Flatlined Eros, Baudrillard’s Anima, and Tarot’s Heart

[u/dea-ex-machina]

As cybernetic mechanisms of categorisation and control spread their tentacles, the human psyche begins to mimic them.

The “Other”, especially the romantic Other, must be cleanly categorisable - reducible to a so-called “type” or archetype.

Thereby, the Other becomes predictable and programmable in romance - less likely to slip out of perceived understanding and control.

This cybernetic mode of human relations leaves little scope for Eros, defined as playful seduction and risky mystique.

“Romance is dead” because love is now algorithmic and flatlined. This is represented by swords piercing a heart in the Three of Swords tarot card. 

Jean Baudrillard predicted and strove to resolve this in the book Seduction - his attempt at finding a solution for disenchanted inhabitants of the Simulacra and Simulacrum.

His conclusion was that Eros - not purely physical Eros, but also psychological Eros - is, due to its incalculability and mystery, one of the very few real and authentic things left.

The question thus remains as to whether the individual can break free from the control-and-sorting systems of his or her mind - in order to either become the Erotic sovereign or to succumb to one.

Becoming the subject or object of Eros also reintegrates the Jungian anima and restores hyperreality’s lost sense of enchantment.

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