THE POWER OF LOVE AS A TRANSFORMATIVE FORCE: ALAIN BADIOU’S THEORY OF LOVE AND CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE US

https://doi.org/10.22146/rubikon.v10i2.85676

Muhammad Irfan Syaebani(1*), Untung Yuwono(2), Embun Kenyowati Ekosiwi(3)

(1) Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia
(2) Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia
(3) Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


Love is never considered as a transformative force. Love is generally perceived merely as an affective-emotional thing and personal relationship. Love does not have any practical implication in transforming society. Through Alain Badiou’s theory of love, it can be demonstrated that love has the power to impact the world. According to Badiou, philosophy is a truth procedure that is always occurring in the arena. Politics, science, art, and love are the arenas in which philosophy operates. Thus, it is possible to talk about love philosophically. Philosophy aims to change the world since love is one of the arenas where philosophy operates. Based on the descriptive analysis method in interpreting Alain Badiou’s works; Being and Event and In Praise of Love, it implies that love can generate a transformative action. The case of miscegenation marriage between Mildred Jetter, an African-Indigenous American, and Richard Loving, a white male, during the civil rights movement in the US, can illustrate the role of love in transforming the world. Alain Badiou’s theory of love explains that love can transcend personal dimensions, and it is not purely a romantic feeling and personal relationship but also a transformative force. Thus, this study brings a new perspective on love theoretically and practically because love is not merely an emotion but also a force for change with social dimensions in practicality. 


Keywords


Badiou; civil right; love; theory of love; transformation

Full Text:

PDF


References

Ahmad, A. (2012). Three “Returns” to Marx : Derrida , Zizek , Badiou. Social Scientist, 40(7/8), 43–59.

Badiou, A. (2005). Being and Event (translated by Oliver Feltham). London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Badiou, A. (2008). Conditions (translated by Steven Corcoran). London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Badiou, A., & Truong, N. (2012). In Praise of Love (translated by Peter Bush). London: Serpent’s Tail.

Blattner, W. (2006). Heidegger’s Being and Time: A Reader’s Guide. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Daniel, J. R. (2016). The event that we are: Ontology, rhetorical agency, and Alain Badiou. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 49(3), 254–276. https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.49.3.0254

De Chavez, J. (2015). “It is Only Watching, Waiting, Attention”: Rethinking Love with Alain Badiou and Simone Weil. Kemanusiaan, 22(2), 93–116.

Farrán, R. (2008). Alain Badiou and the ‘Platonism of the multiple’ - or on what the gesture of the re-entanglement of mathematics and philosophy implies. International Journal of Žižek Studies, 2(2), 1–13.

Gardner, S. (2009). Sartre’s Being and Nothingness: A Reader’s Guide. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Gillmer, J. (2017). Virginia Still Resonate 50 Years Later. Social Education, 81(3), 137–141.

Guidero, A. (2017). The radical act of Loving: how the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Creighton Law Review, 50, 681–684.

Johnson, G. (2009). We’ve heard this before: the legacy of interracial marriage bans and the implications for today’s marriage equality debates. Vermont Law Review, 34, 277–290.

Johnston, A. (2009). The right left: Alain Badiou and the disruption of political identities. Yale French Studies, (116–117), 55–78.

Jottkandt, S. (2011). Love. In A. J. Bartlett & J. Clemens (Eds.), Alain Badiou: Key Concepts (pp. 73–81). Durham: Acumen Publishing Limited.

Marx, K. (1969). Theses On Feuerbach (translated by W. Lough). Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Mažeikis, G. (2015). Approaches to romantic love in early marxist tradition. In E. Kováts (Ed.), Love and Politics (pp. 22–34). Budapest: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

McClain, L. C. (2018). Prejudice, constitutional moral progress, and being “on the right side of history”: Reflections on Loving v. Virginia at fifty. Fordham Law Review, 86(6), 2701–2715.

Morgan, J. (2011). The Significance of the Mathematics of Infinity for Realism: Norris on Badiou. Journal of Critical Realism, 10(2), 243–270. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcr.v10i2.243

Noys, B. (2008). Through a glass darkly: Alain Badiou’s critique of anarchism. Anarchist Studies, 16(2), 107–120.

Nussbaum, M. C. (2010). A right to Marry? California Law Review, 98(3), 667–696.

Price, C. (2012). What is the point of love? International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 20(2), 217–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/09672559.2011.629367

Roberts, D. E. (2014). Loving v. Virginia as a Civil Rights Decision. New York Law School Law Review, 59(1), 175–209.

Sacilotto, D. (2013). Towards a Materialist Rationalism: Plato, Hegel, Badiou. The International Journal of Badiou Studies, 2(1), 60–98.

Sears, L. W., & Greenberg, S. N. (2016). The love in Loving: overcoming artificial racial barriers. Notre Dame Law Review Online, 94(1), 28–31.

Shaw, I. G. R. (2010). Sites, truths and the logics of worlds: Alain Badiou and human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 35(3), 431–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2010.00385.x

Singer, I. (2009). Philosophy of love: A Partial Summing-up. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.47-0797

Sotiris, P. (2011). Beyond Simple Fidelity to the Event: The Limits of Alain Badiou’s Ontology. Historical Materialism, 19(2), 35–59. https://doi.org/10.1163/156920611X573789

Szachowicz-Sempruch, J. (2015). Constructing family , understanding love: The precariousness of bonding and romance in Europe. In E. Kováts (Ed.), Love and Politics (pp. 70–79). Budapest: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

Szilvay, G. (2015). Conservative love : unequal love? In E. Kováts (Ed.), Love and Politics (pp. 46–58). Budapest: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.



DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/rubikon.v10i2.85676

Article Metrics

Abstract views : 718 | views : 269

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2023 Rubikon : Journal of Transnational American Studies

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Indexed by:

   Crossref Google Scholar JournalStories Main logo  OAI logo  

View My Stats

ISSN & E-ISSN