Saving Beauty

“Today’s society of intimacy removes more and more objective forms of play and the room for play in which one can escape oneself, ones own psychology. Intimacy is opposed to playful distance and theatricality. Objective forms are decisive in playing, not subjective, psychological states. Strict play or rituals unburden the soul. They do not allow for any space to be given to a pornography of the soul: ‘Eccentricity, egomania, exaltation are not to be found here. Grace and strict play rule out emotional caprice, nudism of the soul, and anything psychopathic.’ The actress, the passionate player, is de-psychologized, de-subjectified and freed of all inwardness and becomes nobody.’ Byung Chul Han p66