What do we mean when we say we love someone or something? Is there a difference between the love of things and that of persons? If so, what is that difference?
In school, we are taught about different kinds of love. There is brotherly love, romantic love, filial, erotic, and so on. However, we seldom discuss the golden thread that weaves through all these categories. Worse, there’s also lust, which masquerades as love. But what is the defining characteristic of lust, and when does it transform into love – if ever?
Having thought long and hard about this topic, I have little to add except to point to great thinkers who spent considerable time thinking about this topic, all arriving at different perspectives. Here’s a good video on The Ontology of Love which essentially means “The nature of love.”
But let me share key insights and interpretations from their discussion and others that I found elsewhere:
Love as a thing of the dying: Roger Scruton
A great English philosopher, and perhaps my favourite philosopher, advanced the idea that death is a grounding feature of love. Immortal beings like angels and gods cannot truly be loved, he argued, because their invincibility denies them the need to be cared for and cherished, which are pathways for love.
In other words, the day I reject your advances for caring for me, I shut the doors for your ability to express love. Conversely, when I sense that you are not concerned about my vulnerability, it brings into question the extent to which you love me.
Without vulnerability, we escape human tendencies like revenge, scorn, hatred, and on the positive side, empathy, protection, and concern. Love, therefore, reveals itself when we attend to the troubled and the dying. But even when death is certain, love compels us to cherish the beloved, as if to signal a yearning for their wellbeing despite the inevitable.
These days, people make it a ritual to tell one another, “I love you,” but I wonder to what end? With so much love proclaimed in music, movies, and other avenues of popular culture, I wonder whether these words mean “I am willing to sacrifice myself for your well-being,” and if so, to what extent.
Love as Surrender: Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger’s contribution to the topic is that surrendering oneself is an act of love. This is different from the Scrutonian perspective, in that one does not offer oneself to, as it were, save the other. Instead, one offers oneself in reverence of the other, as if to say, have me because you are worthy.
The reader inclined to Christian values will find this perspective easier to consume, since one surrenders to the will of God and Christ as an exemplar. However, I venture to say that this form of love is more pervasive. For instance, consider the relationship between teacher and student. The student yields to their teacher to receive help. Incidentally, they can only receive help if they empty themselves – to use a Chinese proverb – and allow the teacher to pour into them what they see fit. Knowing that the teacher may corrupt them, their willingness to be nevertheless poured into, in a Heidegarian sense, is an expression of love.
I imagine that contrary to the image of falling in love, Heidegger meant making oneself available to be fallen into. By this standard, modern relationships are in trouble. These days, couples strive to out-compete and become independent of one another – perhaps to safeguard themselves from economic hardships or failed commitments. However, the pursuit of self-sufficiency reduces one’s capacity to surrender to the other and it therefore attenuates the expression of love.
Love as play: Douglas Hedley & Alan Watts
The idea of play as a pointless thing has fascinated me for quite some time. Here, I will draw on some work by Alan Watts and Douglas Hedley in the video I shared above. When I picked up cycling I soon realised how much people spend on their gear: heart rate monitors, tracking systems and the like. Of course, I also started collecting these cool things and measuring my performance.
Soon enough I was also obsessed with checking speed, cadence, and my heart rate. Consequently, I was unhappy if I had not performed as well as the previous week. What was meant to be fun, a pointless exercise, so to speak, had become goal-directed. I regained the joy of cycling when I stopped tracking myself and started cycling for cycling’s sake.
Douglas Hedley thinks love belongs to this category. He argues that while we may have instrumental agendas, like taking care of the home, raising children or attending to all sorts of things, love exists outside this sphere. As it were, love is a refuge from the clockwork of life. It is the warm tub that one sinks into after a long day; it is a consolation in an otherwise difficult and ever-demanding life. Love is a cure for the instrumental life.
Conclusion
As you can imagine, there are tons of books on this topic. My mission with today’s newsletter was to open the discussion and have you think about these different forms of love. Is there a perspective you resonate with? Or do you have an entirely different perspective?
We visited friends yesterday and spent a good two hours debating some of these topics. I tell you, things become interesting when you throw lust into the mix, and how it is different from love.
Anyway, perhaps you can share this article with a friend and revel in discussion as well.
Until next week.
Make Magic.
Vusi.
P.S. Here’s another take on Love. Music by Ennio Morricone
