“What” is Love for? Eroticism as a Response to Violence in the Work of Byung-Chul Han

Abstract

The article analyzes eroticism as a means of resistance to psychopolitics, the hegemonic system of our time, according to the South Korean philosopher, Byung-Chul Han. This model of social organization enslaves individuals using a positive command of behavior. Therefore overcomes the negative tyranny of disciplinary power in force in the past century. The neoliberalism of the 21st century orders, through affirmative stimuli, that each individual undertakes himself as a 'project self' using three forms of psychic-emotional control that, in fact, become violent modes of power: the dictatorship of transparency; the hell of the equal; the coercion of oppressive freedom. For the philosopher, eros is an important transgressive force capable of interdicting the brutality of these violations, causing the 'us-subject', erotically retaken, to rekindle in society the capacity of bonding and mutuality through the exodus of oneself towards the other. However, the article also asks to what extent this theory can respond to the negative violence of colonial capitalism, synonymous of the devastation and destruction of otherness, still so deep-rooted and active in the contemporary world.