Nicholas,

This was a brilliant account of love in my opinion. I agree with everything that was said for the most part. The Other being the essential component of heterosexuality was particularly penetrating.

I would like to raise a question, however. Robert Solomon argues, in his About Love, that, beginning with Plato and continuing into some forms of Christianity, love has been conceived of as some Absolute Other; as a truly sublime experience. One that verges on the divine (for Christians) and The Good (for Platonists). While there are moments of this in 'love', I find that this account misses two aspects.

First, love as process, as a continual redefinition of oneself in relation to the Other. You very adequately address the encounter (as you put it) that people like Badiou and Zizek address--the 'falling in' love, the radical disruption. But then what? We need a theory of love that actual living and working people can relate to; and for most of us, this radical Goodness of Love only sets us up to create divine expectations for our beloved, who is all-too-human. Failure ensues.

Second, love is not entirely selfless, a conception of love we find in Christianity in the form of agape. Love can indeed be selfish, and that is fine; it is normal. In fact, isn't this one of Hegel's insights about the relationship between love and desire? We seek others to love in the first place because of the need to be recognized in our complexity. We wish for another to behold our own alterity. Love isn't either entirely for the other or entirely for the self (an accurate diagnosis you give of the current state of affairs represented in Patrick Bateman).

Anyways, thanks again for the article. It raised some terrific points that I had not considered! Also feel free to write me via email if you don't want to write a long comment: sjcarroll14@gmail.com