Search Results
6/30/2025, 6:07:28 AM
>>280111499
>>The idea that to prioritize libido over reproduction, the natural end of sexuality, is to overthrow the natural order within the psyche, and thus to threaten its coherence, has been commonplace since Plato. As Dollimore puts it, ‘deviant desire… actually decenters or disperses the self’ (7). The moral ambivalence with which Dollimore describes ‘deviant’ desire’s dissolution of the self is unusual among postmodernists, who generall view the idea of a coherent, non-material subject as intrinsically oppressive and actively celebrate its demise. Desire is ‘deviant’ when it is autotelic.
>>Since the natural telos of libido is reproduction, autotelic desire was traditionally denounced as ‘concupiscence’ or ‘sodomy.’ Dollimore fully acknowledges its disruptive effect on the unitary subject: ‘for me sexual desire confuses, undermines or at least alters my sense of self’ (54). In his autobiographical Desire: A Memoir (2017) he reflects on autotelic desire’s reversal of the Platonic ethical hierarchy within the psyche: ‘We didn’ give much thought to anything outside our passions; for as long as they gripped us, we lived in the present in a way which was as spontaneous as it was ignorant.’7 Thus Dollimore evokes the wrenching re-orientation toward passion and appetite that defined the psychologica experience of his ‘Boomer’ generation.
Quotes taken from David Hawkes " The Reign of Anti-Logos"
4/2
>>The idea that to prioritize libido over reproduction, the natural end of sexuality, is to overthrow the natural order within the psyche, and thus to threaten its coherence, has been commonplace since Plato. As Dollimore puts it, ‘deviant desire… actually decenters or disperses the self’ (7). The moral ambivalence with which Dollimore describes ‘deviant’ desire’s dissolution of the self is unusual among postmodernists, who generall view the idea of a coherent, non-material subject as intrinsically oppressive and actively celebrate its demise. Desire is ‘deviant’ when it is autotelic.
>>Since the natural telos of libido is reproduction, autotelic desire was traditionally denounced as ‘concupiscence’ or ‘sodomy.’ Dollimore fully acknowledges its disruptive effect on the unitary subject: ‘for me sexual desire confuses, undermines or at least alters my sense of self’ (54). In his autobiographical Desire: A Memoir (2017) he reflects on autotelic desire’s reversal of the Platonic ethical hierarchy within the psyche: ‘We didn’ give much thought to anything outside our passions; for as long as they gripped us, we lived in the present in a way which was as spontaneous as it was ignorant.’7 Thus Dollimore evokes the wrenching re-orientation toward passion and appetite that defined the psychologica experience of his ‘Boomer’ generation.
Quotes taken from David Hawkes " The Reign of Anti-Logos"
4/2
Page 1