> I can imagine circumstances under which young women would find older
> men unappealing . But can you imagine circumstances under which 25 year
> old men would want to marry fifty year old women?
The aporia runs deeper than this, though. The domination of capital, of the imperative to endlessly expand the commodity form, reaches into the very heart of the utopia of the loving relationship. In Adorno's words: "Wohl sind die Menschen ausnahmslos unterm Bann, keiner zur Liebe schon faehig, und darum meint ein jeder sich zu wenig geliebt." [Probably human beings are without exception under a spell; none are capable of love, and for that very reason every single one feels not loved enough.] (Pg 356, Negative Dialektik) The "spell" has a specific meaning for Adorno, i.e. the culture of commodity fetishism, which turns people into objects, vehicles for capital accumulation. Some of the most lyrical passages in "Negative Dialectics" focus on the ways in which people can resist this spell, learn its codes, counter its techniques, and unlearn its effects. In a truly emancipated society, the personal would be unimaginably more than the political; the political in turn would be freed from the dominion of what capital has ghettoized as the personal.
-- Dennis