pelnufeja ([info]pelnufeja) wrote on October 12th, 2016 at 12:59 am
One cannot resist asking: which is more perverted, a woman who commits a crime because of overpassioned love or a nation that commits itself to bloody rape of its neighbor, also in the name of love? Perhaps it was fortuitous that Sada’s love was shielded from the national state of emergency, precisely because of the
criminality that was ascribed to it by the state, since killing one man outside the sovereign order was a crime, while killing, mutilating, and violating hundreds and thousands in the name of the Emperor was a glory.
The target of Arendt’s remark was totalitarianism, which normally (and perhaps necessarily or inevitably) comes with the language of love. Winston Smith had to obliviously and selflessly adore Big Brother climbing up the ladder of the execution scaffold.53 Amidst starvation, North Koreans today still call their leader “Dear Leader” and tearfully sing songs praising his love and care.54

(Sonia Ryang "Love in Modern Japan: Its Estrangement from Self, Sex and Society")
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