Philosophy Show, Episode 1

For Sartre, freedom means being human. In being jealous we recognize painfully the freedom of the other. What do we learn in jealousy about the freedom of the self? In jealousy the triangular structure of the formation of the self is being sharpened (?), put differently: The western subject is being constituted through jealousy! Paradoxically, as in the psychoanalytic model, also with Sartre the third is paradoxically necessary (for the rescue from the deadly family-dual symbiosis), and threatening to the formation of the subject. Particularly threatening, when the binary relationship symbiosis runs the danger of being dissolved in favor of a new pairing, from which the subject is excluded – the other two are gone and I am alone. The classic patriarchal constellation (who does the cuckolded husband kill first: the rival, the wife, himself?) illustrates its own absurdity and shows at the same time that the structure of desire never comes to a rest.

The issue of jealousy also demonstrates that the socially cemented symbiosis of the couple (at best/worst in marriage) for the sake of reproduction and the protection of vested interests exhibits metaphysical trains. The pathology is not generated through the risk of the third, but only becomes manifest by it. How far does desire only parrot pathological structures, how far does open up new possibilities? How would it be to fall in love with the rival? Do polyamorous structures allow a freer subjectivity? Or is it all about something entirely different?

Golem, Hamburg, http://golem.kr/?p=1848

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