Fear of Eros and the fragmentation of consciousness

pp. 125-164

in: Ralph Ellis, Eros in a narcissistic culture, Berlin, Springer, 1996

Abstract

Individual differences in the way eros develops, or fails to develop, reflect both personality differences and differences in the structure of the social community which provides a fertile or barren soil to nourish and sustain eros. These two factors are not completely separable. When we consider the various ways in which a stream of experiences can be organized to form a self, we find that eros is an experience that cannot thrive if there is too much fragmentation in the long-term motivational continuity of this organization. Yet some forms of society by their very nature fragment the stream of consciousness in such ways as to transform eros into almost unrecognizable (were they not so familiar) contortions. Typical examples of a partial or equivocal ability to love may manifest themselves as coquetry, insensitive reductivism, sado-masochism, and "non-voluptuous' or "non-physical' eros (which may be manifested in some cases as a form of "impotence' or "frigidity'). Under the surface of these recognizable syndromes are structures of self-disorganization which also tend to permeate in varying degrees the "normal' self in modern forms of culture. "Typical' or "average' love relationships thus show many of the same problems as the "dysfunctional' types just listed.