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Annales Philosophici 6 (2013)
Ionel Cioară, pp. 68-74
LOVE AND UTOPIA
Cioară Ionel
Department of Sociology, Social Work and Philosophy
University of Oradea, Romania
[email protected]
Abstract:
The paper analyzes the conceptualization attempts of love within the
tradition of utopian thinking, the major changes occurred on the way
of approaching and solving the challenges posed by relationships
between men and women during the development of literature that
describes ideal societies, starting with Plato, Morus and Campanella
and continuing with Orwell and Huxley.
Keywords: love, eroticism, classic utopia, anti-utopia
Introduction
Love life was considered throughout the modern era, a problematic issue of human
beings. If a man is a problem for himself, it is because of his internalized life, of affectivity.
We are not as much Homo sapiens as homo eroticus. The attempts to enhance wisdom and
reject the temptations of moral sensitivity had filled the endeavors of moral legislators since
earliest times up to the recent times of the supposed end of modernity. Eroticism remains
mysterious not only at the greatest level, but also one of the most intense moments of human
experience. Love must even today find new sources of energy in order to stay alive. It has to
refuel and to reaffirm every single day. Once accumulated, the capital is quickly consumed,
unless restored daily. Therefore, love is embodied insecurity. Some authors have described the
most acute diseases and remedies of love in recent times (Bauman, 2000, pp. 108-120).
Having as spring sexuality, eroticism manifests itself in an infinite variety of forms, at all
times and everywhere. Among these, the aim of this paper is represented by utopian eros. The
ideas of this text were originally presented in our earlier work (Cioară, 2003), but the recent
developments of love problems have allowed us, even obliged us, to present the current
considerations as a continuation and a completion of the ones in the mentioned paper. What
concept of love does eros send in relation to utopia? It is not about the eros of classical
mythology nor the Platonic and Renaissance one (Ficino's or Bruno’s), it is far from the
prototype of court love that was born in twelfth-century France, which still dominates Western
spiritual life, according to Rougemount (1987). It is not the eros of psychoanalysis, although
any discussion of this subject cannot elude the contributions of Freud, Marcuse or Fromm. By
some authors, the eros of utopias, throughout secular developments, approaches all these. In
order to understand the nature of utopian eros it is necessary to provide some general
clarifications about closeness and distance among sex-eros-love.
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Freud (1994) constructs the notion of eros starting from the impulses of life, sex;
eroticism and love are manifestations of the same phenomenon which is life. It should be
noted that out of the three, sex is the oldest; we can say that it is the primordial source, it
serves procreation, while eroticism always puts reproduction into brackets. In no society sex
remains the last level of relations between men and women. As shown by Octavio Paz in a
wonderful paper (Paz, 1998) dedicated to the relation between love and eroticism, eroticism
which is exclusively human is socialized sexuality, transfigured by imagination and
willpower, sex is nature and eroticism with essential social functions is culture. Eroticism and
love are forms derived from social instincts, crystallizations, sublimations, perversions and
condensations that transform sexuality and make it unrecognizable.
The most important goal of eroticism seems to be sex domestication and its inclusion
in society. Thus, in the case of humans, sexual function does not know rest periods; all
societies were forced to invent rules, prohibitions and taboos, but also stimuli and incentives
to guide sexual instinct on a road path that eludes self-destruction. The great author mentioned
above writes suggestively in this regard: "subjected to perennial discharges of sex, people
invented a lightning rod: eroticism.” (Paz, 1998, p.16) This solution will remain equivocal;
society will be protected from assaults of sexuality, but it will deny its vital, reproductive
function. Eroticism is both life-giving and death-giving.
Utopia against love
How was this problem posed and loosed in writings that describe ideal societies? G.
Dubois (1968) notes, rightly, that in intimate relations the work of the utopist is
simultaneously liberating and law-giving. The utopian society emancipates itself by
destroying medieval taboos and legal obstacles, along with the character of guilt that
surrounded intercourse and marriage. This emancipation is actually a very difficult process.
The classic utopist is concerned, primarily and almost exclusively, by the regime of births and
marriages and not at all by feelings. Since its inception utopia has been anti-vitalist and antierotic.
True to the Platonic heritage in the area, Renaissance utopists thought that too much
freedom in this area would be a ferment of disorder and anarchy. This may justify the strict
and rigid plans meant to guide gender relations in good societies. In the plan of the Athenian
philosopher, on the treatment of women, the starting point was the principle that everything
should be shared in the Citadel. Sexual union between men and women is regulated by state
intervention, it seeks planned procreation of healthy specimens. Offsprings are reared and
educated by the state, which thus becomes one sole family. Women should receive the same
education as men (which includes sharing the hardships of military training, including war and
the responsibilities of power). They will belong to everyone, as their children will. As a
consequence family will disband, and marriage will be carefully arranged by magistrates in
accordance with matching characters. The most successful youngsters will enjoy the privilege
of being able to choose their wife and of having access to other women, while the abnormal or
ill ones will be hidden in secret places. For the success of his eugenic project, Plato (1986)
believes that it would be proper to avoid and eliminate jealousy, rape, debauchery and the
perpetuation of unsuccessful individuals.
Still the society imagined by Morus (1958) will be based upon family, which
alongside traditional marriage seem to be reestablished, we can even observe an excessive
preoccupation towards protecting them (divorce is hardly accepted, the husbands had over
their wives the rights that in the age in which the writing appeared the parents’ rights over
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their children were admitted, including the whole range of punishments; chastity was expected
until marriage, breaking this rule bringing repercussions, as in the case of adultery finally
leading to the loss of the right of marriage; polygamy was banned….) Morus seems to be
preoccupied exclusively on ensuring social hygiene, otherwise he is not interested in offering
other details about utopian eroticism.
In Civitas Solis, public games are being held naked, but not to enhance physical
attraction, but as Campanella (2007) says rather to allow the judges to meditate about the most
convenient matches. Even here sensual contact was precisely regulated (once every three days
after having the bath, after prayers and digestion). Furthermore we find out that ugly women
did not exist and sterile ones became common and would lose their dignity. A magistrate
named Amor was responsible for sexual unions. Nothing is said about any other aspects, this
author pleading for a marriage without problems as well, which would facilitate a more
systematical application of eugenics. The eros of the early utopias was rather smothered in
apathy, a pale copy of moral ideals that incriminated physical love, especially the one outside
marriage that had the goal of procreation. It is tolerated, if not even totally repressed, being
thus entitled to classify the humanist utopia as counter-erotic.
But utopia remained also indifferent to the spiritual movement that placed the myth of
passionate love into the heart of western culture. If in real life sexuality is never reduced to its
genital function, in utopias this was the principle that guided the relations between genders for
more than two hundred years. Utopia denies eroticism and hence the human existence
invested in a trans-natural way, thus remaining fairly rudimentary in terms of intersexual and
interpersonal relations.
Eroticism as utopia
Even though it has assumed the task of emancipating inter-human relations, the utopian
way of thinking has adopted, unforgivably late and never totally, the superior ideal of
passionate love. Starting with the seventeenth century eroticism exploded among the borders
of utopian literature through the writings of Restiff de la Bretton, Rabelais and especially of
marquis de Sade. Utopia got closer to a more adequate understanding of the world and of
human nature, which in reality are less idyllic but more trustworthy. In this context Sade has a
special place reserved in the history of utopia and eroticism as well. Also known as “the
divine marquis” because of his work, and it seems that less because of his life, even though he
suffered 27 years of detention, a true master of perversity, this being the element that gives
uniqueness to his writings. It is considered that his novels represent the most comprehensive
and direct expression of the libertine philosophy. The core of his philosophy is strongly
outlined in a book by J. Evola (1994). Sadism is based on a general vision of life, which is its
theoretical basis, its ontological premise. According to it the predominant force in the universe
is the force of evil, of destruction and crime. There is a God that created and rules the world,
although he is an evil one, he has the essence of evil, and he is satisfied with destruction and
making bad things, using them as elements for his plans (Sade, 2008). The supremacy of the
negative over the positive appears as a law of reality, nature is the one that proves the fact that
it only creates for destruction, destruction being its first law. This situation demands that all
values should invert. Vices and crime, in order to be congruent with the ruling cosmic force,
will always be victorious and sublime while virtue will be frustrated, unhappy and marked by
a fundamental weakness.
In a writing of more than 1000 pages written in 1785 (2005) he will describe the
structure and dynamics of a group of libertine aristocrats who transmuted themselves among
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the walls of a castle to experience a perfect type of society, which from the perspective of
most moral principles appears as being an incarnation of evil. The motto and fundamental
principle of this new experimental society was: Virtue is vice, vice is virtue. Sade describes
with great details the mechanism that allows these individuals to reach the highest peaks of
bodily pleasures. This autarchic micro-society is a parody of societies from outside. The
community is strictly layered, differentiations being impenetrable. The masters are four rich
men, the initiators and makers of this state, other members of the association are the
storytellers, the old house maids, the servants, dumb men that are good at sex, children from
aristocratic families. The goal of this association is the fulfillment of sexual desires. Sexuality
is entirely viewed as domination, society being separated into two sectors: masters and slaves,
on one hand the domination companions and on the other hand the ones that have to satisfy
their every need (Manuel & Manuel, 1979, p. 543). The ideal erotic relationship implies
unlimited power upon the erotic object, united with an indifference regarding his fate, that’s
why Sade’s characters are asking for total submissiveness from their victims. These
conditions can never be truly satisfied, they remain only philosophical premises and they can
never become psychological or physical realities. In order to achieve the ultimate satisfaction,
the libertine has to know (to know=to feel) that the body he is touching has a sensibility and a
will that suffers.
Libertinism implies certain autonomy of the victim as a condition for producing pleasure-pain.
As Octavio Paz observes, “sado-masochism, center and crowning of libertinism is also
denying it: sensation denies the supremacy of the libertine, making him dependent on the
object’s sensibility, and on the other hand it denies the victim’s passivity” (Paz, 1998, p. 24).
Thus the libertine and the victim become accomplices.
In the European philosophical tradition Eros is a divinity that bonds darkness and light,
nature and spirit, our world and the after world. Through the frenzy with which the divine
marquis delights every being, he belongs to the pre-Socratic family. Although he remained a
son of the fallen light, who managed to reveal the true nature of eros, which is solar and
nocturnal as well. In the rest of the utopia - regime of universal and mandatory happiness love remains prohibited, utopia remains a place in which love could never find its place. With
Sade utopia became more human, and thus it became more accessible.
Opposing with obstinacy Rousseau’s thesis on the innocent and good nature of man,
Sade (2008) reveals the evil in us and in life. Virtuous Justine confesses her "misfortunes",
remaining an embodiment of virtue even in the most disgusting details. Not only an apology
of freedom, but according to many an expression of libertinism and cruelty, sensitivity that in
Sade’s conception is known only by refined beings, this book never ceases to amaze, enchant
and scandalize. Some consider the entire work of Sade a desperate cry towards an inaccessible
virginity, cry clothed and wrapped in a song of profanity. (Klossowski, 1991, p. 111)
The revenge of love: anti-utopian eroticism
Passion love, specific to Western modernity, which began to emerge from the twelfth
century (Rougemount , 1987) , entered the gates of utopia only in the last century, and
somewhat on the back gate , i.e. through anti - utopia.
In his novel published in 1948 1984, George Orwell goes beyond the gates of utopia,
through a love story that describes the characteristics of an imaginary totalitarian society, and
yet so similar to some historical societies. The main character Winston Smith is a middle-aged
man who works at the Ministry of Truth, which aims to rewrite history. Although Love is
Hate, according to the official propaganda that Smith had to contribute to by all its work, love
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becomes the subversive element that will encourage him to escape the despotic control of Big
Brother, to experience temporary freedom and to commit criminal acts against the dominant
regime of Oceania.
Intimacy, friendship and love were linked to a forgotten and repudiated past, being
strange to Smith in the beginning of the novel. He got married, according to the official
ideology, to Katherine, with whom he had a relationship without passion, even during sex,
without emotion or satisfaction, which were otherwise prohibited by the rules of the party.
Commands of duty to the party and procreation were the only ones that mattered. Gradually,
Winston often became annoyed and bored by the impeccable behavior of the party members.
But his purpose is not to be loved, but to tear down the impenetrable wall of virtue - party
discipline, at least once in his life.
The achievement of this purpose becomes possible by meeting with Julia, a rebellious
girl with free spirit who works in the same ministry, and who slips him a note, playing the role
of a true manifesto, although the only written words were I love you. The perfect intercourse
that followed, the explosion overflowing with emotion and passion, has come to signify
Winston’s ultimate form of rebellion against the party (Orwell, 1991, p 191). Only with the
advent and presence of Julia, he becomes more idiosyncratic in his actions and starts to share
openly resentful thoughts against Big Brother. Once introduced into the equation of Winston's
life, love made him unable to understand and accept the doctrine and rules of the party. Love,
even in this stark, physical form, has become the main resource of Winston’s revolt and fight
for freedom.
In one of the most misleading operas ever written, Aldous Huxley ( 1997) described an
essentially loveless society, in which both romantic love and family love were forbidden,
family had been abolished, in which citizens were conditioned to be sexually promiscuous,
living in an erotic paradise where nothing was forbidden, except physical love . Brave New
World is replete with references to sexual life. One of the most important institutions of the
world state performs a rigid control over sexual mores and reproductive rights. Reproductive
rights are strictly controlled by an authoritarian system that sterilizes about two-thirds of
women with surgical removal of the ovaries, giving the rest the right to use contraceptives.
Sex is controlled by a system of social rewards, by keeping promiscuity and prohibiting any
commitment. John, the main character, tributary to the love morality of the past is tortured by
his attraction to Lenina and by her inability to respond to his love.
The conflict between John’s desire for genuine love and Lenina’s desire for sex,
illustrates the profound difference between the strictly utilitarian values promoted by the
world state in the area of sexual relations, and the humanity represented by John, expressed by
the preference for the works of Shakespeare. By describing this society, Huxley gives us the
opportunity to reflect on the future of society (increasingly inevitable) that would break any
ties with the traditional forms of interpersonal relations. If individuals are born in test tubes in
laboratories, child-parent relationships have no sense. The relationships specific to marriage
would not be present, as, if everyone belonged to everyone, monogamy should be abolished,
all men and women being obliged to learn through an efficient planning to benefit from each
other equally, without discrimination. The price of such a social project is that human beings
could not truly experience the emotions of love.
Many authors have analyzed the defining characteristics of love and talked about
exclusivity as one of the first characteristic of love (Paz , 1998; Ortega Y Gasset , 2006).
Thus, Paz writes that love is interpersonal, we love only one person and ask that person to
love us with the same exclusive feeling. Exclusivity requires reciprocity, agreement and the
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will of the other. (Paz , 1998, p 103). This author observed very well that this constituent
element implies another one, equally indispensable: freedom. But freedom is annulled in the
wonderful new world of Huxley, paradoxically by prohibiting the uniqueness of love. You can
choose any partner, provided you do not keep him to yourself. No matter how tempting this
situation may seem, potential hazards are described in the novel. The characters begin to feel
strong emotions, but are forbidden to act constructively in order to develop their relationship.
They are crushed by the inability of being themselves in a society that forbids this thing.
Huxley develops through a high finesse irony, a criticism of strictly utilitarian values,
promoted as a result of industrialization, followed by a massing of morals and therefore
standardization and dehumanization.
Conclusions
Renaissance utopians, tributary to the Platonic heritage of intimate relations between
men and women in an ideal society, believed that too much freedom could easily degenerate
in disorder and anarchy. This is the justification of the strict and rigid plans designed to
regulate relations between genders in good societies. Plato believed that everything in the
Fortress had to be shared, including women. Sexual union between men and women is
regulated by state intervention; it seeks planned procreation of healthy specimens. Classical
utopians were concerned almost exclusively by the regime of births, marriages and not at all
by feelings. Since its inception, utopia has been anti-vitalist and anti-erotic.
Questions on the role of love in alternative societies have become central in anti-utopian
writings. Although it was denied and despite all protective measures against it, love could not
be annihilated or removed from the societies described by these, it demonstrated its presence
and proved to be the subversive element and the salvation of vital human values. This means
the vengeance and revenge of the old world values, but also of life, a life perhaps less happy,
but certainly freer.
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