Purposed Positivity

In my post from a fortnight ago, I canvassed my attempt to simplify Byung-Chul Han’s couplet of “positivity” and “negativity”, and applying that couplet to relationships between couples.

I also mentioned that in the metaphysical balance between negativity and positivity, success in love is marked by a sense of failure, here defined as the failure to control another to align them with my own ego.

The question to ask here is what happens when that negativity is removed, such that we arrive at a condition of what Han calls “pure positivity”. As you can glean from our earlier observation that negativity is not negative, “pure positivity” is for Han anything but positive.

Remember that if positivity is associated with human control, then “pure positivity” is one whereby the social landscape is marked by the removal of any complexity and hiddenness, thereby facilitating uninterrupted flows of comprehension and control.

How this affects relationships is when, instead of “being able not to be able”, as is the case with the balance of positivity and negativity, we now have a situation where the other must now “be able to be able”. Instead of allowing the person to simply be, and be loved, there is now a pressure to perform in order to be loved. In short, under conditions of pure positivity, the person must now prove that they are worthy of love.

This pressure to perform comes with the insertion of purpose and function as an essential part of a person’s makeup. The person’s worth is so tied to that purpose and function that anyone lacking such function is thereby deemed worthless. More to the point, that purpose and function is set not by the person themselves, but by the narcissistic egos who assert control over them.

In Han’s estimation, relations under conditions of pure positivity will no longer be marked by fidelity (which requires negativity). Instead, positive relations, marked by function and the drive to prove one’s worth, will become thinned out to a series of transactions. A person enters into a “relationship”, performs their function (which is then consumed by the ego”) and with the function performed, cast aside.

What was originality the beloved under the veil of negativity, becomes disposable under the glaring light of positivity and with it, purposeful performance.

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