Photograph titled 'Love on the Barricades' of two young fighters kissing on a barricade in Paris, Gare de Lyon. May 22, 1968. Credit: Les Inédit de Mai 68 (May 1978) from Agence Associated Press.

The Eros Effect

What happens when love and solidarity take over a society? Competition gives way to cooperation, hierarchy to equality, power to truth.

 


Ordinary people acting together can change anything.

We can find moments in every country’s history when millions of people come together to change the forces ruling their society. When such movement’s aspirations and visions become real lived experiences beyond political slogans some of the most exhilarating feelings imaginable of love for one’s fellow human being can ignite and bring rapid social change. This is the Eros Effect.

 

The Eros Effect Foundation

The Eros Effect Foundation is dedicated to education about the history and sociology of war and peace; distribution and screening of our award-winning film and book about Harvard University; and production of books and articles, speeches and conferences

 
 

George Katsiaficas

A long-time activist, George Katsiaficas lived in Gwangju for many years and was a visiting professor at Jeonnam National University. His books have been translated into many languages. While in Gwangju, he completed a two-volume study, Asia’s Unknown Uprisings, that places the 1980 Gwangju Peoples Uprising at the center of a series of insurgencies in East and South Asia. A student of Herbert Marcuse, he developed the concept of the “eros effect” to name the sudden and synchronous eruption of grassroots movements. In 2016, he was named an Honorary Citizen of Gwangju and received the Kim Dae-jung Scholar’s Award (Hu-Kwang Award). With the prize money he took a delegation of descendants of 518 fighters to Greece