Love is not about getting something done. It is about communication, about realizing that someone else is not just an object to manipulate or control, but is a real subject as well. Love is about bearing witness, accepting the unique and irreducible presence of another. Recognizing that another person is both different and real, according to Irigaray, means "respecting you as an other, accepting that I must draw myself to a halt before you as something insurmountable, a mystery, a freedom that will never be mine." I recognize that you are and will always be different from me, that I cannot see through you and thus you will never be entirely visible to me. But that recognition is the beginning of a new way of relating, one based not on manipulation of an object, but on communication with another subject. It's not a world of force and impact. It's a realm of attention and openness-openness to you. "To you" is an indirect object: the action engages it, but in a very specific way. I listen to you; I respond to you. Not to anyone in general, but to you in particular. The title of Irigaray's book, by the way, is I Love to You. Put simply, what she's trying to point out is the difference in language and in life between "I hit the ball" and "I listen to you."
http://www.allsoulsnyc.org/publications/sermons/ggsermons/indirect-object.html
i want to be loved because you want to love me, not because i have to ask you to love me.
1 comment:
ignoring the thought-provoking text for a second... whoa that is a stellar shade of green! wowzers, cool shot. where is that?
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