Derrida on Love

In the film “Derrida,” the topic of love is brought up several times. Derrida first presents the idea of love in the beginning of the movie. He says that love is broken up into two parts, "the who" and "the what." When a person falls in love, they can either fall in love with the who and the what. The who is the person themselves. An individual loves everything about a person and just their general being. The other part is the what. The what are certain features that one is attracted to. The certain features that are loved are individualized. The features are separate from each other and the individual might not like or love other features about their counterpart. Is it possible to be in love with the who? Is there something that is dislikable in everyone?

I think that when you love someone, you love them for the what, not for the who. At the time, you might think that you love the who but there are always things about everyone that one doesn’t like. Instead, one falls in love with many whats that comprise an individual. There are several whats that you dislike in a person but it is so outweighed by the whats that one loves that they are disregarded.

Narcissism is later discusses by Derrida in which he talked about himself. He never liked the look of his face, unlike Narcissus. Narcissus was a man who loved his face so much that he kept looking at his reflection in the water. He eventually fell into the water and drowned. When the idea of pictures was brought up in the interview, Derrida commented on how he did not like the look of his face. This started off disliking his face as a child and the loathing of his look grew as he aged.