2 Comments

Ivan Kenneally
September 2nd, 2012 | 4:05 pm

Marcuse is a funny but instructive example in some ways.You’re right that he complained a lot about the deflated nature of modern eros but not all that much along the lines of a Bloom. For him, genuine eros would result in “non-alienated libidinal work” or the liberation of the id from the tyranny of the superego (it’s not at all clear where the ego falls for him). He basically combined the psychology of Freud with Marx’s social critique of capitalism (and, if we really wanted to get into it, a heavy dose of Heideggerian ontology too. Frankly, it’s not worth getting that into it). One interesting way to connect HM to today’s situation would be through his understanding of “repressive tolerance”, or the way we tolerate everything that tolerates everything, a sweeping permissiveness of permissiveness. Te question of Bloom’s account is more interesting, I think, because his lionization of eros is undercut by a inconsistently Platonic and Shakespearean interpretation of it. The consistent part of Bloom is his opposition to something like the Cartesian account of the passions.

Peter Lawler
September 3rd, 2012 | 8:05 am

Well, the use of Marcuse is ironic, as you suggest, and as a way of showing the limits of Bloom. The post is more “personal logos” than either, of course,