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4:35

(In »Living religion versus deadly alienation«)

However, the problem here is that the human libido never allows itself to be satisfied. It never gets enough, never lets the human being settle down, satisfied. The libido emanates from desire’s constant search for new unsatisfied desires, in its constant postponement of satisfaction in order to keep itself alive. When desire is relegated to anthropotechnics, the libido is therefore shifted from sexuality to asceticism. Anthropotechnics strengthen desire through constantly postponing or re-locating it. Therefore the human being’s self-domestication presupposes a libidinal castration, and the Abrahamic religions with their stronger anti-sex moralism fit perfectly for this purpose. The anthropotechnical practitioners get their energy from the dictates of the law, and since according to Sloterdijk the human being constantly strives for verticality – a longing to create a connection with the divine, to be able to satisfy the syntheological imperative of finding and subordinating herself to a functional metaphysical story – this leads to the law becoming synonymous with God himself.