babyfinland posted:

aerdil posted:

Jacques Lacan reminds us, that in sex, each individual is to a large extent on their own, if I can put it that way. Naturally, the others body has to be mediated, but at the end of the day, the pleasure will always be your pleasure. Sex separates, doesn’t unite. The fact that you are naked and pressing against the other is an image, an imaginary representation. What is real is that the pleasure takes you a long way, very far from the other. What is real is narcissistic, what binds is imaginary.. So there is no such thing as a sexual relationship, concludes Lacan. His proposition shocked people since at the time everybody was talking about nothing else but “sexual relationships”. If there is no sexual relationship in sexuality, love is what fills the absence of a sexual relationship. Lacan doesn’t say that love is a disguise for sexual relationships; he says that sexual relationships doen’t exist, that love is what comes to replace that non-relationship. This idea leads him to say that in love the other tries to approach “the being of the other”. In love the individual goes beyond himself, beyond the narcissistic. In sex, you are really in a relationship with yourself via the mediation of the other. The other helps you to discover the reality of pleasure. In love, on the contrary, the mediation of the other is enough in itself. Such is the nature of the amorous encounter: you go to take on the other, to make him or her exist with you as she or he is. It is a much more profound conception of love that the entirely banal view that love is no more than an imaginary canvas painted over the reality of sex.

ayn rand shit

of all that is entirely voluntary and willfully ideological

hahahahah how did you manage to say a much more obtuse and ridiculous thing in two lines than that long paragraph by alain miller or whoever translated from french. amazing

aerdil posted:

i'm still laughing that the concept of love being the notion of living within the mediation of the other as he or she really is, beyond selfish conceptions and narcissism, somehow translated as "ayn rand shit" to babyfinland. you'd think de-emphasizing the importance of shallow sexual relationships would be something he'd agree with.

randian romantic love is the exact opposite of the lacanian notion; for ayn rand, you, as an individual, value the other person's exemplary qualities for what it does for yourself. what's happening is exactly the description of sex that badiou provides in that quote: "you are really in a relationship with yourself via the mediation of the other."

ayn rand, being an idiot and forming a completely opposite idea of love than what is provided in badiou's quote:

Selfless love would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person’s need of you. I don’t have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.

thats not how i read that paragraph at all. i guess im just a big dumb idiot who everyone should hate

EmanuelaOrlandi posted:

i like you tom. but only to troll aerdil lol.

well youre doing it wrong

*hands you a flail and turns around and peels off shirt*

Myfanwy posted:

I think there are two kinds of romantic love: one is a super intense intoxicating kind, that usually burns up quickly but is amazing before everything dissolves into conflict.

The other is is a calmer kind, that can last for a long time, that is based on the sort of full acceptance of each person of themselves and the other, that seems like what lacan is describing. it just sounds disconcerting because of all the negative prefixes.

So when people talk about love or disagree aboot it, there are crossed up separate phenomena that they might be tripping over

you're right on point, in the art of courtly love (the most popular work of the medieval fin d'amor genre) andreas capellanus sort of combines ovid and islamic conceptions of love to generate two forms: mixed and pure love, which correspond with what youre talking about respectively

aerdil posted:

babyfinland posted:

i actually didnt read the second half of the paragraph, just the stuff about how love seperates and all that kind of thing. reading it now i see what you mean aerdil. *pulls down pants and bends over armchair*

he said sex separates, not love. conflating the two is part of the problem being discussed

ya

i dont really get that but ok

babyfinland posted:

aerdil posted:

babyfinland posted:

i actually didnt read the second half of the paragraph, just the stuff about how love seperates and all that kind of thing. reading it now i see what you mean aerdil. *pulls down pants and bends over armchair*

he said sex separates, not love. conflating the two is part of the problem being discussed

ya

i dont really get that but ok

the extreme case of sex without love is like deadken. like one night stands, and sex addictions

blinkandwheeze posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

Alright i can understand Lacan but even if all the narcissistic pleasure stuff is true, how does sex "separate" two people further than if they never fucked at all.

hmm i donno m8 *scene cuts to a bleary eyed deadken, roused by the cold light of dawn. shambling across a floor full of clumsily strewn high life bottles to reach the bathroom sink - he catches sight of himself in the mirror, and begins to gently weep*

Yes well Ken’s Self might be a rocky road, but perhaps him and the poor sorority girl now have some sort of…cosmic connection?...that they wouldn’t have had if they only made eye contact across a busy beer-pong table.

Perhaps every time we make love to someone we take a little piece of them, which is why prostitutes are far more in touch with the human condition than nearly any other profession.

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

Yes well Ken’s Self might be a rocky road, but perhaps him and the poor sorority girl now have some sort of…cosmic connection?...that they wouldn’t have had if they only made eye contact across a busy beer-pong table.

lol not any more m8

Transient_Grace posted:

Ugh, did you honestly say "maybe if i read philosopher x i'll become a better person"? you are a very confused young man Ken.

I agree with your disdain for this sentiment, but do you think it applies as well if we put “The Bible” in place of “Philosopher X”?

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

Transient_Grace posted:
Ugh, did you honestly say "maybe if i read philosopher x i'll become a better person"? you are a very confused young man Ken.


I agree with your disdain for this sentiment, but do you think it applies as well if we put “The Bible” in place of “Philosopher X”?

Well, plenty of rather awful people have read the bible.

Transient_Grace posted:

Ugh, did you honestly say "maybe if i read philosopher x i'll become a better person"? you are a very confused young man Ken. will certain philosopher inform you of what's right or wrong? don't you already know now? this is an intellectual excuse for procrastination and you're coming off as a pretentious oaf my friend.

oh no not pretension lol

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

well where can i hear the christian gods authentic voice then!