It is often said that we no longer have an addressee for our political demands. But that’s not true. We have each other.

What we can no longer get from the state, the party, the union, the boss, we ask for from one another. And we provide. Lacan famously defined love as giving something you don’t have to someone who doesn’t want it. But love is more than a YouTube link or a URL. Love’s joy is not to be found in fulfillment, it is to be found in recognition: even though I can never return what was taken away from you, I may be the only person alive who knows what it is.

In our present times—post-human, post-reality, or maybe pre-internet, post-it, pre-collapse, pre-fabricated by algorithms—what does love have to do with it? Since 2009, need and care and desire and admiration have been cross-examined, called as witness, put on parole, and made the subject of caring inquiry by e-flux journal authors. These writings have now been collected to form this comprehensive volume.

Language: English