ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the ultimate expression of contemporary Western society and capitalism is the corruption of love. Depressive love is undoubtedly based on the idea of love as a positive potency, as a kind of intersubjectivity that one could make use of and is attractive for that reason. Ideal love becomes depressive, which must be regarded as a societal short-circuit or what social philosopher Axel Honneth called a 'social pathology'. The notion of social pathology refers to some form of social disorganisation or pattern of social problems. An example of social pathology that reflects the contemporary form of capitalism is the merging of love and depression in contemporary Western societies. Depressive love can be explained in terms of two different forms of self-reduction, which increasingly appear as common misunderstandings of the ideal of love.
