Translator: Sofia de Diego Reviewer: Denise RQ
Most of you are probably familiar with the old saying,
"Those who control the past control the future.
Those who control the present, control the past."
But I think that what we should add today to this old saying is the following:
those who understand the future
are also those who are able to control the present.
We, human beings, are a very specific kind.
We constantly ask ourselves questions
about the past, about the future, and about the present.
And especially so when it comes to love.
Sometimes, we are still chased
by questions about the ghosts from our past relationships
and even if we are in present relationships,
we constantly ask questions about these past relationships
and even if we are happy in our relationships,
or if we don't have relationships,
we always pose the old question again and again, which is the one,
will I find love in the future?
What I think we should do today
is to pose a different question.
And this different question is the following one,
Not "Will I find love in the future?"
but "How will love look like in the future?"
And if you think it's a naive question,
what you should do is actually look around yourself
and see all the rapid changes
- mainly due to new technological development -
and if you can have all these changes in the 21st century
then is a logical conclusion to expect
that we will also have a radical change in the most intimate sphere
which is namely, love.
And to understand this radical change in love,
all that we have to do today is to search for signs from the future
which are all in the present here.
Recently, when I was traveling and using the tube in London,
and you know how in London
everyone in the tube reads all these newspapers;
and the Brits usually like
to write about celebrities. and similar bullshit. and...
When you read about it, you get bored,
and you sleep in the tube, and you miss your next stop, and so on.
But then, a guy on my left side, was reading the newspaper
and he immediately got my attention.
Why?
There was an article with the following title
- listen to this -
the title said, "Outsource your dating life with a cyber-butler."
(Laughter)
And it's not a joke.
This is the newest trend from several weeks ago in love affairs.
What does it mean?
At the moment, you have a dating company
which can set up your dating profile;
they find your matches, they send messages to the matches,
and they even set up a date.
So everything you have to do is just show up at the date.
This is called outsourcing.
(Laughter)
When I mentioned this to my friend, an economist,
who happened to be the former Greek Minister of Finance,
Yanis Varoufakis,
he was very surprised, and he immediately smiled.
And you know what he said?
He said, "Srećko, this is not only outsourcing,
this is something that we, in economy, call subcontracting."
(Laughter)
Why? What is subcontracting?
Subcontracting is when, on the one hand, you get rid of the risk,
and on the other hand, you lower the costs.
So someone else does the job instead of you.
So we can imagine - I still don't know these new dating companies -
but we can imagine the dating company has specific subcontractors for each field,
so they have a subcontractor for music for example,
they have a subcontractor for movies,
so they make my taste of movies so I will find a better match.
They have a subcontractor for fashion,
so they will tell you what are your clothes today.
They have a subcontractor even for religious views, for philosophy and so on.
And all that you have to do is show up at the date.
Why is this wrong?
At least for two reasons.
The first reason is the following one:
If you outsource falling in love,
you are essentially outsourcing the very essence of falling in love.
And this is the fall.
Without the fall, there is no falling in love.
And no one else can do it instead of you.
The second reason and the second problem of this new trend in love affairs
is the following one.
What we can witness today, in the 21st century,
in this kind of future of love, which is already here,
is a kind of penetration - yes, I said penetration -
of economic reasoning in the most intimate sphere.
So what terms such as "outsourcing", or "subcontracting" exemplify
is that more and more, we perceive love as a kind of investment.
OK, you might pose the question: so what is the next logical step?
The next logical step would be to outsource this dating,
to find a contractor, for example in Asia, cheap labor force,
who will do the dating instead of us.
But this actually exists already, at least in video games.
So you know that today, if you play video games,
if you are from the West, you can find some Chinese
who will play all the boring levels
like, you know, music, sharing, liking, and all such staff,
and then, you just join when the more interesting levels come;
like, I don't know, sex for example.
And you can even avoid weddings or something like that.
But no, this is not the next logical step.
The next logical step, which is even more distopian,
is something that they know call "masturdating."
And I'm not sure if you've heard about it,
this is not my invention, and it's not a joke,
"masturdating" of course comes from masturbating.
And you all hopefully know what masturbating means.
Masturbating means...
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Do you really want me to explain it to you?
(Laughter)
"Masturdating" is something similar,
It can also include masturbation if you want,
but as The Telegraph described recently, "masturdating" means
when you go alone to the restaurant, you sit alone at the table,
you drink a bottle of a very good, expensive red wine,
and you don't feel depressed, because you're "masturdating."
You must be happy, you're dating with the better side of yourself.
And you can continue the list.
"Masturdating" for instance, also can mean
that you go to a park, sit on a bench,
and you can even read someone like Kafka, or Artaud.
And you don't get depressed, because you're "masturdating."
"Masturdating" can mean
that you go to the cinema and watch Godard or Antonioni,
some movies which can be melancholic to a certain degree,
but you don't feel depressed, because you are "masturdating."
And if you think this is just the newest hype, then you are wrong.
Recently, a tourist agency from Japan launched a "Two-day package in Kyoto"
under the title "Solo weddings."
(Laughter)
Solo weddings for only 2,000 euros.
You can go alone to Kyoto, have a wedding,
with yourself, of course, without actually having all the stress
which an actual wedding includes.
So for only 2.000 euros, you can get a wedding dress, of course,
you can get a make-up session, and you can get a photo session.
So what all these examples show, especially masturdating and solo wedding
is that we are actually reaching the peak of a narcissistic culture,
of people who are completely focused on themselves.
On the other hand, what it shows
is that people are more and more afraid of falling in love.
Why? Precisely because of the fall.
When you fall in love, you lose all the coordinates,
you lose all the preconditions of your whole universe;
you're ready to move to a different city,
you're ready not to answer the phone for one week,
you're ready not to see your friends, ready to change your religious views,
you're even ready to become a right winger if you've been a left winger,
you're even ready to become a left winger if you have been a right winger,
maybe you are even ready to become a commissioner
if you have been a trade unionist.
(Laughter)
This was a joke. I couldn't imagine that really.
(Laughter)
Especially since we are in Brussels.
(Applause)
And this is the reason why people build all these kinds of walls,
this is the reason why we have the penetration of hyper-rationality
and something that I would call the commodification of desire;
because it's easier that way.
So one of the biggest problems, and this is the future of love,
which we already have here in the present,
is that we live in a culture of narcissism.
It was in 2013, when the Oxford Dictionary announced
that the word of the year would be "selfie."
And you all know what a selfie is.
You just have to go to a Facebook account, or to Instagram,
or to any other kind of social network,
to see that yourself, and your friends,
not only present themselves through selfies
but that we actually, more and more, understand ourselves through a selfie.
And that it really became a global pandemic,
was proven last year, when the Russian police
- this is very interesting, and I think soon it will come to Brussels
and other cities, London, and Paris, and New York as well -
the Russian police launched a safety campaign
under the title "Safe for selfies."
So now, if you go to the metro in Moscow, for example,
you can find posters, with warning signs,
where you have a guy or a girl, making a selfie on a high skyscraper,
or you have someone making a selfie in front of a train,
or you have someone making a selfie with a gun to his head.
Why? Human intelligence again.
Because some people died while they were making selfies.
And you know, I think this is the biggest threat for love.
It's narcissism.
And you all probably remember the old story of Narcissus.
You know what happened to him in the end.
He died. Why did he die?
He died because he has fallen in love with himself.
And to come to a deeper philosophical terrain,
I would say that each falling in love actually contains this kind of narcissism.
Each falling in love contains falling in love
with the reflection of your own image in the other's eyes.
Each falling in love actually contains a wish
to inhabit the image which you can see in the other, how the other sees you.
And this is normal, this is a normal aspect of falling in love.
But what all these new trends and all these new technologies
reinforce today, in the 21st century, is precisely narcissism.
However, truly radical love, if love wants to have any kind of future,
is the pure opposite of outsourcing,
of contracts, of subcontracts, and of narcissism.
To quote the great poet Arthur Rimbaud, or to paraphrase him,
"If love wants to have any future, it has to be radically reinvented."
Thanks a lot.
(Applause)