The Concentration Camps of Love
Liberal governing is planned as a homeostat: an apparatus that makes sure nothing important changes (Tiqqun argue, rightly, that today the main purpose of profit extraction is control: “preventing anything from happening”). The global deployment of ecstasy dispositifs applies itself to a few tasks: shaping all ecstasies according to these dispositifs' codes; blocking any fantasy about other, free-code, forms of ecstasy; and obliterating any space where unruly ecstasies might develop. The drive to create a "total apparatus of ecstasy” within which all subjects would desire and enjoy similarly is not just an efficient profit-making ploy (desire drives sales); but also a strategy for ensuring mass devotion and docility, since such and apparatus binds all intensities of life to the dominant regime. Contemporary cybergoverning - instagram, youtube, facefuck and the such - is pretty close to achieving this total apparatus.
Built in 1948 from four bomb control units, the homeostat's sole function was to automatically adapt its configuration so as to neutralise the effects of any disturbance introduced in the system. It was maintaining its state of ultra-stability through habituation, reinforcement and learning. Its inventor, who was connected to the early cybernetics scene, described it as a brain - to me it seems more like a scale model of liberal governing; or, indeed, of bourgeois subjectivity.
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For the disciplining of desire and ecstasy to work, though, as is the case in any power relation, the object of discipline has to play along. The bourgeois is precisely that subject that cooperates, that enjoys enjoying within the bourgeois theme parks and is terrified by the idea of being kicked out of them. However, to continue believing that the Euro-bourgeois way of life is the best (modern, civilised, etc.) in the world, the bourgeois subject has to perform a demanding operation, which consists of ignoring that this life is a mass-produced series of obsessions and compulsions, a sort of idiotic mechanical waltz. The (feigned) smugness of the proud citizens of the world order thus depends on a will-to-not-know, on a hysterical blindness.
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This will-to-not-know makes sure that none of the bourgeois' desires or ecstasies spill outside the domain controlled by the bourgeois apparatuses because clearly, to have fun in the amusement park, the bourgeois has to block any reflection about the relentless stupidity of the rides and about how having fun outside these rides might look like; all fantasies of the "outside" must be carefully kept within the repertoire produced by the various official ministries of light and magic - media, film industry, official education, etc.- which make sure they look like sheer horror. And a faithful bourgeois never diverts their eyes from the screen.
Due to the very intimate (but highly anxiogenic) relationship between their ecstasies and the ruling dispositifs, each bourgeois becomes a policeman in the libidinal wars of capitalism, defending the trenches of dominant ecstasy with their lives and aggressively attacking any non-regulated ecstasies. The bourgeois needs to do this precisely in order to be able "to continue believing that the Euro-bourgeois way of life is the best in the world" (and here again I agree with Tiqqun's observation that every citizen of the Empire is a cop - yes, I quite liked their Introduction to Civil War) .
In what follows I will speculate a bit about how this process of ecstatic (self-)policing works in the field of romance, sex and love; there are probably more illustrative and less ambiguous fields one could talk about, but this one seems to be considered “incontestably desirable” not just in the mainstream but also in my "anti-capitalist" circles and so worth bringing up.
The Plastic Flowers of Romance
The most radical the opponents of the bourgeois regime think they are, the more they imagine they should be living a life of burning passion, a constant high of intensity. This is because they imagine that bourgeois life is devoid of fun or, rather, full of mediocre fun, and therefore an anti-bourgeois life should be the opposite. This is a naive fantasy - no doubt, the ecstasies of the bourgeois are stupid, scripted and pernicious, like those to be had in any amusement park; but if their will-to-not-know works properly, they will have fun in the rides, over and over (even if anxiety constantly complicates this fun). Anyway, the imperative to live a life of passion very often drives "radicals" towards experiments in the “romantic” field, the field of <love/sex/gender>. However, this is a minefield of dispositifs, trapping one in rituals and yearnings charted by books, magazines, songs, soap-operas, films or blogs; soon after entering this field, the sugary vapours of bourgeois idyll will fill up even the most “antibourgeois” spaces, keeping all energies and practices within the homeostat and neutralising any desire for libidinal secession. It is, therefore, worth discussing some of the basic mechanisms of bourgeois romance and start thinking about how they apply, or not, to our own fantasies and practices.
In my opinion, the bourgeois will-to-not-know functions pretty smoothly within most "anti-capitalist" environments, even if our blind spots might be slightly different from those of the more faithful citizens. Most of us seem happy to forget that our ecstasies are still ruled by the obsessive mechanisms of the bourgeois psyche - submission, narcissism, martyrdom or aggressiveness. We seem happy to forget that, as a default, our ecstasies are phallic. And we seem happy to forget that in the bourgeois era <love/sex/gender> is a technique of control, implanted at the core of subjectivity like a microchip that programs our sense of selfhood, relevance, worth and enjoyment.
This is nothing new, it was hypothesised by Foucault a long, long time ago and his rather unexpected attack on the political certainties of his time exposed both the “repressive hypothesis” (the deluded "radical" belief that capitalism forbids the "free" expression of our sexualities) and “sexual revolution” (the delusion that if we "set free" our desire or sexualities capitalism will crumble) as, well, delusions. On the contrary, the bourgeois regime constantly titillates sexual desire in one way or another and, far from forbidding it, actually struggles to impose the vocabulary of sex/sexuality as the most obvious field in which we should express all our desires, our “innermost” self and, of course, our ecstasies. Or, in Foucault's own words, through laborious police work, “sex”, a “fictitious unity … [became] a causal principle, an omnipresent meaning, a secret to be discovered everywhere”.
Foucault's hypothesis seems to hold: since the Victorian age we have been flooded by various waves of bourgeois “sexual revolution” and each of them increased the efficiency of <love/sex/gender> as a governing machine. By now, the “truth”, “happiness” and "worth" of each and every one of us is measured in <love/sex/gender> units that, just like money, became a universal measure of desirability and worth. “As good as/Better than sex…” or “Orgasmic!” denote one’s enjoyment of anything, from a visit to the spa to shopping and eating; and, just like money, <love/sex/gender> symbolizes the path to self-discovery, liberation, reinvention or revolution.
So, dear friends and lovers, I think it is time to face it: there is no possible way that in the bourgeois order <lovesexgender> can be revolutionary, trangressive, subversive, destructive or even mildly disrupting. This is an order extremely versed in deploying <lovesexgender> as a mechanism of capture and governing and no matter how, where and with whom you do it, they will calmly watch the show, applaud and, if it's disturbing enough, offer you a contract deal. I'm not saying sex cannot be fun but that it is expertly governed fun and, therefore, it is good for getting some thrills out of but not for any antibourgeois purposes. Moreover, if used naively, the <love/sex/gender> performances will do the contrary: they will tie up your fantasies to the two glittering poles of bourgeois love, the perfect couple and “free love”, and keep your libido as docile as the workday of a State bureaucrat.
Due to the very intimate (but highly anxiogenic) relationship between their ecstasies and the ruling dispositifs, each bourgeois becomes a policeman in the libidinal wars of capitalism, defending the trenches of dominant ecstasy with their lives and aggressively attacking any non-regulated ecstasies. The bourgeois needs to do this precisely in order to be able "to continue believing that the Euro-bourgeois way of life is the best in the world" (and here again I agree with Tiqqun's observation that every citizen of the Empire is a cop - yes, I quite liked their Introduction to Civil War) .
In what follows I will speculate a bit about how this process of ecstatic (self-)policing works in the field of romance, sex and love; there are probably more illustrative and less ambiguous fields one could talk about, but this one seems to be considered “incontestably desirable” not just in the mainstream but also in my "anti-capitalist" circles and so worth bringing up.
The Plastic Flowers of Romance
The most radical the opponents of the bourgeois regime think they are, the more they imagine they should be living a life of burning passion, a constant high of intensity. This is because they imagine that bourgeois life is devoid of fun or, rather, full of mediocre fun, and therefore an anti-bourgeois life should be the opposite. This is a naive fantasy - no doubt, the ecstasies of the bourgeois are stupid, scripted and pernicious, like those to be had in any amusement park; but if their will-to-not-know works properly, they will have fun in the rides, over and over (even if anxiety constantly complicates this fun). Anyway, the imperative to live a life of passion very often drives "radicals" towards experiments in the “romantic” field, the field of <love/sex/gender>. However, this is a minefield of dispositifs, trapping one in rituals and yearnings charted by books, magazines, songs, soap-operas, films or blogs; soon after entering this field, the sugary vapours of bourgeois idyll will fill up even the most “antibourgeois” spaces, keeping all energies and practices within the homeostat and neutralising any desire for libidinal secession. It is, therefore, worth discussing some of the basic mechanisms of bourgeois romance and start thinking about how they apply, or not, to our own fantasies and practices.
In my opinion, the bourgeois will-to-not-know functions pretty smoothly within most "anti-capitalist" environments, even if our blind spots might be slightly different from those of the more faithful citizens. Most of us seem happy to forget that our ecstasies are still ruled by the obsessive mechanisms of the bourgeois psyche - submission, narcissism, martyrdom or aggressiveness. We seem happy to forget that, as a default, our ecstasies are phallic. And we seem happy to forget that in the bourgeois era <love/sex/gender> is a technique of control, implanted at the core of subjectivity like a microchip that programs our sense of selfhood, relevance, worth and enjoyment.
This is nothing new, it was hypothesised by Foucault a long, long time ago and his rather unexpected attack on the political certainties of his time exposed both the “repressive hypothesis” (the deluded "radical" belief that capitalism forbids the "free" expression of our sexualities) and “sexual revolution” (the delusion that if we "set free" our desire or sexualities capitalism will crumble) as, well, delusions. On the contrary, the bourgeois regime constantly titillates sexual desire in one way or another and, far from forbidding it, actually struggles to impose the vocabulary of sex/sexuality as the most obvious field in which we should express all our desires, our “innermost” self and, of course, our ecstasies. Or, in Foucault's own words, through laborious police work, “sex”, a “fictitious unity … [became] a causal principle, an omnipresent meaning, a secret to be discovered everywhere”.
Foucault's hypothesis seems to hold: since the Victorian age we have been flooded by various waves of bourgeois “sexual revolution” and each of them increased the efficiency of <love/sex/gender> as a governing machine. By now, the “truth”, “happiness” and "worth" of each and every one of us is measured in <love/sex/gender> units that, just like money, became a universal measure of desirability and worth. “As good as/Better than sex…” or “Orgasmic!” denote one’s enjoyment of anything, from a visit to the spa to shopping and eating; and, just like money, <love/sex/gender> symbolizes the path to self-discovery, liberation, reinvention or revolution.
So, dear friends and lovers, I think it is time to face it: there is no possible way that in the bourgeois order <lovesexgender> can be revolutionary, trangressive, subversive, destructive or even mildly disrupting. This is an order extremely versed in deploying <lovesexgender> as a mechanism of capture and governing and no matter how, where and with whom you do it, they will calmly watch the show, applaud and, if it's disturbing enough, offer you a contract deal. I'm not saying sex cannot be fun but that it is expertly governed fun and, therefore, it is good for getting some thrills out of but not for any antibourgeois purposes. Moreover, if used naively, the <love/sex/gender> performances will do the contrary: they will tie up your fantasies to the two glittering poles of bourgeois love, the perfect couple and “free love”, and keep your libido as docile as the workday of a State bureaucrat.
The Four-eyed Despotic Machine as a Ga[s]ping Fortress
Why are the bourgeois obstinately looking for the “perfect couple”, “the great love” or “the one”? For the same reason they engage in any other phallic ritual: to drown the anxiety of not knowing if they're desirable or not. In this case, anxiety is dipped into the syrupy (Platonic) myth that somewhere out there, awaiting, there is a “perfect half” that will make us whole, complete, uncertainty-free and anxiety-free. In this fantasy of matching halves erring the Earth like hungry bats, the “perfect couple” is itself imagined as a homeostat of desire: a machine that keeps one’s desirability constant by restricting the circulation of "love" to the two halves. As long as no “love-like affect” escapes the confines of the love dyad, the fantasy goes, neither half will be anxious about their desirability. The eternal “Do they find me desirable?” question seems resolved: in the boudoir of “supreme love”, the other half is a mirror that reflects me as always desirable.“Reflected in the eyes of the loved one”, fantasises the bourgeois, “I will never again have to experience the anxiety of not knowing if I am lovable or not”.
Exploiting this drive towards homeostasis that matches its own, the bourgeois regime deploys a complex web of romance apparatuses: some fuel the romantic fantasy (films, books, songs, horoscopes, etc.); some help one half find the other (dating agencies, self-help manuals, etc., the whole industry meant to help us track down our “match”); others help one assert possession of the one or, at least, make the others and the Other aware that we have found the one (matrimony, civil partnership, various formal or informal contracts and arrangements among couples, etc.); other announce that we are on the market again (divorce or a “single” status on our facefuck page); and others titillate the always dwindling excitement of the dyadic machine (whatever gimmick directed at spicing up the life of the romantic couple, from honeymoons and romantic holidays to porn, love hotels, sex shops, family homes, theatres, restaurants, interior decoration shops or swinger’s clubs). The fantasy of the perfect couple is a gigantic venture and most effective governmental tool.
The Economics of the Love-Homeostat
Applying liberal economics to the libidinal realm means that the bourgeois imagines love as a zero-sum: if some is given to someone else, I am left with less; if any flow of desire escapes the dyadic love machine, my self-assurance about being desirable to my partner will dwindle, bringing back anxiety.
What does a bourgeois do once they think they have found “the one”, the “only one”, the “final one”, then?
Obviously, defend the dyadic circulation of libidinal flows against intrusion or spillage: in place is put an alarm, surveillance and control apparatus that makes sure no love-like or affinity-like or ecstasy-like situation happens outside of the “incubator of love”. Spilling any form of ecstasy out of the boundaries of the couple becomes interpreted as a betrayal, as if they where State secrets. Enters the terrifying blackmail: “But I love you, how could you do this to me? I am innocent, suffering like a martyr – you are a heartless tormentor! You are guilty!” which engulfs the other completely in the self-love of the “betrayed” half, a lubricant to their desirability.
This is the logic of private property and copyright, of secrets and intrigue, of suspicion, paranoia and spying: an intimate refinement of the most efficient techniques of modern governing, a gardening of affect that shapes the sprawling plant of ecstasy, already sickly, in the form of a scrawny tree, a sad penguin, a desiccated swan.
My Schism with Sentimentalism
As a trope, sentimentalism asks the spectator to “feel” that is, to identify "directly" with the symbolic codes displayed, often in hidden form, by the melodramatic image or narrative, without ever inquiring into the processes of production of theses codes. And identification with a sentimental scene - be it in a film, book, story or scene we witness - always reiterates the tropes of bourgeois ecstasy, learned early and by now deeply familiar: one is emotionally affected by stories related to the suffering of the family (the heart-breaking struggles of mommy and/or daddy, of the lost or abandoned child, of the vulnerable, persecuted poor or single woman); or by tales of noble bourgeois sacrifice (struggle for the survival of the liberal ‘community’, rags to riches success, expressing one’s talent or resolve against systematic duress, self-denying protestant ethics, vanquishing the exclusion and aggressiveness with which “intolerant” groups punish one’s “uniqueness” or “difference”; and so on); or by other similarly predictable ideological trope that confirms the bourgeois order as normal, desirable and perfect(ible). Even the rare cases of poignantly constructed sentimental social critiques allow a performance of the will-to-not-know, in which the suffering of the bourgeois spectator alongside the protagonist exonerates the spectator of responsibility for their subsequent ecstasies. Identification with the suffering character assuages bourgeois guilt without any further need for a change of desire or conduct, without responsibility: making a show of it in front of the Other is enough. And thus we understand why the present bourgeois order never tires of sentimentalism.
As a trope, sentimentalism asks the spectator to “feel” that is, to identify "directly" with the symbolic codes displayed, often in hidden form, by the melodramatic image or narrative, without ever inquiring into the processes of production of theses codes. And identification with a sentimental scene - be it in a film, book, story or scene we witness - always reiterates the tropes of bourgeois ecstasy, learned early and by now deeply familiar: one is emotionally affected by stories related to the suffering of the family (the heart-breaking struggles of mommy and/or daddy, of the lost or abandoned child, of the vulnerable, persecuted poor or single woman); or by tales of noble bourgeois sacrifice (struggle for the survival of the liberal ‘community’, rags to riches success, expressing one’s talent or resolve against systematic duress, self-denying protestant ethics, vanquishing the exclusion and aggressiveness with which “intolerant” groups punish one’s “uniqueness” or “difference”; and so on); or by other similarly predictable ideological trope that confirms the bourgeois order as normal, desirable and perfect(ible). Even the rare cases of poignantly constructed sentimental social critiques allow a performance of the will-to-not-know, in which the suffering of the bourgeois spectator alongside the protagonist exonerates the spectator of responsibility for their subsequent ecstasies. Identification with the suffering character assuages bourgeois guilt without any further need for a change of desire or conduct, without responsibility: making a show of it in front of the Other is enough. And thus we understand why the present bourgeois order never tires of sentimentalism.
“I’ve Tried to Get Out, But They Brought me Back in!”
All this policing is in vain: desire escapes attempts to keep it certain. But the “outside” of the couple fantasy is not a mythical space of freedom where desire roams wild and love multiplies without the shackles of governing. It is not because they desire outside the dyad that a bourgeois ceases to be a bourgeois: outside the couple the bourgeois follows the same phallic patterns, looking for certainty, for self-confirmation, for domination, for assets, for credentials, for victory, for possession; they apply the same techniques of seduction and control, mobilising their castration anxiety, martyrdom and narcissism to subdue the others and searching to re-create the power relations they know and enjoy. Desire escapes from the concentration camp of the “perfect couple” only to enter another camp – dating, the orgy, the polyamoury, the swinging, the sex worker, the porn, the exotic sex holiday, the strip or sex club, etc. The irony being that the escape from the “perfect couple” is to start with teased by these “alternative” lovesex apparatuses that promise “fulfilment through libidinal freedom”.
All this policing is in vain: desire escapes attempts to keep it certain. But the “outside” of the couple fantasy is not a mythical space of freedom where desire roams wild and love multiplies without the shackles of governing. It is not because they desire outside the dyad that a bourgeois ceases to be a bourgeois: outside the couple the bourgeois follows the same phallic patterns, looking for certainty, for self-confirmation, for domination, for assets, for credentials, for victory, for possession; they apply the same techniques of seduction and control, mobilising their castration anxiety, martyrdom and narcissism to subdue the others and searching to re-create the power relations they know and enjoy. Desire escapes from the concentration camp of the “perfect couple” only to enter another camp – dating, the orgy, the polyamoury, the swinging, the sex worker, the porn, the exotic sex holiday, the strip or sex club, etc. The irony being that the escape from the “perfect couple” is to start with teased by these “alternative” lovesex apparatuses that promise “fulfilment through libidinal freedom”.
When the bourgeois realises that they cannot obtain the certainty that they are desirable - “satisfaction” - outside the dyadic couple, they start once again aiming for a "controlled environment" full of fences, curfews, contracts, rules, regulations and algorithms. My, what off-putting connotations “polyamoury” (polyarmoury?) or “free love” - or any form of ecstasy, really - have gained since appropriated by the bourgeoisie, who immediately established disciplinary codes to purge them of uncertainty and anxiety. Have you ever encountered these sad polyamorous formations that spend as much time trying to police their flows of affect and bodily fluids as wealthy monogamous bourgeois couples spend in therapy?. Or those "love groups" that, in all seriousness - and being serious is always an imperative in such groups - apply to their members the various techniques of “care” and “self-affirmation” developed by the State sciences of economics, management or psychology to calm down the anxieties of domesticated workers? Also in vain, of course: laying down the detailed algorithms of consent before every fuck will not guarantee “no one gets hurt”, will not remove power relations, conflict, ambivalence, cruelty, narcissism, manipulation or the fact that ecstasy can turn around and bite your face. This lack of guarantees does not mean that ecstasies are wild and natural but only that, first, their determinations are illogical, specular, circular and dissimulated through various mechanisms, becoming particularly invisible to the ones experiencing them; and second, that bourgeois libidinal practices are phallic and will be pursued with terrible narcissistic obstinacy, using all the aggressive tropes of bourgeois selfhood without much regard for the other.
Is There a Beyond to the Fake Choices of Bourgeois Love?
This analysis of bourgeois love is not a moral-ethical one. There is no principled stance in favour of either monogamy or polyamoury, orgy, polygamy or whatever “emancipated” love/sex practices. Both coupledom and polyamoury etc. can be nasty environments as long as they are populated by subjects whose egos, ecstasies and desires have been created by the bourgeois love apparatuses. If we are to understand the effects of these apparatuses on ourselves and our collectives, we need to steer clear of principles and to talk about ecstasies as political practices that affect our ability to invent new forms of life.
But it seems that things are a bit more complicated than initially thought: we cannot hope to get out of the monogamous couple and, equipped with the same old arsenal of bourgeois desires and ecstasy techniques, to jump into the “freedom” of polyamoury or whatever. The results might be either loneliness or a culture of algorithms, mutual therapy and hitting the others over the head with one’s trauma. We will probably spend even more time policing and disciplining than before. The idea is rather to throw away this entire arsenal.
But how? How can one assassinate their own techniques of ecstasy, the only thing they've got to prove their existence as an “individual” to the Other? I don't know (yet). I believe that the social nature of desire gives us plenty of room to maneuver; but I also know that our patterns of desire and ecstasy are fantastically resilient, precisely because they anchor the delusion of the "unique self". We do need to create the flying machines we can jump in once we’re out of the bourgeois concentration camps of love, be they monogamous or polyamourous. And to even test the hypothesis that such machines can fly, we need unusual experiments, experiments that are hard to imagine from within the current apparatuses of ecstasy. This is the conundrum that living in the bourgeois regime of ecstasy creates. Getting out will not be easy - it might, however, be fun to try …
Is There a Beyond to the Fake Choices of Bourgeois Love?
This analysis of bourgeois love is not a moral-ethical one. There is no principled stance in favour of either monogamy or polyamoury, orgy, polygamy or whatever “emancipated” love/sex practices. Both coupledom and polyamoury etc. can be nasty environments as long as they are populated by subjects whose egos, ecstasies and desires have been created by the bourgeois love apparatuses. If we are to understand the effects of these apparatuses on ourselves and our collectives, we need to steer clear of principles and to talk about ecstasies as political practices that affect our ability to invent new forms of life.
But it seems that things are a bit more complicated than initially thought: we cannot hope to get out of the monogamous couple and, equipped with the same old arsenal of bourgeois desires and ecstasy techniques, to jump into the “freedom” of polyamoury or whatever. The results might be either loneliness or a culture of algorithms, mutual therapy and hitting the others over the head with one’s trauma. We will probably spend even more time policing and disciplining than before. The idea is rather to throw away this entire arsenal.
But how? How can one assassinate their own techniques of ecstasy, the only thing they've got to prove their existence as an “individual” to the Other? I don't know (yet). I believe that the social nature of desire gives us plenty of room to maneuver; but I also know that our patterns of desire and ecstasy are fantastically resilient, precisely because they anchor the delusion of the "unique self". We do need to create the flying machines we can jump in once we’re out of the bourgeois concentration camps of love, be they monogamous or polyamourous. And to even test the hypothesis that such machines can fly, we need unusual experiments, experiments that are hard to imagine from within the current apparatuses of ecstasy. This is the conundrum that living in the bourgeois regime of ecstasy creates. Getting out will not be easy - it might, however, be fun to try …
