the complexity of love
March 12, 2005 3:39 PM Subscribe
I come not to bury love, but to complicate it. There is something wrong with our concept of love. Romantic love (just “love” hereafter) isn't what many of us think it is when we ask ourselves “Do I love her?” or “Does he love me?” Many of us are making some kind of mistake. But what kind of mistake is it, and what is love if it isn't what many of us think it is?
A concept, roughly, is a way of thinking of things or features of things in the world. To have a concept of something is to have a kind of psychological ability to “individuate”, or pick out, all kinds of things in the world, for thought and talk, and for action. Some of our concepts are of psychological states. For example, I have a concept of pain and a concept of belief. I also have a concept of love, as do you. The suggestion that I am making is that there is a mismatch between love and our concept of love. But what is the nature of that mismatch?
Love's complications From The Philosopher's Magazine
Love's complications From The Philosopher's Magazine
So, because the English language has only one word for an incredibly complex subject, it follows that people do not have views that are nuanced beyond a binary "yes or no"? In conclusion, has this guy ever interacted with other humans?
posted by MillMan at 3:59 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by MillMan at 3:59 PM on March 12, 2005
He's mentioning something everyone knows but no one talks about: love is really complex, and the idea of love we bandy about doesn't match up very well. I think we as a society do overemphasize the never-changing, "happily ever after", on/off idea of love, even though anyone who's been in any relationship knows better.
posted by Maxson at 4:11 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by Maxson at 4:11 PM on March 12, 2005
I dunno quonsor, I haven't been seeing you guys for all that long. I think I have more work to do on calibrating and tweaking my sarcasm before I'm part of the mefi love fest.
posted by MillMan at 4:15 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by MillMan at 4:15 PM on March 12, 2005
The link writes "Romantic love (just “love” hereafter) isn't what many of us think it is when we ask ourselves “Do I love her?” or “Does he love me?” Many of us are making some kind of mistake...The suggestion that I am making is that there is a mismatch between love and our concept of love. But what is the nature of that mismatch?...
...
I don't think that many of us grown-ups have such an idealistic concept, so this isn't the mismatch that I am going to pursue here"
If it were about love not being what we conceive it to be, it would be fairly interesting. But it's about love not being what kids conceive it to be, which is, to pardon my abruptness, immensely obvious. Most of his following discussion relies on that, saying, in effect, "there are simple interpretations of love, and there are complex ones. I'm going to disregard the comples ones, which leaves us with simple ones, which are wrong. Hence, our concept of love is wrong."
posted by Bugbread at 4:15 PM on March 12, 2005
...
I don't think that many of us grown-ups have such an idealistic concept, so this isn't the mismatch that I am going to pursue here"
If it were about love not being what we conceive it to be, it would be fairly interesting. But it's about love not being what kids conceive it to be, which is, to pardon my abruptness, immensely obvious. Most of his following discussion relies on that, saying, in effect, "there are simple interpretations of love, and there are complex ones. I'm going to disregard the comples ones, which leaves us with simple ones, which are wrong. Hence, our concept of love is wrong."
posted by Bugbread at 4:15 PM on March 12, 2005
Like it needs complicating?
Sorry, that's not very helpful. But I am highly disinclined to read this. Nothing personal, y2karl. It's not you, it's me.
posted by jokeefe at 4:27 PM on March 12, 2005
Sorry, that's not very helpful. But I am highly disinclined to read this. Nothing personal, y2karl. It's not you, it's me.
posted by jokeefe at 4:27 PM on March 12, 2005
Romantic love (just “love” hereafter) isn't what many of us think it is when we ask ourselves “Do I love her?” or “Does he love me?” Many of us are making some kind of mistake...The suggestion that I am making is that there is a mismatch between love and our concept of love.
By perpetuating the myth that love (in the sense it is meant here) is a feeling at all is the fundamental category mistake here. Love is a decision, a choice, a prioritization of someone else's needs over your own. Love, if it is to be transcendent, must transcend petty personal desire. That irrational choice is what gives love it's power. But no matter how much a choice might originate in emotion, it does not depend on emotion. If you don't choose to love someone when it's inconvenient, when you don't want to love them, then you never really loved them (in the transcendent sense) at all.
posted by gd779 at 4:35 PM on March 12, 2005 [1 favorite]
By perpetuating the myth that love (in the sense it is meant here) is a feeling at all is the fundamental category mistake here. Love is a decision, a choice, a prioritization of someone else's needs over your own. Love, if it is to be transcendent, must transcend petty personal desire. That irrational choice is what gives love it's power. But no matter how much a choice might originate in emotion, it does not depend on emotion. If you don't choose to love someone when it's inconvenient, when you don't want to love them, then you never really loved them (in the transcendent sense) at all.
posted by gd779 at 4:35 PM on March 12, 2005 [1 favorite]
...a prioritization of someone else's needs over your own.
What about self-love?
posted by AlexReynolds at 4:37 PM on March 12, 2005
What about self-love?
posted by AlexReynolds at 4:37 PM on March 12, 2005
It's a cute little essay, and I think it's mostly right, but it really just swings at straw men. Does anyone actually think that love is a simple, binary property? The little list numbered 1 through 6 is good though - I also disagree with all of of those claims.
gd779: Your characterization makes it sound like people can't fall out of love. Is that impossible? If someone falls out of love, does that mean they were never actually in love to begin with?
posted by painquale at 5:00 PM on March 12, 2005
gd779: Your characterization makes it sound like people can't fall out of love. Is that impossible? If someone falls out of love, does that mean they were never actually in love to begin with?
posted by painquale at 5:00 PM on March 12, 2005
Alex: self-love is the best love. I'm proud to say I discovered this fact while still a teenager. I have to hand it to myself.
posted by Decani at 5:19 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by Decani at 5:19 PM on March 12, 2005
gd779: It sounds like you're simply redefining love as commitment. Or am I misreading you?
Also: Can you explain what you mean by "transcendent"?
posted by boredomjockey at 5:32 PM on March 12, 2005
Also: Can you explain what you mean by "transcendent"?
posted by boredomjockey at 5:32 PM on March 12, 2005
I have a philosophy: "words mean things". The less precise our language the more our meaning/understanding can be lost. "Love" is certainly one of those imprecise words. The Greeks at least had several words that are translated in English "love": Eros (romantic), Philia (brotherly), Agapé (principled).
Agapé is the most interesting, because it defines showing love even when the emotions do not lead us to do it. The "love chapter" in the Bible (1 Cor. 13) which is often read at weddings is often applied to romantic love, but if you look at the original Greek, it is "agapé". The thinking that love is to be shown to others only if we really feel it is not consistent with the original language.
posted by spock at 5:42 PM on March 12, 2005
Agapé is the most interesting, because it defines showing love even when the emotions do not lead us to do it. The "love chapter" in the Bible (1 Cor. 13) which is often read at weddings is often applied to romantic love, but if you look at the original Greek, it is "agapé". The thinking that love is to be shown to others only if we really feel it is not consistent with the original language.
posted by spock at 5:42 PM on March 12, 2005
Alex: self-love is the best love
It also helps put Mr. Kleenex's kids through college.
posted by jonmc at 5:47 PM on March 12, 2005
It also helps put Mr. Kleenex's kids through college.
posted by jonmc at 5:47 PM on March 12, 2005
If our concept of love doesn't correspond to what's denoted by "love", then ... how would you know?
posted by kenko at 6:07 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by kenko at 6:07 PM on March 12, 2005
gd779: It sounds like you're simply redefining love as commitment. Or am I misreading you?
Also: Can you explain what you mean by "transcendent"?
Commitment is close, but self-sacrifice is better.
What an unappealing and unfashionable idea! Why would anyone sacrifice their own desires for someone else?
That's why love is transcendent. By "transcendent" love, I mean love that goes above or beyond the limits of self-interest.
Any economist, psychologist, or evolutionary biologist will tell you that we human beings are basically programmed to be self-interested. That's our default position. But all too frequently this leaves us, inexplicably, hollow. We're supposed to be selfish, but we're not supposed to be disconnected. No man is an island, and all that.
That leaves two choices. First, what I like to call the "east coast model", because most of the people that I happen to know who espouse this view live on the east coast of the USA, is that we form partnerships of mutual self-interest. I'll stay with you, they say, so long as you make me happy and meet my needs. And I'll try to meet your needs in exchange. If that doesn't work out, well, then we'll part ways. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Call me a romantic, but this sounds too much like an alliance of convenience to me, and I don't think it's fulfilling. It's certainly doesn't provide security, it seems to me.
So, as an alternative, I propose a model that's as old as dirt. I propose that we conceptualize love as self-sacrifice.
What would cause rational, selfish human beings to sacrifice themselves? Nothing. That's why love is "transcendent". It's illogical, irrational. But. When the right object of affection is found, it is capable of lifting us up out of our narrow self-interest. And something about that is fulfilling, I think, for many of us. We'll live for others in a way that we'll never live for ourselves.
And do you want to see the magic? If I care more about you than I care about me, your needs will get met. And if you care more about me than I care about you, then my needs will get met. And we'll both get the satisfaction of altruism, and of knowing that our lives have a higher purpose than just sitting around and trying to make our selfish selves happy. So while two people who commit to each other in order to meet their own needs will get their needs met, two people who commit to each other in order to meet the other's needs will get their own needs met with interest. Neat, huh?
Of course, it requires the right partner.
gd779: Your characterization makes it sound like people can't fall out of love. Is that impossible? If someone falls out of love, does that mean they were never actually in love to begin with?
If love is an action, what does it mean to "fall out of love"? How do you "fall out of" an action? You can only ask that question if you're thinking of love as, fundamentally, a feeling.
No, at any given moment, you can choose to act in a loving manner (put the interest of the other ahead of your own interests) or to not act in a loving manner. Everyone, obviously, will fail from time to time. Do such momentary lapses negate the overall commitment to their love? Of course not.
What about when someone makes the deliberate, and permanent, decision to stop loving another? Well, first bear in mind that sometimes the most loving thing you can do, as a practical matter, is leave. That should not be used as a cloak to disguise selfishness (not if you want to be loving, anyway) but it is sometimes true. That said, I would argue that if you ever make the permanent decision to stop loving another that while you loved them, your love was not transcendent. That is, if you're putting your personal desires ahead of somebody else's needs, I think it's pretty plain that you haven't transcended petty self-interest, and therefore you cannot be expressing transcendent love. That's okay most of the time; after all, you're not supposed to express this love towards everyone.
How is this suggestion different from romantic conceptions of "true love"? Simple: making love a choice puts the responsibility back on you. If you're just hanging out, waiting for your "one and only" True Love to find you, then when somebody you thought was that turns out not to be that, you can walk away blameless. When you accept that such a person doesn't exist, and that love is fundamentally a leap of faith, an unearned expression of acceptance, then you simply have to choose when, and under what circumstances, and to what degree, you're willing to make that commitment.
If our concept of love doesn't correspond to what's denoted by "love", then ... how would you know?
That's the trouble, innit? But then, that's a limit of all language, and all knowledge really, so (sadly) your comment proves too much.
posted by gd779 at 6:36 PM on March 12, 2005
Also: Can you explain what you mean by "transcendent"?
Commitment is close, but self-sacrifice is better.
What an unappealing and unfashionable idea! Why would anyone sacrifice their own desires for someone else?
That's why love is transcendent. By "transcendent" love, I mean love that goes above or beyond the limits of self-interest.
Any economist, psychologist, or evolutionary biologist will tell you that we human beings are basically programmed to be self-interested. That's our default position. But all too frequently this leaves us, inexplicably, hollow. We're supposed to be selfish, but we're not supposed to be disconnected. No man is an island, and all that.
That leaves two choices. First, what I like to call the "east coast model", because most of the people that I happen to know who espouse this view live on the east coast of the USA, is that we form partnerships of mutual self-interest. I'll stay with you, they say, so long as you make me happy and meet my needs. And I'll try to meet your needs in exchange. If that doesn't work out, well, then we'll part ways. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Call me a romantic, but this sounds too much like an alliance of convenience to me, and I don't think it's fulfilling. It's certainly doesn't provide security, it seems to me.
So, as an alternative, I propose a model that's as old as dirt. I propose that we conceptualize love as self-sacrifice.
What would cause rational, selfish human beings to sacrifice themselves? Nothing. That's why love is "transcendent". It's illogical, irrational. But. When the right object of affection is found, it is capable of lifting us up out of our narrow self-interest. And something about that is fulfilling, I think, for many of us. We'll live for others in a way that we'll never live for ourselves.
And do you want to see the magic? If I care more about you than I care about me, your needs will get met. And if you care more about me than I care about you, then my needs will get met. And we'll both get the satisfaction of altruism, and of knowing that our lives have a higher purpose than just sitting around and trying to make our selfish selves happy. So while two people who commit to each other in order to meet their own needs will get their needs met, two people who commit to each other in order to meet the other's needs will get their own needs met with interest. Neat, huh?
Of course, it requires the right partner.
gd779: Your characterization makes it sound like people can't fall out of love. Is that impossible? If someone falls out of love, does that mean they were never actually in love to begin with?
If love is an action, what does it mean to "fall out of love"? How do you "fall out of" an action? You can only ask that question if you're thinking of love as, fundamentally, a feeling.
No, at any given moment, you can choose to act in a loving manner (put the interest of the other ahead of your own interests) or to not act in a loving manner. Everyone, obviously, will fail from time to time. Do such momentary lapses negate the overall commitment to their love? Of course not.
What about when someone makes the deliberate, and permanent, decision to stop loving another? Well, first bear in mind that sometimes the most loving thing you can do, as a practical matter, is leave. That should not be used as a cloak to disguise selfishness (not if you want to be loving, anyway) but it is sometimes true. That said, I would argue that if you ever make the permanent decision to stop loving another that while you loved them, your love was not transcendent. That is, if you're putting your personal desires ahead of somebody else's needs, I think it's pretty plain that you haven't transcended petty self-interest, and therefore you cannot be expressing transcendent love. That's okay most of the time; after all, you're not supposed to express this love towards everyone.
How is this suggestion different from romantic conceptions of "true love"? Simple: making love a choice puts the responsibility back on you. If you're just hanging out, waiting for your "one and only" True Love to find you, then when somebody you thought was that turns out not to be that, you can walk away blameless. When you accept that such a person doesn't exist, and that love is fundamentally a leap of faith, an unearned expression of acceptance, then you simply have to choose when, and under what circumstances, and to what degree, you're willing to make that commitment.
If our concept of love doesn't correspond to what's denoted by "love", then ... how would you know?
That's the trouble, innit? But then, that's a limit of all language, and all knowledge really, so (sadly) your comment proves too much.
posted by gd779 at 6:36 PM on March 12, 2005
If this subject interests you, then I highly recommend reading John Armstrong's Conditons of Love: the Philosophy of Intimacy.
posted by randomstriker at 6:36 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by randomstriker at 6:36 PM on March 12, 2005
It should be noted that transcendent love is an ideal. As I said, nobody can act that selflessly all the time, and a certain, practical recognitioin of your own needs is also essential for making the relationship work. (How can you give if you don't have anything to give? How can the other person give if they don't know what you want, because you haven't figured it out and told them?)
So it's an aspiration, not a destination.
Crap, I sound like a Hallmark greeting card. That's got to stop, poste haste.
posted by gd779 at 6:42 PM on March 12, 2005
So it's an aspiration, not a destination.
Crap, I sound like a Hallmark greeting card. That's got to stop, poste haste.
posted by gd779 at 6:42 PM on March 12, 2005
kenko : " If our concept of love doesn't correspond to what's denoted by 'love', then ... how would you know?"
Exactly. Our concept of love can be divided into at least two meanings (and, of course, many more). One can be the romantic love the author rails against, and another can be the kind of love that adults understand, which the author chooses to ignore for some reason. Obviously our concept of love corresponds to what's denoted by "love": the method of expressing that wordless concept is the use of the word "love".
The author is saying the equivalent of "What we call green is really yellow."
posted by Bugbread at 6:46 PM on March 12, 2005
Exactly. Our concept of love can be divided into at least two meanings (and, of course, many more). One can be the romantic love the author rails against, and another can be the kind of love that adults understand, which the author chooses to ignore for some reason. Obviously our concept of love corresponds to what's denoted by "love": the method of expressing that wordless concept is the use of the word "love".
The author is saying the equivalent of "What we call green is really yellow."
posted by Bugbread at 6:46 PM on March 12, 2005
gd779 : " Call me a romantic, but this sounds too much like an alliance of convenience to me, and I don't think it's fulfilling. It's certainly doesn't provide security, it seems to me. So, as an alternative, I propose...that we conceptualize love as self-sacrifice. What would cause rational, selfish human beings to sacrifice themselves? Nothing. That's why love is 'transcendent'."
That seems like really specious reasoning. "I don't like this theory, so I'll propose another theory that I like better" seems like it would be better phrased as "I don't like this theory, so I'll believe something else which may be less true but is more comforting."
If that's the case, I propose that love is actually an unconscious worship of me, bugbread. People displace their true feelings of awe and desire for me on other folks.
Yeah, I like that better. I'll go with that alternative.
posted by Bugbread at 6:54 PM on March 12, 2005
That seems like really specious reasoning. "I don't like this theory, so I'll propose another theory that I like better" seems like it would be better phrased as "I don't like this theory, so I'll believe something else which may be less true but is more comforting."
If that's the case, I propose that love is actually an unconscious worship of me, bugbread. People displace their true feelings of awe and desire for me on other folks.
Yeah, I like that better. I'll go with that alternative.
posted by Bugbread at 6:54 PM on March 12, 2005
It's not like any other meaningful concept is clear cut...Love is no different from anything else...Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Then read Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein. Then go about living your practical and successful life exactly as you lived it before and be glad you are not a philosophy major...
posted by srboisvert at 7:06 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by srboisvert at 7:06 PM on March 12, 2005
That was a sweet little speech, gd779. Thanks! I don't usually like it when people try to define ordinary words like this (words are too complex and vague to allow for spot-on synonyms), but your analysis is pretty moving.
FWIW, I don't think I'd want to say that love is only an action and never a state or emotion. I think you could say that 'love' is the state of being willing to sacrifice oneself if called upon. You can fall out of love when you take stock of yourself and realize that you wouldn't sacrifice yourself for the other person.
On preview, it looks like bugbread and srboisvert are complaining about the kinds of things I normally complain about when people try to engage in conceptual analysis. Gd779's theory seems general enough to me that I'm not finding it too objectionable. I'm sure that some things we ordinarily call 'love' are being misplaced by the theory, but oh well.
posted by painquale at 7:09 PM on March 12, 2005
FWIW, I don't think I'd want to say that love is only an action and never a state or emotion. I think you could say that 'love' is the state of being willing to sacrifice oneself if called upon. You can fall out of love when you take stock of yourself and realize that you wouldn't sacrifice yourself for the other person.
On preview, it looks like bugbread and srboisvert are complaining about the kinds of things I normally complain about when people try to engage in conceptual analysis. Gd779's theory seems general enough to me that I'm not finding it too objectionable. I'm sure that some things we ordinarily call 'love' are being misplaced by the theory, but oh well.
posted by painquale at 7:09 PM on March 12, 2005
One problem I have with gd779's theory is the way it eschews emotions as a fundamental source of love (see his response to painquale's "falling out of love" question), yet also claims love is "illogical, irrational". People act for reasons that are either logical or illogical. If the reason is "I want to take care of this person more than me", and that reason has to be illogical, then what other motivator is there besides emotion? I can't think of another illogical-yet-not-emotional reason to do anything besides being crazy, which I don't think is gd779's point.
If love is a choice, then it must be made for a reason, logical or not... I'm not seeing it.
posted by Maxson at 7:17 PM on March 12, 2005
If love is a choice, then it must be made for a reason, logical or not... I'm not seeing it.
posted by Maxson at 7:17 PM on March 12, 2005
I am midway through Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis.
I find the topic interesting on both sides of the fence i.e. why is it that the dominant view seems to be if you are not part of a couple something is lacking in your life. Yet, the word love is bandied about so casually by some it negates it's import in my view.
Love is an elusive, everchanging thing, but we still try to make sense of it. Silly humans.
posted by sillygit at 7:22 PM on March 12, 2005
I find the topic interesting on both sides of the fence i.e. why is it that the dominant view seems to be if you are not part of a couple something is lacking in your life. Yet, the word love is bandied about so casually by some it negates it's import in my view.
Love is an elusive, everchanging thing, but we still try to make sense of it. Silly humans.
posted by sillygit at 7:22 PM on March 12, 2005
Just for reference, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with GD779's definition of love (I do happen to disagree with it, but that's not what my post was about). Here, I'm just disagreeing with GD779's stated reason / rationale for developing the theory.
posted by Bugbread at 7:41 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by Bugbread at 7:41 PM on March 12, 2005
FWIW, I don't think I'd want to say that love is only an action and never a state or emotion. I think you could say that 'love' is the state of being willing to sacrifice oneself if called upon. You can fall out of love when you take stock of yourself and realize that you wouldn't sacrifice yourself for the other person.
Fair enough. Your point is a good one. That slight change of definition wouldn't work quite as well for me, of course, but I'm pretty strange.
People act for reasons that are either logical or illogical. If the reason is "I want to take care of this person more than me", and that reason has to be illogical, then what other motivator is there besides emotion?
When we say that people sometimes act illogically, what we generally mean is that they are not acting in ways that are likely to accomplish their goals. But those goals themselves can neither be, strictly speaking, logical or illogical. Economists will call altruistic behavior "irrational", but that's a just an arbitrary definition, a useful working assumption when trying to figure out how economies work. Strictly speaking, self-interest is no more logical than altrusim is and vice-versa. Reason can tell us how to get what we want, but it can't tell us what to want.
The key element, then, has to be free choice, or Free Will, which I believe is a demonstrably separate thing from either emotion or reason. But that's a whole other discussion, obviously. For these purposes, the only point I need to make is that the "reason" for your desire not to take care of some person has to be illogical, just as illogical as the choice to love.
That seems like really specious reasoning. "I don't like this theory, so I'll propose another theory that I like better" seems like it would be better phrased as "I don't like this theory, so I'll believe something else which may be less true but is more comforting."
What I"m describing is an action, a choice: will I choose to care about my feelings, my feeling-of-love-or-not-love, or will I choose to care about the needs of another? I'm not sure how either choice, either conception, is somehow more or less "true".
posted by gd779 at 8:22 PM on March 12, 2005
Fair enough. Your point is a good one. That slight change of definition wouldn't work quite as well for me, of course, but I'm pretty strange.
People act for reasons that are either logical or illogical. If the reason is "I want to take care of this person more than me", and that reason has to be illogical, then what other motivator is there besides emotion?
When we say that people sometimes act illogically, what we generally mean is that they are not acting in ways that are likely to accomplish their goals. But those goals themselves can neither be, strictly speaking, logical or illogical. Economists will call altruistic behavior "irrational", but that's a just an arbitrary definition, a useful working assumption when trying to figure out how economies work. Strictly speaking, self-interest is no more logical than altrusim is and vice-versa. Reason can tell us how to get what we want, but it can't tell us what to want.
The key element, then, has to be free choice, or Free Will, which I believe is a demonstrably separate thing from either emotion or reason. But that's a whole other discussion, obviously. For these purposes, the only point I need to make is that the "reason" for your desire not to take care of some person has to be illogical, just as illogical as the choice to love.
That seems like really specious reasoning. "I don't like this theory, so I'll propose another theory that I like better" seems like it would be better phrased as "I don't like this theory, so I'll believe something else which may be less true but is more comforting."
What I"m describing is an action, a choice: will I choose to care about my feelings, my feeling-of-love-or-not-love, or will I choose to care about the needs of another? I'm not sure how either choice, either conception, is somehow more or less "true".
posted by gd779 at 8:22 PM on March 12, 2005
This idea of a 'transcendent' love does sound a bit idealistic and extremely irrational but I believe such 'love' does exist. It would seem evident in the true stories of war heroes who sacrificed their last rations or their only blanket knowing that they would die to save the live of their comrade. To quote the bible, "Greater love has no one than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13).
The question, "Do I love him/her" would seem to indicate that the one asking the question has not achieved this 'transcendent' level of love because the question indicates that the questioner's love is conditional or biased toward the evaluated’s appearance or personality or some such other perceivable attribute. The Biblically exemplified ideal is that we would love even our enemies (Luke 6:27).
Love that favors one over all others is evidently Eros (chemical/hormonal "feeling").
Love that favors a group or type of people over others would be Philia.
This leaves Agape to be an unbiased love of all creation and its creator.
The Bible exemplifies Agape love to be the "fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:10). Christ defined this transcendent love of God and fellow mankind as the basis of all the "Law and the Prophets" (Modernly known as the Old Testament - Matt 22:36-40). Interestingly, the first 4 commandments deal with man's relationship with God and the latter 6 man's relationship with themselves.
Such 'transcendent' love would seem to be the goal that our creator has purposed for us to achieve (Rev 12:11). I only wish I could sincerely say I had achieved it.
posted by talmai at 8:44 PM on March 12, 2005
The question, "Do I love him/her" would seem to indicate that the one asking the question has not achieved this 'transcendent' level of love because the question indicates that the questioner's love is conditional or biased toward the evaluated’s appearance or personality or some such other perceivable attribute. The Biblically exemplified ideal is that we would love even our enemies (Luke 6:27).
Love that favors one over all others is evidently Eros (chemical/hormonal "feeling").
Love that favors a group or type of people over others would be Philia.
This leaves Agape to be an unbiased love of all creation and its creator.
The Bible exemplifies Agape love to be the "fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:10). Christ defined this transcendent love of God and fellow mankind as the basis of all the "Law and the Prophets" (Modernly known as the Old Testament - Matt 22:36-40). Interestingly, the first 4 commandments deal with man's relationship with God and the latter 6 man's relationship with themselves.
Such 'transcendent' love would seem to be the goal that our creator has purposed for us to achieve (Rev 12:11). I only wish I could sincerely say I had achieved it.
posted by talmai at 8:44 PM on March 12, 2005
gd779, your notion of love as self-sacrifice is not as old as dirt. In fact, I think it's pretty damn young in the grand scheme of things. I'd be interested if you have any historical basis for it. Also your notion of "irrational" is pretty strange. If something is irrational then it cannot be a choice, I suspect. You have this whole strange theory of human motivation bundled up in there which is a bit... scary. Still, that speech would work on a few women I know so...
I'm thinking Shakespearian love, or romantic love, is just a pretty, artificial cover for what's really a completely political and terrible thing. Whenever people use the word, from Christians to your grandfather, the very next words out of their mouths are always, "And so these are the duties expected of you." The only love I'd be seriously willing to entertain is self-love... maybe.
posted by nixerman at 10:43 PM on March 12, 2005
I'm thinking Shakespearian love, or romantic love, is just a pretty, artificial cover for what's really a completely political and terrible thing. Whenever people use the word, from Christians to your grandfather, the very next words out of their mouths are always, "And so these are the duties expected of you." The only love I'd be seriously willing to entertain is self-love... maybe.
posted by nixerman at 10:43 PM on March 12, 2005
What MillMan said...
Seriously, why complicate the idea of "love" so much, really? Is it not in itself complicated enough?
In my own view, love is an action, not an emotion. It's something one does, not something one feels.
Then again, that's just my view. Your mileage may vary according to your idea of what "love" is.
posted by clevershark at 10:51 PM on March 12, 2005
Seriously, why complicate the idea of "love" so much, really? Is it not in itself complicated enough?
In my own view, love is an action, not an emotion. It's something one does, not something one feels.
Then again, that's just my view. Your mileage may vary according to your idea of what "love" is.
posted by clevershark at 10:51 PM on March 12, 2005
nixerman : " I'm thinking Shakespearian love, or romantic love, is just a pretty, artificial cover for what's really a completely political and terrible thing. Whenever people use the word, from Christians to your grandfather, the very next words out of their mouths are always, 'And so these are the duties expected of you.'"
I've never, ever, ever heard something like that said after talking about love. What on earth are you talking about?
posted by Bugbread at 2:28 AM on March 13, 2005
I've never, ever, ever heard something like that said after talking about love. What on earth are you talking about?
posted by Bugbread at 2:28 AM on March 13, 2005
Trying to pin down "love", romantic or otherwise, is like trying to provide an example-definition of "humour". Both happen to be terms we use to convey certain concepts among ourselves, but the perfect meaning of each is as individual as a fingerprint. What is more important is synchronicity: what strikes me as particularly funny about a comic scene and what is most hilarious to you isn't going to be identical, but if we are both laughing at the same thing at the same time, we are sharing an experience... And there is someone else here who isn't laughing at all.
Likewise with love. The more exactly your romantic impulse intersects with a partner's, the more ideal is your experience of love with that person (where "impulse" stands in for intellectual, emotional and physical desire, response, conditioning, need, generosity, etc.)
posted by taz at 2:51 AM on March 13, 2005
Likewise with love. The more exactly your romantic impulse intersects with a partner's, the more ideal is your experience of love with that person (where "impulse" stands in for intellectual, emotional and physical desire, response, conditioning, need, generosity, etc.)
posted by taz at 2:51 AM on March 13, 2005
nixerman : " I'm thinking Shakespearian love, or romantic love, is just a pretty, artificial cover for what's really a completely political and terrible thing. Whenever people use the word, from Christians to your grandfather, the very next words out of their mouths are always, 'And so these are the duties expected of you.'"
bugbread: I've never, ever, ever heard something like that said after talking about love. What on earth are you talking about?
I don't know about you, bugbread, but when I see the words 'political', 'love' and 'duties' in the same paragraph, I think 'marriage.'
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 5:32 AM on March 13, 2005
bugbread: I've never, ever, ever heard something like that said after talking about love. What on earth are you talking about?
I don't know about you, bugbread, but when I see the words 'political', 'love' and 'duties' in the same paragraph, I think 'marriage.'
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 5:32 AM on March 13, 2005
bugbread, well my crazy ramblings on love, politics and religion aren't that interesting but what I was hinting at is that there's no such thing as unconditional love. Many will disagree but I've never seen a loving relationship where there are not specific duties that are placed on the lovee and the lover--that is, there's a contract in there. And when you consider the actual historical context of love--that it's actually a recent invention that essentially rose out of property rights (and in many places in the world, wives are still bought and sold and there are strict inheritance rules)--then this becomes even more striking. The last step of this argument is the (Nietzschean) claim that love couldn't occur in pre-moral peoples because love is derived from morality (which is derived from religion). So based on this, one might, if one were sufficiently cynical, draw the conclusion that Shakespearian love is a veneer or illusion, a kind of "historical necessity," needed to hide what is actually a primitive, ugly, and intensely political thing that comes back to power relationships, pleasure-based conditioning, fear (no longer of survival but now of being alone) and the human need to believe in something (i.e. the will to power).
Or, uh, something like that.
posted by nixerman at 9:35 AM on March 13, 2005 [1 favorite]
Or, uh, something like that.
posted by nixerman at 9:35 AM on March 13, 2005 [1 favorite]
"Love is a decision, a choice"
Well, at least as far as romantically-interested men go, allow me to quote the great Chris Rock here. "Men do not commit... Men surrender." Hallelujah. Hate to admit it to myself, but that's what I'm looking for, as a newly-single and very eligible dude. I broke up with my last g/f (a quite excellent woman in most regards) because there seemed to be too much "deciding" going on and not enough "sweet surrender". But perhaps I'm a masochist. What else is true love, though, but "mutual surrender of self"? At least for me.
::goes back to staring at cute asses while waiting in airport for flight::
posted by Lectrick at 12:47 PM on March 13, 2005
Well, at least as far as romantically-interested men go, allow me to quote the great Chris Rock here. "Men do not commit... Men surrender." Hallelujah. Hate to admit it to myself, but that's what I'm looking for, as a newly-single and very eligible dude. I broke up with my last g/f (a quite excellent woman in most regards) because there seemed to be too much "deciding" going on and not enough "sweet surrender". But perhaps I'm a masochist. What else is true love, though, but "mutual surrender of self"? At least for me.
::goes back to staring at cute asses while waiting in airport for flight::
posted by Lectrick at 12:47 PM on March 13, 2005
Meh. I can't get beyond Read Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, in particular the idea that "love" is an internal performance composed of a number of memes, or "figures" that are acted out in much the same way as a dance is choreographed.
Here is a succinct listing of the figures that he describes.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:41 PM on March 13, 2005
Here is a succinct listing of the figures that he describes.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:41 PM on March 13, 2005
Fuzzy Monster : " I don't know about you, bugbread, but when I see the words 'political', 'love' and 'duties' in the same paragraph, I think 'marriage.'"
Ok, "love" and "duties" makes me think of marriage as well, but "love" does not make me think of "duties". (Rephrased: "fertilizer" and "Tim McVeigh" make me think "bomb", but "fertilizer" by itself just makes me think "farmer"). And why does "politics" combined with those make you think "marriage"? How bizarre. "Love", "duties", and "political" just makes me think "First Lady".
nixerman : "I've never seen a loving relationship where there are not specific duties that are placed on the lovee and the lover"
And I've never met an American who didn't watch TV, but I don't draw the conclusion that having American citizenship is contingent on watching TV.
nixerman : "when you consider the actual historical context of love--that it's actually a recent invention that essentially rose out of property rights"
Evidence, please?
nixerman : "The last step of this argument is the (Nietzschean) claim that love couldn't occur in pre-moral peoples because love is derived from morality (which is derived from religion)."
Ok, now we're just getting silly.
nixerman : "So based on this, one might, if one were sufficiently cynical, draw the conclusion that Shakespearian love is a veneer or illusion, a kind of 'historical necessity,' needed to hide what is actually a primitive, ugly, and intensely political thing that comes back to power relationships, pleasure-based conditioning, fear (no longer of survival but now of being alone) and the human need to believe in something (i.e. the will to power)."
So if I accept that love entails duties, which I don't, followed by accepting an unsupported argument that love is a recent invention, followed by accepting a Nietzschean claim which is far more faith-based than reality-based, and then am cynical, I will come to the conclusion that love is an illusion needed to hide an ugly, political thing (huh? what is with people here linking love and politics?).
You'll pardon me if I find absolutely no ground on which to agree with you.
posted by Bugbread at 6:52 PM on March 13, 2005
Ok, "love" and "duties" makes me think of marriage as well, but "love" does not make me think of "duties". (Rephrased: "fertilizer" and "Tim McVeigh" make me think "bomb", but "fertilizer" by itself just makes me think "farmer"). And why does "politics" combined with those make you think "marriage"? How bizarre. "Love", "duties", and "political" just makes me think "First Lady".
nixerman : "I've never seen a loving relationship where there are not specific duties that are placed on the lovee and the lover"
And I've never met an American who didn't watch TV, but I don't draw the conclusion that having American citizenship is contingent on watching TV.
nixerman : "when you consider the actual historical context of love--that it's actually a recent invention that essentially rose out of property rights"
Evidence, please?
nixerman : "The last step of this argument is the (Nietzschean) claim that love couldn't occur in pre-moral peoples because love is derived from morality (which is derived from religion)."
Ok, now we're just getting silly.
nixerman : "So based on this, one might, if one were sufficiently cynical, draw the conclusion that Shakespearian love is a veneer or illusion, a kind of 'historical necessity,' needed to hide what is actually a primitive, ugly, and intensely political thing that comes back to power relationships, pleasure-based conditioning, fear (no longer of survival but now of being alone) and the human need to believe in something (i.e. the will to power)."
So if I accept that love entails duties, which I don't, followed by accepting an unsupported argument that love is a recent invention, followed by accepting a Nietzschean claim which is far more faith-based than reality-based, and then am cynical, I will come to the conclusion that love is an illusion needed to hide an ugly, political thing (huh? what is with people here linking love and politics?).
You'll pardon me if I find absolutely no ground on which to agree with you.
posted by Bugbread at 6:52 PM on March 13, 2005
bugbread, a quick response:
Marriage is still today and has always been, since the very beginning, a legal contract between three parties: the man, the woman, and the society at large. The notion of this contract is inseperable from the notion of "love"--literally, the bond between man and woman. This is plain to anybody who's ever opened a history book. If you examine any relationship where love is central e.g parent-child, citizen-country, God-Humanity it's plain that this relationship is always based on, if not defined by, a contract that imposes specific duties on all involved parties (as contracts tend to do). Americans and TV are irrelevant.
The only place where you'll see the notion of love not accompanied by a contract is when it exists between a person and a concept/inanimate object e.g. "I love my dog." This is not love.
The question of which comes first, the love or the contract, is mostly irrelevant. The fact that one doesn't/can't exist without the other is what's important.
As for locating the source of love in morality, to me it's largely obvious but yes, it is a leap. But it's not such a great leap as you imply. One way to approach this question is to consider if largely immoral creatures--say children before the age of 2--actually love (their parents). The jury's still out on that, but there's a case to be made that without a strong moral framework and all that entails, children (and other immoral creatures) cannot even begin to approach the notion of love. You can try and brush this off with a glib snark but it's your loss.
Now if you consider love accompanied by contracts and built on morality, it's clear that love, politics and religion are pretty all tightly mixed together.
The last part of this, as I hinted at when I said one must be a cynic, is to consider what people actually mean when they say they did something for love or out of love. Under the above, love as a motivational force wouldn't be an internal emotion at all (and you can only buy into emotions if you buy into a 'self' to contain those emotions which I don't, and anyways there's a clear difference between love and something like feeling 'sad' or 'angry' and they're obviously not exclusive) instead it'd be an external force, something that impresses upon your will, ie power.
posted by nixerman at 8:58 PM on March 13, 2005
Marriage is still today and has always been, since the very beginning, a legal contract between three parties: the man, the woman, and the society at large. The notion of this contract is inseperable from the notion of "love"--literally, the bond between man and woman. This is plain to anybody who's ever opened a history book. If you examine any relationship where love is central e.g parent-child, citizen-country, God-Humanity it's plain that this relationship is always based on, if not defined by, a contract that imposes specific duties on all involved parties (as contracts tend to do). Americans and TV are irrelevant.
The only place where you'll see the notion of love not accompanied by a contract is when it exists between a person and a concept/inanimate object e.g. "I love my dog." This is not love.
The question of which comes first, the love or the contract, is mostly irrelevant. The fact that one doesn't/can't exist without the other is what's important.
As for locating the source of love in morality, to me it's largely obvious but yes, it is a leap. But it's not such a great leap as you imply. One way to approach this question is to consider if largely immoral creatures--say children before the age of 2--actually love (their parents). The jury's still out on that, but there's a case to be made that without a strong moral framework and all that entails, children (and other immoral creatures) cannot even begin to approach the notion of love. You can try and brush this off with a glib snark but it's your loss.
Now if you consider love accompanied by contracts and built on morality, it's clear that love, politics and religion are pretty all tightly mixed together.
The last part of this, as I hinted at when I said one must be a cynic, is to consider what people actually mean when they say they did something for love or out of love. Under the above, love as a motivational force wouldn't be an internal emotion at all (and you can only buy into emotions if you buy into a 'self' to contain those emotions which I don't, and anyways there's a clear difference between love and something like feeling 'sad' or 'angry' and they're obviously not exclusive) instead it'd be an external force, something that impresses upon your will, ie power.
posted by nixerman at 8:58 PM on March 13, 2005
"Does anyone actually think that love is a simple, binary property?"
...Yes, but it's plotted upon (at least) a four dimensional graph.
And those dimensions aren't my hands, groin, eyes, and brain. It's a different order all the time, sheesh.
What love does to a person is complicate their life, regardless of what the object/ideal/pillar/statue they see themselves involved with. What the author does very well here is bust a very clean line to many a person's conceptions on what we quantify love as. Maybe i'm alone in this one, but in more than one late night drunken confession session, i've heard people reduce love itself to the physical act. The author's rebuttal to that argument was very similar to mine with less burping.
posted by phylum sinter at 10:02 PM on March 13, 2005
...Yes, but it's plotted upon (at least) a four dimensional graph.
And those dimensions aren't my hands, groin, eyes, and brain. It's a different order all the time, sheesh.
What love does to a person is complicate their life, regardless of what the object/ideal/pillar/statue they see themselves involved with. What the author does very well here is bust a very clean line to many a person's conceptions on what we quantify love as. Maybe i'm alone in this one, but in more than one late night drunken confession session, i've heard people reduce love itself to the physical act. The author's rebuttal to that argument was very similar to mine with less burping.
posted by phylum sinter at 10:02 PM on March 13, 2005
y2karl is the worst poster on MetaFilter.
I'm not feelin' the love.
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:40 PM on March 13, 2005
I'm not feelin' the love.
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:40 PM on March 13, 2005
Now if you consider love accompanied by contracts and built on morality, it's clear that love, politics and religion are pretty all tightly mixed together.
Utter nonsense. My boyfriend and I uphold a moral code of monogamy and mutual respect between us and require neither economical, political or religious reasons as a basis for this conduct, other than mutual love.
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:49 PM on March 13, 2005
Utter nonsense. My boyfriend and I uphold a moral code of monogamy and mutual respect between us and require neither economical, political or religious reasons as a basis for this conduct, other than mutual love.
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:49 PM on March 13, 2005
nixerman : " Marriage is still today and has always been, since the very beginning, a legal contract between three parties: the man, the woman, and the society at large. The notion of this contract is inseperable from the notion of 'love'"
I could maybe see the argument that the notion of marriage is inseparable from the concept of love (though I know of too many people who are married but don't love eachother to agree with that argument). However, we're not discussing marriage, we're discussing love, and if you believe that one cannot discuss love without discussing marriage, then you believe that gays in most states in America are incapable of love, though somehow they become capable of love if they cross the border or get on a plane to a country where they can get married.
nixerman : " The only place where you'll see the notion of love not accompanied by a contract is when it exists between a person and a concept/inanimate object"
Or any gay couple in a country where marriage is outlawed, or any straight person having a serious affair, or any couple whose parents won't allow them to marry, and on, and on, and on...
nixerman : "One way to approach this question is to consider if largely immoral creatures--say children before the age of 2"
Seems like a silly way to determine if immoral adults can love. Somewhat like saying "People who can't speak can't write novels. One way to consider if this is true is to consider if other creatures unable to speak -- say, children before the age of 2, can write novels". Besides which, I find the idea that morality springs from religion to be extraordinarily close-minded and ignorant, the evidence of someone whose view of history is "that which happened in Greece, Rome, and Europe". Look outside Western history and you can see plenty of examples of where morality preceded religion.
nixerman : " Now if you consider love accompanied by contracts and built on morality, it's clear that love, politics and religion are pretty all tightly mixed together. "
Once again: politics? Where does politics come into this?
nixerman : " The question of which comes first, the love or the contract, is mostly irrelevant. The fact that one doesn't/can't exist without the other is what's important."
Aren't you contradicting yourself? If one comes first, it must exist at a time before the other: that is, by definition, one existing without the other.
posted by Bugbread at 5:47 AM on March 14, 2005
I could maybe see the argument that the notion of marriage is inseparable from the concept of love (though I know of too many people who are married but don't love eachother to agree with that argument). However, we're not discussing marriage, we're discussing love, and if you believe that one cannot discuss love without discussing marriage, then you believe that gays in most states in America are incapable of love, though somehow they become capable of love if they cross the border or get on a plane to a country where they can get married.
nixerman : " The only place where you'll see the notion of love not accompanied by a contract is when it exists between a person and a concept/inanimate object"
Or any gay couple in a country where marriage is outlawed, or any straight person having a serious affair, or any couple whose parents won't allow them to marry, and on, and on, and on...
nixerman : "One way to approach this question is to consider if largely immoral creatures--say children before the age of 2"
Seems like a silly way to determine if immoral adults can love. Somewhat like saying "People who can't speak can't write novels. One way to consider if this is true is to consider if other creatures unable to speak -- say, children before the age of 2, can write novels". Besides which, I find the idea that morality springs from religion to be extraordinarily close-minded and ignorant, the evidence of someone whose view of history is "that which happened in Greece, Rome, and Europe". Look outside Western history and you can see plenty of examples of where morality preceded religion.
nixerman : " Now if you consider love accompanied by contracts and built on morality, it's clear that love, politics and religion are pretty all tightly mixed together. "
Once again: politics? Where does politics come into this?
nixerman : " The question of which comes first, the love or the contract, is mostly irrelevant. The fact that one doesn't/can't exist without the other is what's important."
Aren't you contradicting yourself? If one comes first, it must exist at a time before the other: that is, by definition, one existing without the other.
posted by Bugbread at 5:47 AM on March 14, 2005
bugbread, um, even gay people in love (and I feel I can speak with authority on this manner) are said to have a commitment to one another and this commitment always entails basic duties (e.g. fidelity, financial support, sexual service, etc). I'd think this would be pretty obvious... nitpicking over words will only get you so far. And should you choose to continue, consider the words so often used to describe loving relationships--bond, commitment, sworn, etc. I seized upon marriage only because it's the most concrete example, but it's clear that any loving relationship is defined by a contract that imposes duties upon involved parties.
Um, why is it silly? You introduce a completely irrelevant analogy that doesn't explain anything. If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot love that's a pretty strong sign that morality is necessary component, if not the very source, of love.
I probably use the word 'politics' in a much broader sense than you. To me, anytime you're talking about contracts, duties, and power dynamics between within a society you are discussing politics.
And yes, if one can't exist without the other, then the question of which is first neither matters nor makes much sense.
posted by nixerman at 7:06 AM on March 14, 2005
Um, why is it silly? You introduce a completely irrelevant analogy that doesn't explain anything. If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot love that's a pretty strong sign that morality is necessary component, if not the very source, of love.
I probably use the word 'politics' in a much broader sense than you. To me, anytime you're talking about contracts, duties, and power dynamics between within a society you are discussing politics.
And yes, if one can't exist without the other, then the question of which is first neither matters nor makes much sense.
posted by nixerman at 7:06 AM on March 14, 2005
Well, I don't see that I'm nitpicking over words. All I have to go on is what you give me. So, going back to the start:
You've never seen a loving relationship where there are not specific duties that are placed on the lovee and the lover. I've never met an American who didn't watch TV. I don't draw the conclusion that having American citizenship is contingent on watching TV. And I don't draw the conclusion that love is contingent on specific duties.
Correlation is not the same as causation. Unless you can reconcile this and remove the classical logical flaw, I can't really follow past that point.
nixerman : "If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot love that's a pretty strong sign that morality is necessary component, if not the very source, of love."
And I find that logic demonstrably wrong. The exact (exact) same logic could be used to say:
If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot recognize Britney Spears, that's a pretty strong sign that morality is a necessary component, if not the source, of recognizing Britney Spears.
If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot play volleyball, that's a pretty strong sign that morality is a necessary component, if not the source, of playing volleyball.
If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot speak English, that's a pretty strong sign that morality is a necessary component, if not the source, of speaking English.
So the same logic can be used to determine that morality is the source of pretty much everything an adult human does or can do. That makes it pretty damn silly.
I do, however, agree with your conclusion in this point: I think an immoral being is incapable of love. I just think that you're right despite your logic, not because of it.
nixerman : "it's clear that any loving relationship is defined by a contract that imposes duties upon involved parties. "
I don't see that as clear. How is it "clear"?
But, assuming, for the time being, that love relies partially on duties by both parties towards eachother,
Fuzzy Monster : "I'm thinking Shakespearian love, or romantic love, is just a pretty, artificial cover for what's really a completely political and terrible thing...if one were sufficiently cynical, draw the conclusion that Shakespearian love is a veneer or illusion, a kind of 'historical necessity,' needed to hide what is actually a primitive, ugly, and intensely political thing that comes back to power relationships, pleasure-based conditioning, fear (no longer of survival but now of being alone) and the human need to believe in something (i.e. the will to power)."
I just don't see where most of this comes from (besides just kool kounterkultural cynicism). Why not the conclusion that "romantic love is a natural thing that involves mutual respect and duties"? I'm not clear where the "artificial, "political" (sorry, I just cannot understand what other Americans mean by political. That may be my fault, not yours), "terrible", "illusion", "historical necessity", "primitive", "ugly", and, again "political", "power relationships", "fear", and "need to believe" come from.
Sure, romantic love involves "duties", in the extent that "don't shit on your partner" is a duty. So does parental love. Does that make it ugly, illusionary, political, and the like?
nixerman : " And yes, if one can't exist without the other, then the question of which is first neither matters nor makes much sense."
Er, you appear to have missed what I'm saying: if one can be first, that is proof that one can exist without the other.
posted by Bugbread at 4:03 PM on March 14, 2005
You've never seen a loving relationship where there are not specific duties that are placed on the lovee and the lover. I've never met an American who didn't watch TV. I don't draw the conclusion that having American citizenship is contingent on watching TV. And I don't draw the conclusion that love is contingent on specific duties.
Correlation is not the same as causation. Unless you can reconcile this and remove the classical logical flaw, I can't really follow past that point.
nixerman : "If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot love that's a pretty strong sign that morality is necessary component, if not the very source, of love."
And I find that logic demonstrably wrong. The exact (exact) same logic could be used to say:
If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot recognize Britney Spears, that's a pretty strong sign that morality is a necessary component, if not the source, of recognizing Britney Spears.
If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot play volleyball, that's a pretty strong sign that morality is a necessary component, if not the source, of playing volleyball.
If it's the case that immoral creatures cannot speak English, that's a pretty strong sign that morality is a necessary component, if not the source, of speaking English.
So the same logic can be used to determine that morality is the source of pretty much everything an adult human does or can do. That makes it pretty damn silly.
I do, however, agree with your conclusion in this point: I think an immoral being is incapable of love. I just think that you're right despite your logic, not because of it.
nixerman : "it's clear that any loving relationship is defined by a contract that imposes duties upon involved parties. "
I don't see that as clear. How is it "clear"?
But, assuming, for the time being, that love relies partially on duties by both parties towards eachother,
Fuzzy Monster : "I'm thinking Shakespearian love, or romantic love, is just a pretty, artificial cover for what's really a completely political and terrible thing...if one were sufficiently cynical, draw the conclusion that Shakespearian love is a veneer or illusion, a kind of 'historical necessity,' needed to hide what is actually a primitive, ugly, and intensely political thing that comes back to power relationships, pleasure-based conditioning, fear (no longer of survival but now of being alone) and the human need to believe in something (i.e. the will to power)."
I just don't see where most of this comes from (besides just kool kounterkultural cynicism). Why not the conclusion that "romantic love is a natural thing that involves mutual respect and duties"? I'm not clear where the "artificial, "political" (sorry, I just cannot understand what other Americans mean by political. That may be my fault, not yours), "terrible", "illusion", "historical necessity", "primitive", "ugly", and, again "political", "power relationships", "fear", and "need to believe" come from.
Sure, romantic love involves "duties", in the extent that "don't shit on your partner" is a duty. So does parental love. Does that make it ugly, illusionary, political, and the like?
nixerman : " And yes, if one can't exist without the other, then the question of which is first neither matters nor makes much sense."
Er, you appear to have missed what I'm saying: if one can be first, that is proof that one can exist without the other.
posted by Bugbread at 4:03 PM on March 14, 2005
Just for the record, bugbread, those aren't my words-- they're nixerman's... I don't see Romantic Love as being ugly at all.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 7:29 AM on March 15, 2005
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 7:29 AM on March 15, 2005
Sorry about that, I realize they aren't your words, I apparently misedited the attribution. Apologies.
posted by Bugbread at 12:03 AM on March 16, 2005
posted by Bugbread at 12:03 AM on March 16, 2005
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posted by antron at 3:45 PM on March 12, 2005