Continuing forward with another concept that hinders love in the modern era, Han introduces us to the notion of “bare life”. But first recall 1) the inferno of the same refers to the world of constant repetition of very similar experiences masquerading as novelty; 2) posit, positive, and positivity are a type of power relation in which one tries to form the other into what one is comfortable with – it’s over use is a detriment to Eros; 3) negativity is the unexpected, what cannot be understood or made comfortable – it is being engineered out of life experience to the detriment of Eros; 4) an entrepreneur of the self is a slave to themselves, someone who is obsessed with achievement: their life is bare life.
Bare life is the result of failing to invest in life to the point of death. To help understand the notion of bare life, Han starts off describing G.E.F. Hegel’s master-slave dialectic which “describes the battle for life and death. The party who emerges as master does not fear death. The desire for freedom, recognition, and sovereignty raises the master above concern for bare life. It is fear of dying that induces the future slave to subordinate himself to the Other. Preferring servitude to the threat of death, the slave clings to bare life. Physical superiority does not determine the outcome of the struggle. Instead, what proves decisive is the ‘ability to die’ or a capacity for death. Those who do not have freedom unto death do not risk their life. Instead of ‘following through to the point of death’…, they remain ‘standing alone within death’…. The slave does not venture as far as death, and therefore becomes a vassal who labours.” In today’s language the word master may be better said as leader; the word slave is better thought of as follower, worker, or pleaser. In this light most human relations follow the master slave dialectic: the person in any power relationship that is willing to invest their life closest to the point of death becomes the master; the other becomes the slave (Han recognizes that there is a still an uneven distribution of investment needed to “win” if you are on the wrong side of the class, gender, race divides). Bare life is similar to Nietzsche’s concept of the last man who is only concerned with survival, averageness, comfort and ease (in the sense of the inferno of the same) rather than the superman’s concern for freedom, sovereignty, greatness, daring, and exceptionality. Bare life has little or no discomfort, no risk, and no negativity in the sense of amplitudes of emotion and/or meaning: it only has hard work (I have to make sure, the kids are fed, I’m not late, I don’t over spend, I have to do my work out etc.) “Work and bare life are closely related. Both constitute reactions to the negativity of death. Today, the defense of bare life is intensifying into the absolutization and fetishization of health.” Bare life may include happiness (in the sense of enjoyment) but it is not really meaningful in any dramatic, epic, purposeful or transcendental way. (While some religious traditions might find some meaning in bare life there is still no Eros in bare life).
“Capitalism absolutizes bare life. Its telos is not the good life….merely accumulating capital [achievements, experiences etc.] merits scorn because it has not concern for the good life—only for bare life”. Quoting Aristotle: “they are preoccupied with living, not living well.”
“Eros as excess and transgression denies both work and bare life.” In today’s world the auto-exploiting achievement-subject is a slave to themselves pursuing mere survival – the bare life – forever and ever. Modern capitalism has become obscene by seeking to eliminate all other orders of value as it drives the inferno of the same into eternity without conclusion. Capitalism seeks motion without end (in both senses of end). “The depressive-narcissistic subject has no capacity for conclusion. Yet without conclusion, everything dissolves and becomes a blur…. Depression characterizes our age; thanks to excessive openness and unlimitedness, the capacity to close and conclude has disappeared. The ability to die is vanishing, too, because no one can conclude his or her life. The achievement-subject has not capacity for bringing things to an end—for concluding, even provisionally. The subject breaks down under the compulsion to preform and produce accomplishments over and over.” As the ability to die vanishes so too do all the characteristics of Hegel’s master; as we become our own exploiters we become more concerned with mere survival at the expense of the erotic. “‘Eroticism…is assenting to life up to the point of death’. What is affirmed here is not bare life—which flees the negativity of the death. Instead, the impulse to live, heightened to the utmost and affirmed, approaches the impulse to die. Eros is the medium for intensifying life to the point of death…” there is no space for Eros in bare life because bare life cannot conclude. The “conclusion” that Han refers to is in the sense of risking it all to get a resolution or end. He writes that the conclusion can take a long time, even a life time. Achievement society has perverted the erotic by making the end of life bare life: mere survival. Eros presupposes death as the surrender of the self. But “The consciousness of the Hegelian slave is restricted; the slave is incapable of admitting an absolute end because he cannot relinquish self-consciousness—that is, he has no ability to die, no capacity for death.”
The power of Eros is not the power of a master over the Other; that is the violence of Ares. The power of Eros is a powerlessness, a loss of self in or for the Other then the Other becomes the focus of life. This is vitality as opposed to vigor. “whatever is merely positive is lifeless. Negativity is essential to vitality….vitality differs from the vigor or fitness of bare life…. A survivor is like the undead: too dead to live, and to alive to die.” The legend of the Flying Dutchman is a metaphor for today’s goal of the achievement society: “whose freedom amounts to being condemned to perpetual self-exploitation….unable either to live or to die. Damned to journey eternally in the inferno of the same, he yearns for an apocalypse that would set him free from torment” without conclusion.
“Porn is a matter of bare life on display. The antagonist of eros, it annihilates even sexuality…” even more effectively than puritanical morality. “The pornographication of the world is unfolding as the profanation of the world.” To profane something is to neglect it’s sacred set apart status; to make useable again what was saved from use; to reveal the mystery.
“The erotic is never free from secrecy” or from mystery because the atopic Other is the unknown and the focus of the erotic. So, “nudity that is displayed without secrecy or expression approaches pornographic bareness.” Museum and their pieces are often exhibitions that destroy the cult value of objects and subject matter; likewise tourism destroys the cult value of pilgrimages though the turning of sacred places into exhibition places where there is a safely, pleasant voyeuristic experience. The experience a museum or a tour provide of the way that people lived in the past or in faraway places is close to the experience a pornographic movie provides about sex: they are so far from the real deal that it is an exercise in voyeurism: a profaning of the subject matter by putting it on display in a way that destroys the Other. Museums, tours, and pornography are a power relation that forces there subject matter into our comfort zone, destroys the Other, and merely reflects back at us our desired self-image.
“Capitalism is aggravating the pornographication of society by making everything a commodity and putting it on display. Knowing no other use for sexuality, it profanes eros—into porn. This profanation is unfolding as deritualization and desecralization. Today, ritual spaces and actions are disappearing. The world is becoming more naked and more obscene.” The inferno of the same is getting hotter.