Gustar y emocionar

Racine says in the prologue to Berenice that "the main rule is to like and excite: all the others are only made to achieve this first". To like, to excite: that is, to seduce. In this book Gilles Lipovetsky addresses the issue from two angles. In the first place, erotic seduction, from the mechanisms of courtship in primitive societies to internet portals to find a partner or flirt. But there is a second, broader field; In our current society, the techniques of seduction are also applied in other domains: the economy, politics, education, the media ... We enter what the author describes as consumerist Don Juanism. The imperative no longer seems to be to oblige, order, discipline and repress, but to like and excite through seduction. The seduction that surrounds us provokes the emergence of a hypertrophied individualization in relation to the other, generates a way of intervening on the behavior of individuals and of governing them in liberal democratic societies. This essay addresses these mechanisms with precision and depth and how they affect our lives.