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What is love?
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It's a hard term to define
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in so far as it has a very wide application.
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I can love jogging,
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I can love a book, a movie.
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I can love escalopes...
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I can love my wife.
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(Laughter)
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But there's a great difference
between an escalope and my wife,
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for instance.
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That is, if I value the escalope,
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the escalope, on the other hand, it doesn't value me back.
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Whereas my wife, she calls me
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the star of her life.
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Therefore, only another desiring conscience
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can conceive me as a desirable being.
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I know this, that's why
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love can be defined in a more accurate way
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as the desire of being desired.
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Hence the eternal problem of love:
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how to become and remain desirable?
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Once, the individual would find
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an answer to this problem
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by submitting his life to community rules.
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they had a specific part to play
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according to their sex, their age,
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their social status,
and they only had to play their part
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to be valued and loved by the whole community.
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Think about the young maiden
that must remain chaste before the wedding.
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Think about the youngest son
who must obey the eldest son,
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who in turn must obey the patriarch.
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But a phenomenon
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started in the 13th century,
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and happened mainly in the Renaissance in the West.
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It caused the biggest identity crisis
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in the history of humankind.
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This phenomenon is modernity.
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We can basically summarize it
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by a triple process. First,
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a rationalization process of scientific research,
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that has accelerated technical progress.
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Next, a political democratization process,
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that has developed individual rights.
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And finally, a rationalization process
of the economic production
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and of trade liberalization.
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These three intertwined processes
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have completely annihilated all the traditional
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markers of the Western societies.
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It brings a radical consequence for the individual.
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Now, the individual is free
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to value or devalue
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this attitude, this choice, this object.
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But as a result, their own self
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is confronted to this same freedom that others have
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to value or devalue them.
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In other words, my former value
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was ensured by submitting myself
to the traditional authorities.
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Now, it is quoted in the stock exchange.
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On the free market of individual desires
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I negotiate my value every day.
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Hence the contemporary man's anguish.
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His obsession: "Am I desirable? How much?
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How many people are going to love me?"
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How does he respond to this anguish?
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Well, by hysterically accumulating
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the symbols of desirability.
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(Laughter)
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I call this accumulation,
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along with others, the seduction capital.
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Indeed, our consumer society is largely based
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on the seduction capital.
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It is said about consumption
that our age is materialistic.
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But it's not true! We accumulate objects
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in order to communicate with other minds.
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We do it to make them love us, to seduce them.
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Nothing is less materialistic or more sentimental
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than a teenager buying brand new jeans
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and tearing it at the knees,
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because he wants to please Jennifer.
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(Laughter)
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Consumerism is not materialism.
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It is rather engulfed matter,
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sacrificed in the name of the Love god,
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or rather in the name of the seduction capital.
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In the light of this observation on today's love,
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how can we think the love of the years to come?
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We can envision two hypotheses.
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The first one consists in betting on an intensification
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of the narcissistic capitalisation process.
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It is hard to say what shape this intensification will take,
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because it largely depends
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on social and technical innovations,
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which are, by definition, difficult to predict.
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But we can, for instance,
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imagine a dating website
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which, a bit like the fidelity programs,
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works with seduction capital points
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that vary according to my age, my height/weight ratio,
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my degree, my salary,
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or the number of clicks collected on my profile.
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We can also imagine
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a chemical treatment for breakups
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that weakens the attachment feeling.
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By the way, there's a program on MTV already
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in which seduction teachers
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treat heartache as a disease.
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These teachers call themselves "pick-up artists".
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"Artist" in French is easy, it means "artiste".
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To "pick-up" is to pick up someone,
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but it's about picking up chicks.
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So they are artists at picking up chicks.
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(Laughter)
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And they call heartache "one-itis".
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In English, "itis" is a suffix that means infection.
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One-itis can be translated as "the infection of the one".
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It's a bit disgusting. Indeed, for the pick-up artists,
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falling in love with someone
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is a waste of time,
it's squandering your seduction capital.
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So it must be eliminated like a disease, an infection.
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We can also envision
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an amorous use of the genomic map.
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Everyone would carry it around
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and present it like a business card
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to verify if seduction can develop into reproduction.
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(Laughter)
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Certainly this seduction rush,
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like every fierce competition, will entail
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big disparities in narcissistic satisfaction,
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and therefore a lot of loneliness and frustration too.
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So we can expect that modernity itself, When the seduction capital comes into being,
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from which the seduction capital originates,
to be challenged.
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I'm thinking particularly of the communitarian reactions
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of a neo-fascist or religious type.
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But such a future doesn't have to be.
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Another path to think love may be possible.
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But how?
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How to renounce the hysterical need to be valued?
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Well, by becoming aware
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of my uselessness. (Laughter)
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Yes,
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I'm useless.
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But rest assured:
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so are you.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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We are all useless.
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This uselessness is pretty easy to demonstrate,
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because to be valued
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I need another to desire me,
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which implies that I do not have any value by myself.
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I don't have any value in myself.
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We all pretend to have an idol.
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We all pretend to be someone's idol, but actually
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we are all impostors, a bit like the man who goes by
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lording it indifferently over everyone in the street,
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while he has actually anticipated and calculated
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everything so that all eyes are on him.
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I think that becoming aware
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of this general imposture
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that concerns all of us
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would pacify our love relationships.
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It is because I want to be loved
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from head to toe, and to be
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justified in my every choice,
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that seduction hysteria exists.
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And therefore I want to look perfect
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so that another can love me.
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I want them to be perfect
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so that they can reassure me about my value.
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and it leads to couples obsessed
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with performance
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who will break up precisely
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at the slightest underachievement.
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In contrast to this attitude,
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I call upon tenderness, upon love as tenderness.
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What is tenderness?
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To be tender is to accept the loved one's weaknesses.
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It's not about becoming a sad couple
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of orderlies. (Laughter)
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There's plenty
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of charm and happiness in tenderness.
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I refer specifically to a kind of humour
that is unfortunately uncommon.
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It is a sort of poetry of unabashed clumsiness.
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I refer to self-mockery.
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For a couple who is no longer sustained, supported
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by the constraints of tradition,
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I believe that self-mockery
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is one of the best means for the relationship to last.