‘Amo, ergo (non) sum?’: On the inevitable incommensurability of loves

‘Love’ is the concept that almost every philosopher cannot prevent, but the more dimensions are explored and figured, the more unsettled the idea is. Academic attention has been paid to the positive element of love, such as need, belongingness, intimacy and even humanity. It is however represented quite differently in popular culture, which accentuates the negative side mostly around the experiences regarding uncertainty, disappointment and self-rejection. In this article, I propose to recognise the incommensurability between different loves in order to analyse critically the narratives and actions in the name of love and those which are against them. Through a poststructuralist lens, love is essence-less notwithstanding its dominance in our affective realm – it is a flux, which assembles and carries our emotions, but it is not an emotion. I hence challenge the presumed virtuousness and greatness of love in discursive practices, which normalise its normativity and supremacy over all social bonds. Following critically Deleuze and Guattari’s preference for ‘schizo love’ (vis-à-vis oedipal love), I argue that love is the ‘sum of affects’, and what is un-love is not hate but the absence of feelings – the non-presence in relation to others.