Byung‑Chul Han, La agonía del Eros (Raúl Gabás, trad.): Barcelona, Herder, 2014, 74 pp.

Abstract

The review presents Byung-Chul Han’s The agony of Eros as a critique of neoliberalism and the disappearance of otherness. In the achievement society, individuals exploit themselves, turn love into consumption, and eliminate the negativity essential to erotic experience. Pornography, hypervisibility, and the accumulation of information destroy fantasy and reduce the other to a commodity. Against the «hell of sameness», Han connects Eros with freedom, risk, death, and transformative thought. The book ultimately defends recognition of difference as the condition of love, philosophy, and revolutionary change, while portraying contemporary depression, exhaustion, and narcissism as consequences of isolation and the loss of genuine relationships.