Genuine Love: Examining Its Consistency And Exclusivity - Essay Example

Running Head: PHILOSOPHY Genuine love: A discussion on what it means to love through examining its consistency and exclusivity University Genuine love: A discussion on what it means to love through examining its consistency and exclusivity Introduction The topic of love is discussed across a great number of disciplines but there have been very few satisfactory conclusions on the meaning of love. Defining love is a difficult and elusive prospect because it has so many meanings in so many different configurations of experiences. The expectations that people have of one another and how love is expressed are not the same, however, as how the emotion is experienced. The feeling of love is not consistent, but how one expresses love can and should be consistent in order to have stability within a relationship. Commitment is a part of love in the way that one promises to behave in relationship to the expectations that someone has for their life and how they exist within love. Parents will make a social contract with their children just as much as they make with their spouse and how they fulfill that contract is an important part of the relationship that they have with the one for which they love. The actions taken towards fulfilling that contract, however, are not the same as the feeling of love. In examining the nature of love as it relates to both consistency and exclusivity, the nature of the emotion of love must be defined separately from the actions that one will take in expressing love. Definition As much as the topic needs clarification, there does not seem to be one clear definition of love. As human beings, we attach love to procreation, loving our mates and loving our children. We love our family and our friends, varying the social meanings of that emotion as it is appropriate to the relationship that we have with others. The meaning of love, however, has been greatly avoided in its discussion. According to discussions made within Armstrong (2003), the philosophical meanings of love are often considered as a presumption of understandings between human beings. The discussion of the specific meaning of love is often avoided. Nussbaum (1997) discusses the irony of the statement that Socrates made about understanding nothing with the one exception of love. In making this claim Socrates creates “the claim to have grasped and understood the nature of love (which) is part and parcel of an enterprise that is busy converting loved persons into instantiations of a universal, and so into proper objects of (scientific) understanding, all in order to repudiate and transcend the phenomenon of love as ordinary mortals experience it” (Nussbaum, 1997, p. 3). Love is not defined universally, but is a collection of experiences that are assessed through intellectual judgments. Love is not lust, obsession, or fantasy. Sometimes, though, maybe it is. That is the indefinable nature of love. It happens in the brain, and that is about as much as we understand about it other than it usually results in positive feelings – unless it does not, and it usually involves sentimentality – unless it does not. Love is individuated and indefinable other than its nature as a connection between two people that requires emotional attachement. Consistency Consistency in love is impossible. Each moment of life contains within it an individual experience. These moments last a second, day, or an eternity, but life is a flow of experiences that are like a river in which it is never exactly the same from moment to moment. It would be too much to expect the experience of emotion to be unwavering. As human beings it is natural to question decisions and to wonder how life might have been different through different choices. Love has an element of challenge, so if a beloved never presented a bit of a challenge, life would be dull. However, when those challenges cross the line, love may waver. How much love one can sustain is never a constant. If love never wavered, its renewal would never come and the feeling of being reenergized by the existence of that love would never come. Without the stagnancy that will come over time, the high points would not have the excitement and joy of rediscovery that keeps one feeling excited to meet the next day. According to Wagoner (1997) “real love is full of promise and does not pay close attention to limit and consistency and ironical possibilities” (p. 140). Love is an intension, and sometimes one fails at that intension and at other times one succeeds, but it is anything but consistent. The feeling of love is never the same and always a flow, a consistent flow, but not a consistent feeling. At times it will hum while at other times it will roar like a river of rapids through the emotional current inside of someone. The goal is to connect those boiling, rolling currents and love one another. How the feeling of love is experienced, however, is far different than how it is expressed. In the expression of love, the action of it should be consistent. Cave (2011) discusses the difference between the commitment of marriage and love within marriage. He describes “conjoined love and marriage” as an ideal, one that is looked upon by those who have spent some time in their marriage with amusement at the idealism that those who believe in the consistent longevity of love (Cave, 2011, p. 233). It is not that love cannot be long lasting, but it would be exhausting to have that much feeling on a daily basis. The consistency that exists in love is that it is expressed consistency, even though the feeling is flexible. Wagoner (1997) discusses how “a relationship must have a certain rational consistency” (p. 71). It is not about love, but about how people will interact with one another that must have some consistency. The form of the relationship is the core of how consistency is developed between people and this does not relate to the existence of love. There are no definitions that include dictating how people must act towards one another to express love. The form of the relationship is consistent, but it is defined differently depending on who is involved. It may be an inconsistency that is consistent, as in the requirement of monogamy may not be a part of the relationship. How two people commit to one another is not relatable to the existence of love between them. Exclusivity Commitment requires different promises that will change depending on who is approached on the topic. Most often commitment in an erotic relationship means monogamy. Fromm (2006) suggests that “Erotic love excludes the love of others only in the sense of erotic fusion, full commitment in all aspects of life – but not in the sense of brotherly love” (p. 50). Earlier, however, Fromm (2006) discusses the act of falling into erotic love. He states “the stranger is transformed into an ‘intimate’ person, again the experience of love is exhilarating an intense, and again it slowly becomes less and less intense, and ends in the wish for a new conquest, a new love – always with the illusion that the new love will be different than the earlier ones” (p. 49). What happens in comparing these two definitions is that the idea of intellectual love and the rationale for love that is discussed by Wagoner becomes lessened, and what emerges is guttural and bodily. When looked at from the perspective of Fromm (2006), commitment of monogamy through erotic love is not possible because the intensity of erotic love cannot be sustained. One might look at this and question whether or not love can require monogamy if as Fromm (2006) premises it will soon lose intensity and need to be replaced. Rather than posit if love can be exclusive from this discussion, the greater question is whether the idea of erotic love should be called love at all. The erotic can be a part of love, but it is unlikely that it can be a defining love. The erotic is intense, thus creating an unsustainable level of passion. This is not to say that two people cannot continue to find each other erotically attractive, but that white hot passion cannot be sustained, thus to sustain love it must be transformed. If this is the case, the erotic love is not love, but love can be erotic. Genuine Just from a personal, observational perspective, love is a quiet place where it is no longer necessary to be boastful or to exaggerate about the object of love. Genuine love is not defined by the suppositions that society makes and imposes, but it is through the nature of how it develops between two people and is tempered by the personal structures of the individual. Some people love through shouting at each other, declaring their love through criticisms that are formed in the cauldron of care and defense mechanisms. Others love in quiet moments where a glance is all that is required to create affirmations of love. Love is defined through many different frameworks and it is expressed in privacy, even when two people declare that they love each other in public. Fromm (2006) discusses the idea of genuine love through the concept that sometimes one person will show love and because the other individual does not respond the way they wish, they feel they are being unappreciated. The most difficult part of understanding genuine love is that it is not about what you do, but how what you do is received by the other individual. Real love is not one sided and it is not genuine if it is only shown, but not received by the other party. Unrequited love is not love. Unrequited love is desperation which is a cesspool that cannot nurture a loving relationship. That is the key to genuine love – it is a relationship. Two people love, one person fantasizes. Fantasy also, is not genuine love, but the dream of love that does not exist. Wagoner (1997) discusses Kant as he defined the tension between love and respect as love was the emotion that drew people together, while respect was the rationale that kept them apart. This tension is morality that provides a need for context for attraction being fulfilled. It is through this perspective that consistency is born, a “right relationship” showing these characteristics: mutual respect and rational consistency (Wagoner, 1997, p. 71). This discussion becomes central to the argument from two different approaches. The first approach challenges this identification of love in that it creates requirements that some people do not fill even though they may experience love. The other approach can reveal that this framework supports the idea that the expression of love and the feeling of love are two different things, and while the feeling of love may exist, the expression of love can be defined for its health or for its toxic nature. One can love someone, but that does not mean that they will treat them well. Love exists, but it is unhealthy and without a positive outcome. Conclusion The question that has been discussed is whether love requires that consistency and exclusivity be part of the social contract in order for it to be genuine. Love can be genuine whether or not it is expressed through healthy actions and constructs. Consistency creates security in a relationship and is the foundation of security so that as love ebbs and tides, the people in the relationship are secure that the other will remain. Exclusivity is also developed through a social contract in order to create further consistency and security. The only framework that seems to make sense in trying to determine the genuine nature of love is that love is a connection that is created as one person offers signs of love and another accepts those signs. In this framework, love is a connection between two people without which it is only a fantasy that has no substance or reality attached. Love does not require consistency or exclusivity. What love requires is for two people to experience an emotional connection that has meaning through which they are drawn together. References John Armstrong. (2003). Conditions of love: the philosophy of intimacy, London: Penguin. Cave, E. M. (2011). Marital pluralism: Making love safer for marriage. In McEvoy (Eds), A. Sex, love, and friendship: Studies of the Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love, 1993-2003. (501-508). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Fromm, E. (2006). The art of loving. New York: Continuum. Nussbaum, M. C. (1997). Love and the individual: Romantic rightness and platonic aspiration. In Lamb, R. E. (eds) Love analyzed. (23-48). Boulder, Colo: Westview Press. Wagoner, B. (1997). The meanings of love: An introduction to philosophy of love. Westport, Conn: Praeger. Read More