Feminists, incels, love

The other day a text was published about how Russian men find Filipino wives for themselves. We are talking mainly about such semi-Incel types who were traumatized by previous relationships and as a result decided to look for a suitable match for themselves in the face of girls from traditional Asian families. As expected, the text (which already reads the author's dislike) caused a blaze on feminist Twitter. Traditionalism, patriarchy, exploitation and other standard songs. I am far from thinking that such relationships can be called healthy (although they are obviously voluntary). However, in reality, the conflict between traditionalism and feminism here is a fierce intraspecific competition. The horseshoe theory is back in business.

There is a left-wing philosopher, Alain Badiou, and he has a book, In Praise of Love. Where he defines love as a deep existential experience, experiencing life through another person and knowing the world through his eyes. At the same time, going beyond your boundaries, getting out of the shell - you are forced to put yourself at risk. However, the rationalistic cult of safety now dominates, in which the possibility of being rejected, getting emotionally traumatized and other inherent risks of love are sought to be destroyed. For Badiou, this is something like the doctrine of "war without loss." Either war or no loss. Either love or no risk. Therefore, the desire for security kills love.

Badiou is leftist, he is largely to blame for libertarians with the concept of a "relationship market" (that is, love turns into a contract where the parties only satisfy needs). The concept of the "relationship market" is really terrible. But, in addition to libertarians, Badiou criticizes dating sites (the book was written before tinder): people indicate age, education, occupation, etc., in order to find the most “risk-free option” for themselves. Thus, the search for a pair turns into something like choosing a risk-free option to invest money in a pension fund. But, in turn, this approach is not much different from the practices of a traditional society, where the “good match” for a person was selected by the family. After all, the meaning was in the same minimization of risks and the factor of chance for the sake of security, stability, etc.

In this case, on the one hand, we have feminists, all these proselytes of the "religion of psychotherapy", obsessed with "building boundaries" and "getting out of toxic relationships." What do they want? That's right, the relationship is comfortable and safe, without injuries in disappointments. To do this, you need to select a partner according to a number of criteria (professional, non-toxic, etc., etc.). On the other hand, we have incels who also want a comfortable and secure relationship. To do this, you need to select a partner according to a number of criteria (from a traditional family, obedient, virgin, etc., etc.). Feminists are convinced that romantic love is a patriarchal ploy designed to exploit women, incels are convinced that romantic love is a matriarchal ploy designed to exploit men. Instead of love, we need a rational approach, a comfort line and a safety caliper. So the religion of psychotherapy merges with traditionalism, and there is no place for love there. We see competition between fundamentally identical approaches that differ only in appearance.

Mihail Pojarsky 2021-05-07