Melancholia and the Mourning "Cure"

 

Işık Barış Fidaner, "Atopic Other and Heterotopic Difference — Byung-Chul Han" (Google translated from Turkish)

Eros is strongly related to the Other, the element that cannot be contained by the ego regime. For this reason, erotic experience is absent in contemporary society, which is increasingly turning into a hell of the same. Erotic experience presupposes an asymmetrical and external Other. It is not a coincidence that Socrates calls the lover atopos . The Other, the Other that I desire and that fascinates me, is out of place . It is derived from the language of sameness:

Because it is atopic, the Other destabilizes language: the Other cannot be spoken of, cannot be talked about; The characteristics attributed to it are foldur , painful, faulty, strange. ( Roland Barthes, Fragments from a Love Discourse )

In contemporary culture, which constantly compares, there is no room for the negativity of atopos. We constantly compare one thing with another, thus flattening them by making them the Same, because we no longer experience the atopia of the Other. The negativity of the Atopic Other denies consumption. Consumer society therefore strives to eliminate atopic otherness and replace it with consumable – heterotopic – differences. Unlike otherness, difference is positive. Negativity is disappearing everywhere nowadays. Everything is flattened by being turned into an object of consumption.

In the hell of sameness, the arrival of the atopic Other may take the form of a catastrophe. In other words: Today, only a catastrophe can liberate – even rescue – us from the hell of sameness and lead us to the Other. Lars Von Trier's Melancholy begins by announcing a catastrophic event. (…) [The planet Melancholy approaching the Earth] manifests as the atopic Other, which pulls Adile out of the swamp of narcissism. (…) Only the planet of Melancholy, that is, the atopic Other that disrupts the hell of sameness, can arouse erotic desire in Adile. (…) This scene suggests that Adile actually desires a fatal collision with the atopic planet. (…) Thus, it is understood that the atopia of the Other is the utopia of eros. (…) Eros – erotic desire – overcomes depression. It saves us from the hell of sameness and takes us to the atopia or even utopia of the Completely Different. (…) In Melancholy, the catastrophe in the sky … suddenly disrupts the Sameness, revealing the atopia of the Different. (…) The negativity of otherness – that is, the atopia of the Other that eludes all faculties – is constitutive in erotic experiences. (…) Our relationship with the future is about the atopic Other, the language of Sameness cannot digest it. (…) sacred, atopic alterity is disappearing in today's increasingly narcissistic society. (…) However, the negativity of withdrawal highlights the Other in its atopic alterity. (…) Thresholds and transitions are zones of mystery and enigma, where the atopic Other begins. (…) Without the temptation of the Atopic Other that ignites erotic desire, thinking is reduced to mere work and always reproduces the Sameness. Calculative thinking lacks the negativity of atopia. (…) Thinking becomes “stronger” and “more uncanny” with the flapping of Eros' wings, It strives to express the atopic Other that cannot fit into words. In calculating, data-driven thinking, the resistance offered by the atopic Other is completely missing. (…) In Plato's dialogues, Socrates appears on the scene as a seducer, beloved and lover; Because of its singularity it is called atopos. (…) Eros leads and seduces thinking (führt und verführt) to untrodden paths through the atopic Other. The demonic nature of Socrates' discourse derives from the negativity of atopia. (…) Eros fills thinking with an atopic desire for the Other. The demonic nature of Socrates' discourse derives from the negativity of atopia. (…) Eros fills thinking with an atopic desire for the Other. The demonic nature of Socrates' discourse derives from the negativity of atopia. (…) Eros fills thinking with an atopic desire for the Other.

Byung-Chul Han 2012 From the book The Agony of Eros

Turkish: Işık Barış Fidaner

In addition to its meaning in philosophy, Atopos is a genus of carnivorous slug .

See also:

“Melancholy: Making Adile Mourn the World”

“From Öncül Başka's bravado to Öncü President's integrity”