What is love? | Yann Dall'Aglio | TEDxParis

In this delightful talk, philosopher Yann Dall’Aglio explores the universal search for tenderness and connection in a world that's ever more focused on the individual. As it turns out, it's easier than you think. A wise and witty reflection on the state of love in the modern age.

What is love?

It's a hard term to define

in so far as it has
a very wide application.

I can love jogging,

I can love a book, a movie.

I can love escalopes...

I can love my wife.

(Laughter)

But there's a great difference
between an escalope and my wife,

for instance.

That is, if I value the escalope,

the escalope, on the other hand,
it doesn't value me back.

Whereas my wife, she calls me

the star of her life.

Therefore, only another
desiring conscience

can conceive me as a desirable being.

I know this, that's why

love can be defined in a more accurate way

as the desire of being desired.

Hence the eternal problem of love:

how to become and remain desirable?

Once, the individual would find

an answer to this problem

by submitting his life to community rules.

they had a specific part to play

according to their sex, their age,

their social status,
and they only had to play their part

to be valued and loved
by the whole community.

Think about the young maiden

that must remain chaste
before the wedding.

Think about the youngest son
who must obey the eldest son,

who in turn must obey the patriarch.

But a phenomenon

started in the 13th century,

and happened mainly
in the Renaissance in the West.

It caused the biggest identity crisis

in the history of humankind.

This phenomenon is modernity.

We can basically summarize it

by a triple process. First,

a rationalization process
of scientific research,

that has accelerated technical progress.

Next, a political democratization process,

that has developed individual rights.

And finally, a rationalization process
of the economic production

and of trade liberalization.

These three intertwined processes

have completely annihilated
all the traditional

markers of the Western societies.

It brings a radical consequence
for the individual.

Now, the individual is free

to value or devalue

this attitude, this choice, this object.

But as a result, their own self

is confronted to this
same freedom that others have

to value or devalue them.

In other words, my former value

was ensured by submitting myself
to the traditional authorities.

Now, it is quoted in the stock exchange.

On the free market of individual desires

I negotiate my value every day.

Hence the contemporary man's anguish.

His obsession: "Am I desirable? How much?

How many people are going to love me?"

How does he respond to this anguish?

Well, by hysterically accumulating

the symbols of desirability.

(Laughter)

I call this accumulation,

along with others, the seduction capital.

Indeed, our consumer society
is largely based

on the seduction capital.

It is said about consumption
that our age is materialistic.

But it's not true! We accumulate objects

in order to communicate with other minds.

We do it to make them love us,
to seduce them.

Nothing is less materialistic
or more sentimental

than a teenager buying brand new jeans

and tearing it at the knees,

because he wants to please Jennifer.

(Laughter)

Consumerism is not materialism.

It is rather engulfed matter,

sacrificed in the name of the Love god,

or rather in the name
of the seduction capital.

In the light of this observation
on today's love,

how can we think the love
of the years to come?

We can envision two hypotheses.

The first one consists
in betting on an intensification

of the narcissistic capitalisation process.

It is hard to say what shape
this intensification will take,

because it largely depends

on social and technical innovations,

which are, by definition,
difficult to predict.

But we can, for instance,

imagine a dating website

which, a bit like the fidelity programs,

works with seduction capital points

that vary according to my age,
my height/weight ratio,

my degree, my salary,

or the number of clicks
collected on my profile.

We can also imagine

a chemical treatment for breakups

that weakens the attachment feeling.

By the way, there's a program
on MTV already

in which seduction teachers

treat heartache as a disease.

These teachers call themselves
"pick-up artists".

"Artist" in French is easy,
it means "artiste".

To "pick-up" is to pick up someone,

but it's about picking up chicks.

So they are artists at picking up chicks.

(Laughter)

And they call heartache "one-itis".

In English, "itis" is a suffix
that means infection.

One-itis can be translated
as "the infection of the one".

It's a bit disgusting.
Indeed, for the pick-up artists,

falling in love with someone

is a waste of time,
it's squandering your seduction capital.

So it must be eliminated like a disease,
an infection.

We can also envision

an amorous use of the genomic map.

Everyone would carry it around

and present it like a business card

to verify if seduction can develop
into reproduction.

(Laughter)

Certainly this seduction rush,

like every fierce competition, will entail

big disparities
in narcissistic satisfaction,

and therefore a lot of loneliness
and frustration too.

So we can expect that modernity itself,

when the seduction capital
comes into being,

from which the seduction capital
originates, to be challenged.

I'm thinking particularly
of the communitarian reactions

of a neo-fascist or religious type.

But such a future doesn't have to be.

Another path to think about love
may be possible.

But how?

How to renounce the hysterical need
to be valued?

Well, by becoming aware

of my uselessness.
(Laughter)

Yes,

I'm useless.

But rest assured:

so are you.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

We are all useless.

This uselessness
is pretty easy to demonstrate,

because to be valued

I need another to desire me,

which implies that I do not have
any value by myself.

I don't have any value in myself.

We all pretend to have an idol.

We all pretend to be someone's idol,
but actually

we are all impostors,
a bit like the man who goes by

lording it indifferently
over everyone in the street,

while he has actually anticipated
and calculated

everything so that all eyes are on him.

I think that becoming aware

of this general imposture

that concerns all of us

would pacify our love relationships.

It is because I want to be loved

from head to toe,

and to be justified in my every choice,

that seduction hysteria exists.

And therefore I want to look perfect

so that another can love me.

I want them to be perfect

so that they can reassure me
about my value.

and it leads to couples obsessed

with performance

who will break up precisely

at the slightest underachievement.

In contrast to this attitude,

I call upon tenderness,
upon love as tenderness.

What is tenderness?

To be tender is to accept
the loved one's weaknesses.

It's not about becoming a sad couple

of orderlies.
(Laughter)

There's plenty

of charm and happiness in tenderness.

I refer specifically to a kind of humour
that is unfortunately uncommon.

It is a sort of poetry
of unabashed clumsiness.

I refer to self-mockery.

For a couple who is no longer sustained,
supported

by the constraints of tradition,

I believe that self-mockery

is one of the best means
for the relationship to last.

There is a lot of beauty

and humanity in the fact of understanding

that I am too small, too mediocre

to confront the other and harm them,
and vice versa.

In this regard,
I would like to conclude this talk

letting you contemplate and meditate

on a sentence that you may already know,

but I believe it really deserves to be

rediscovered everyday:

♪ Us mere nothings should not be tearing♪

♪ each other apart ♪

♪ Music! ♪

(Applause)