Michael: Alright, Kevin, I have a theory. The very dating apps designed to help us find love are actually teaching us to be terrified of it. They promise 'love without risk,' but what if risk is the whole point? Kevin: Whoa, that's a spicy take to start with. But I see what you mean. It's all about optimizing. Swipe left, swipe right. You're building a portfolio of potential partners, trying to eliminate any chance of a bad investment. It's more like the stock market than a romance. Michael: Exactly! You're trying to engineer the perfect outcome. And that's the central argument of a fascinating, and I think deeply important, little book we're diving into today: In Praise of Love, by the French philosopher Alain Badiou, written with Nicolas Truong. Kevin: Alain Badiou. The name sounds serious. I'm guessing he's not a relationship columnist for a lifestyle magazine. What's his story? Michael: Definitely not. And this is the key to understanding the whole book. Badiou is not your typical philosopher of love. He's a trained mathematician and a lifelong, very committed political activist. He was right in the thick of the May 1968 student revolts in Paris. Kevin: A mathematician and a political radical? That is the last combination I would expect to write a book about love. How does that even work? Michael: It works in the most surprising way. He sees love through this unique lens of logical structures and political resistance. And his first target is exactly what we were just talking about: this modern obsession with making love safe.

Michael: Badiou kicks things off by talking about this ad campaign he saw in Paris for a huge dating website, Meetic, which is like the Match.com of Europe. The slogans were just incredible. Kevin: Oh, I can only imagine. Let me guess: "Find your soulmate with our patented algorithm"? Michael: Even better. One was, "Get love without chance!" Another was, "Be in love without falling in love!" Kevin: Hold on. "Be in love without falling in love"? That sounds like an instruction manual for emotional detachment. It's like saying "Go swimming without getting wet!" What does that even mean? Michael: It means you get the pleasant parts—the companionship, the status—without the terrifying, uncontrolled plunge. The fall. The part where you lose your footing and are no longer in complete control of your own heart. They were even offering "love coaching." Kevin: Love coaching. Wow. So love is now a skill you can master, like learning to code or play tennis. But isn't this just practical? I mean, who actually wants to suffer? Getting your heart broken is one of the worst pains imaginable. Isn't it just smart to try and minimize that risk? Michael: That's the logical question, and Badiou has a brilliant, if chilling, answer. He draws this powerful analogy to modern warfare. He says this promise of "risk-free love" is just like the American military promising a "zero dead" war. Kevin: A "zero dead" war... I remember that rhetoric. The idea of smart bombs, surgical strikes, no casualties on our side. Michael: Precisely. It sounds fantastic on paper. Who wouldn't want a war with no deaths? But it sanitizes the brutal reality of what's happening. It creates a comfortable distance for the aggressor and completely dehumanizes the experience for everyone involved. Badiou argues that "zero-risk love" does the same thing. It turns a profound human event into a clean, managed, technical operation. Kevin: That is a heavy comparison. So he's saying dating apps are the 'smart bombs' of romance? You aim for a perfect, pre-vetted target, but you might be causing massive collateral damage to the whole idea of love itself. Michael: You've nailed it. He says this approach is really just a new form of arranged marriage. In the past, your family arranged your marriage for social stability and property. Today, we arrange our own marriages through these platforms, but the goal is the same: security. We're just securing our own emotional assets instead of the family's land. We're eliminating the poetry of the chance encounter. Kevin: The poetry of the chance encounter. That's a beautiful phrase. It's the 'meet-cute' in every romantic comedy. Bumping into someone at a bookstore, spilling coffee on them. He's saying we're trying to write that out of the script. Michael: We're trying to skip to the end of the movie where we know everything works out. But for Badiou, the movie is the unpredictable journey. And that's where he pivots from what love isn't, to his truly mind-bending idea of what love is.

Michael: He argues that love, at its core, is what he calls a "truth procedure." Kevin: Okay, I have to stop you there. A "truth procedure." My brain immediately goes to a lab or a courtroom. It sounds incredibly cold and, well, mathematical for something as messy and emotional as love. What on earth does he mean by that? Michael: It's the mathematician in him coming out! But it's not as cold as it sounds. For Badiou, a "truth" isn't a pre-existing fact you discover, like gravity. A truth is something new that is constructed. And love is the procedure for constructing a very specific kind of truth: the truth of the 'Two'. Kevin: The truth of the 'Two'. So, not the truth of 'me' or 'you', but the truth of 'us'? Michael: Exactly. He says love begins with a random, contingent encounter. That's the spark. But the real work, the "procedure," is the process of building a life and experiencing the world, no longer from the perspective of 'One'—your own solitary consciousness—but from the perspective of 'Two'. Let me share this beautiful, personal story he tells. It makes the whole concept click. Kevin: Please do, because right now it's feeling very abstract. Michael: He describes being in the countryside at dusk, leaning on the shoulder of the woman he loves. They're looking out at the same landscape: the fields, the trees, the sheep. He knows she is seeing the exact same world. But he also knows she is seeing it through her own unique consciousness, with her own history, her own feelings. Kevin: Right, two different people, one view. Michael: But here's the magic. He says in that moment, the world is not just his view, and it's not just her view. The world itself now includes the fact that they are both seeing it together. Their shared perception becomes part of the fabric of reality for them. That shared experience, that world seen from the perspective of their difference, is the truth of their love. It's a world that simply did not exist before them. Kevin: Wow. Okay, that's much more poetic than 'procedure'. So the 'truth' isn't a scientific fact. The 'truth' is the shared world you build together, a world that is fundamentally co-authored. It's the 'us' perspective becoming a real place you both inhabit. Michael: You've got it. It's a truth you construct, day by day, moment by moment. And it all begins, he says, with the Declaration of Love. The "I love you." That's not just a statement of feeling. For Badiou, it's a performative act. It's the moment you take the randomness of the encounter and you say, "I am pinning my faith on this. I am committing to building this world of 'Two' with you, for the long haul." You are fixing chance into a destiny. Kevin: So 'I love you' is like laying the foundation stone for this new world. It's a promise to start construction. And fidelity, then, isn't just about not cheating. Michael: It's so much more. Fidelity is the construction itself. It's the patient, tenacious, day-to-day work of continuing to build that world from the perspective of Two, even when it's hard, even when you're tempted to retreat back into the comfort of your own selfish 'One'. Kevin: This is all very philosophical and beautiful, but then he takes a hard left turn that I know has been controversial for some readers. I read that he calls love 'minimal communism.' That's a term that is going to raise some eyebrows. How does he possibly connect this intimate, personal world-building to a political ideology?

Michael: It is absolutely his most provocative point, and it comes directly from his activist background. But he's very, very clear: love and politics are not the same thing. He says politics is a truth procedure for the 'Collective', while love is a truth procedure for the 'Two'. Politics, by its nature, has enemies—forces you must struggle against to create a better society. Love, he argues, doesn't have external enemies. Kevin: Wait, what about a rival? The other person trying to steal your partner. That seems like a pretty classic enemy. Michael: Badiou would say that's just a drama, a complication. The true enemy of love is internal. It's your own ego. It's the 'myself' that prefers the safety and sovereignty of its own world, the world of 'One', over the risky, shared world of 'Two'. The real battle in love is the struggle against your own selfishness. Kevin: Ah, so the struggle is 'me' versus 'we'. It’s the temptation to stop co-authoring the story and just go back to writing your own solo narrative. Michael: Precisely. And now we get to the political part. He says that in a world dominated by market logic—a world that constantly tells you to prioritize your own self-interest, to maximize your pleasure, to be a sovereign consumer—a couple that commits to building a world from the perspective of 'Two' is performing a small but profound act of resistance. Kevin: So my partner and I deciding to stick together through a tough time is a tiny rebellion against capitalism? That's a pretty wild take. Michael: It's a bold take, but it's consistent with his philosophy. He's saying this couple, this 'Two', becomes the smallest possible collective that operates on principles of shared truth, fidelity, and the common good, rather than individual gain. It's a tiny cell of an alternative way of being. That's the 'minimal communism' he's talking about. It's not about state control; it's about a shared world that defies the logic of the market. Kevin: You know, when you put it that way, it reframes the daily struggles of a relationship. The arguments, the compromises... they're not just petty squabbles. They're part of this larger, noble project of keeping the 'Two' alive against a world that wants to pull you back into being a 'One'. It gives the whole enterprise a bit more... dignity. Michael: It gives it immense dignity. And it explains why he's so passionate about defending love. It's not just about defending a nice feeling. It's about defending a unique way of being human that is under threat.

Michael: And that really is the core of Badiou's praise of love. He's trying to rescue it from the bargain bin of modern life, where it's been reduced to a safe transaction or a fleeting pleasure. He wants us to see it for what he believes it truly is: a tenacious adventure, a world-building project, and yes, even a quiet form of rebellion. Kevin: It's definitely not a self-help book. There are no five easy steps to a better relationship here. It's more of a philosophical call to arms. It's demanding. He's not telling you how to find the perfect partner; he's asking you to be brave enough to build a new world with an imperfect one. Michael: He's asking you to embrace the risk that the dating apps want you to eliminate. Because for him, the risk isn't a bug; it's the entire feature. Without the risk of the fall, there's no possibility of the flight. Kevin: It leaves me thinking about one of his most powerful lines you mentioned from the book: "Love what you will never see twice." It’s not about finding someone who fits a pre-made template. It’s about cherishing the unrepeatable, unique, maybe even difficult person in front of you, and the singular world that only the two of you can create. Michael: That's the perfect summary. It's a challenge to the identity cult of repetition. So the question Badiou leaves us with isn't 'how do I find my perfect match?' but a much deeper one: 'Am I brave enough to truly encounter another person and commit to the lifelong construction of a shared truth?' Kevin: A challenging thought to end on, for sure. It makes you look at your own relationships, past and present, in a completely different light. We'd love to hear what you all think. Does this radical, philosophical take on love resonate with your experience, or does it feel too abstract and idealistic? Find us on our social channels and join the conversation. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.