Philosophical Reflections on Self-Partnering

Emma Watson
Photo: Action Press / Rex / Shutterstock

As members of the Hollywood set are amongst the most self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and self-indulgent individuals in the world, it came as no surprise to hear Emma Watson speak in an interview with Vogue about self-partnering [click here to read online].

Of course, such a single-positive proposition is really nothing very new: we could trace out a long and fascinating history of self-partnering from Narcissus to Jerry Seinfeld; "Now I know what I've been looking for all these years - myself. I've been waiting for me to come along. And now I've swept myself off my feet!"*

And although some people seem to react with hostility to the idea, there's really nothing to get angry or judgemental about. In fact, I would encourage people to be happy for Ms Watson - particularly as she seems to be so content with the arrangement.

Ultimately, self-partnering is better than sitting around moping like Bridget Jones, or complaining about not having met your soulmate - that special someone who will complete you as a human being (as if Aristophanes's amorous fantasy was anything other than that).**

I also agree with Foucault that care for others shouldn't be put before the care of oneself; that the latter is ethically prior due to the fact that the relationship with oneself is ontologically prior. ***    

The only problem comes when you grow tired of the arrangement and seek a conscious uncoupling; i.e., a releasing of oneself from oneself  - 'cos breaking up is hard to do (comma, comma, down dooby doo down down).  

Notes

*Dialogue from Seinfeld, 'The Invitations', (S7/E22, 1999), written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, episode dir. Andy Ackerman. Click here to watch a clip on YouTube.

** Plato, The Symposium, ed. M. C. Howatson and Frisbee C. C. Sheffield, trans. M. C. Howatson, (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

*** Michel Foucault, 'The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom', in The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow, trans. Robert Hurley and Others, (The New Press, 1997).

Readers who enjoyed this post will probably find an earlier one on sologamy also of interest: click here.

Deepfake and the Triumph of Lying

Deepfakes generated from a single image by researchers at Samsung's AI lab in Moscow: 
Egor Zakharov / Aliaksandra Shysheya / Egor Burkov / Victor Lempitsky

For those who don't know, deepfake is a technique using artificial intelligence to synthesise reality.

Pre-existing sounds and images are combined or superimposed on one another in often humorous, sometimes malicious, always slightly uncanny new ways, creating extremely convincing new sounds and images that are, as Baudrillard would say, hyperreal (i.e., more real than real).

The technology that enables this, developed over the last twenty years or so, is increasingly sophisticated and the game has moved way beyond a few pervy nerds swapping homemade videos online in which the faces of celebrities such as Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, or Emma Watson are placed on the bodies of porn actresses.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there are calls in the UK and US to criminalise the making and distribution of deepfake material; the real concern being fake news, rather than fake nudes, as politicians have also been subject to deepfake trickery. Some commentators fear this could have damaging (even dangerous) consequences, technology making it impossible for us to determine the truth of what we see and hear.*

On the other hand, fears about new technology have a long history and are often overstated. Perhaps deepfake will oblige us all to think a little more artistically and critically and not just assume the real as a pregiven or something fixed. And besides, hasn't life always unfolded within some kind of generative adversarial network and aren't the only real people ones who have never existed?

*Note: anyone who wants to give deepfake technology a go before it's banned, can download FakeApp, which allows for the creation of photorealistic face swapping videos, or open-source alternatives such as Faceswap.