way for this second tick.

Lust is inseparable from the absence of the "other". What is absent is not "emptiness", but "visible future", because the future belongs to "other" time. The absolutization of "the present" means the homogenization of time, so that the other can always be dominated. Therefore, Levinas regards caress and lewdness as the projection of lust. The absence of the other party is very important to both sides. Caressing is "a game of things that can be escaped at any time", and it is the pursuit of things that can't be stopped in the future. According to Levinas, desire is nourished by things that want to succeed and come to the future. The absence of the other in all sensory sets is very important for the tension and intensity of sensory enjoyment. In today's society, "love" represents nothing more than demand, satisfaction and enjoyment, and has nothing to do with each other's existence. As a search and consumption machine, today's society has erased all the needs compatible with others, and there is nothing in the world that can't be found, grabbed and consumed. Lust is awakened by "face", which not only reminds each other of their existence, but also denies each other. The word "face" he used is the exact opposite of ordinary "face". It is a completely visible and consumable commodity, which is naked and erotic.

Although Levinas' Ethics of Love avoids extreme situations such as madness and fanaticism, it thoroughly points out the importance of "the other". The uncontrollable absolute otherness (atopische Andersheit) is on the verge of extinction in today's increasingly narcissistic society. In addition, Levinas' sexual ethics opposes the materialization and commercialization of the other. He believes that capitalism eliminates absolute otherness and makes everything subservient to the consumer society. However, love reflects the asymmetric relationship with others, not the capitalist barter relationship, so it is impossible to make ends meet.