Love, Eros
Quotations and questions to prompt your discussion:
v "We need morality only for the want of love" (p. 223) and "Act as though you loved" (p. 224) and "Love is not a command; it is an idea" (p. 224).
v "Love may have its roots in sexuality . . . but it cannot be reduced to sexuality."
v "Our lives--private and public, domestic and professional--have value only in proportion to the love we invest in them and find in them" (p. 223)
v "Love, therefore, is first: not absolutely, of course (for then it would be God), but in relation to morality, duty, and the law. It is the alpha and omega of all virtue" (p. 226). Well, at least it isn't essential or foundational to all of them ;)
v Is romantic love the seeking of your other half? Do you believe that there is one true love for you? Must you find that person to be truly happy?
v Is romantic love an absolute, unconditional love? A permanent love? An exclusive love? (Ok, so here you CAN comment on that Kardashian wedding/divorce in the context of romantic love.) What's the relationship of love to desire?
v Is Eros ever satisfied? “If love is lack, and insofar as it is, it precludes completeness by definition” (p. 235) and “if love is desire and desire is want, we can love only what we do not have and suffer from this lack. . .” (p. 240). “If love is want, it is doomed to failure (in life) or can succeed only in death” (p. 242)
v “Love can escape absolute want, absolute deprivation, and absolute misfortune only by bringing forth. . . that is, through the family or through creation, be it in art, politics, or science” (p. 236)
v Concupiscent love – “loving the other person for one’s own benefit” (p. 238). Do you know what murder ballads are? Remind me, perhaps I’ll sing for you (Banks of the Ohio, Butcher Boy)
v “What sort of virtue would it be that can lead only to suffering or religion” (p. 242)
Yes! Finally! We have made it. There is so much to blog about, but I'll try to just stick to a few of the topics above.
ReplyDelete"We need morality only for the want of love" (p. 223) and "Act as though you loved" (p. 224) and "Love is not a command; it is an idea" (p. 224). "Love, therefore, is first: not absolutely, of course (for then it would be God), but in relation to morality, duty, and the law. It is the alpha and omega of all virtue" (p. 226).
In light of these quotes, I believe that our love theory is being supported by Comte-Sponville. Love is the ideal. It is what we should strive to practice all throughout our lives; however, loving everyone is not always possible. Therefore, when our human inability to love flawlessly overtakes, we must, instead, resort to ethics. Virtues are our means of acting as if we love, despite our human nature to fail at loving unconditionally. Virtues, therefore, are expressions of love, and how one who loves should act. I believe that all of the virtues are actually implemented when one loves. Love is the root of all virtues. If one loves, they will practice the virtues without even consciously thinking about it, not to say that they will not fail at times. Limitless love is the ideal, second only to God, the only one capable of practicing flawless love eternally.
Now to focus in on "Eros" love. "Love may have its roots in sexuality . . . but it cannot be reduced to sexuality." I utterly disagree with C-S's claim that love has its roots in sexuality. Though physical attraction may initiate a spark or communication, I definitely do not believe that sexuality is the root of love. Sexuality comes after deep love. An intimate, physical relationship is an expression of an intense love—a love of respect, friendship, and passion. Romance is not the start of love; it is the expression of a love that cannot be expressed through words alone.
In response to Dr. Cate's prompt, I do not believe that romantic love is the seeking of your one true love. Love at first sight and the fireworks and music in movies is not quite reality. There can definitely be a connection at first sight, but I do not believe that we have one "other half" that we must find to be happy. Romantic, Eros love is something to work at. It's an acquired love that takes time and effort. I truly believe that we can learn to love anyone. Why do so few arranged marriages end in divorce? Gaining Eros love, as I detailed above, doesn't begin with sex. Eros love is a deep respect that comes from getting to know a person and sharing with that individual on a deeper level than you would with anyone else in the world. I love Eros love. :)
The love called eros is the "quest" and "want is its essence, and passionate love is its culmination" (233, 238). Sponville asserts that eros love is the unquenchable, specific desire for something. This is true, for why would you do anything or begin a "quest" for something if you did not want it first. I do not believe that eros can ever be satisfied. When one wants something or someone you know how much you want it via two ways. The first is feeling, for "eros is a jealous god" and is egoism's "passionate…form" (238). When a person meets another and falls in love, it does not have to be described, rather felt. This dynamic is true of other desires. If you want to be on the baseball team but do not make the cut, then you feel disappointed and perhaps angry. When you learn that the team is offering tryouts again, that disappointment fades away, which is in itself a new feeling. The second way you know that you want something is through actions, but action is contigent upon one's wants and needs. Eros deals with the wants while the other virtues deal with everything else. We cross the street at cross-walks because we have been taught that it is prudent and keeps us from getting injured or killed. Hence, the other virtues step in where love is absent.
ReplyDeleteTo go back to the question of eros's short-life span… eros, which stems from desire, is understood by the one who is experiencing it, through feelings. Those feelings once one possesses the desired thing.
Sponville gives the following scenario to illustrate the short-life span of eros: " 'Do you still love me?'" she asks. Naturally you answer yes. But, in fact, you want her less…by dint of her being there…you will in time come to want her less and less, less strongly…Eros is bored" (239).
While eros may begin the love relationship, it cannot be the end of it because the relationship, just like feelings, will not last. Eros is not a virtue in of and itself; it is simply an aspect of humanity. However, we must act human first before we can be an excellent one. When the woman asked, " 'Do you still love me?" I do not think she was asking, "Do your feelings tell you that you want me?" Indeed, it would be impossible to be expect feelings to stay heightened to the point of the lovers all the time; in fact, it would ruin the definition of being passionate - part of being passionate is being more than one usually is in order to separate those moments from the ordinary ones. Instead, that woman is asking about love in terms of eros, but more importantly, of friendship and of the other virtues. In a way, she is asking, "Are you still willing to act as though you have eros love for me?" Are we going to go out together more often? Are you going to smile at me when I enter the room? Are you going to keep telling me that you love me? Are we going to work our disagreements out without screaming? Are we going to be honest with each other? These are not emotions; rather, these are choices as though the emotions were still there. This happens in friendships all the time as well - best friends fight but realize that they are still friends.
Of course, this is not saying that eros is unimportant. Before we have a friendship, we must want to be in the company of that person for his or her personality or qualities. My friend makes me feel good about myself. This is also true of when lovers first meet each other. That eros desire could be a desire for companionship, that one is attracted to that specific personality, or a specific quality that the other person has. It makes me feel better about myself, feel happy that I am alive, and enjoy life as a whole. Thus, Sponville notes that eros love is "loving the other person for one's own benefit" and that eros is "egoism's…transitive form" (238). It makes us feel good, and that feeling spreads out from the friend or the lover to other objects in the world. We become passionate about other aspects of life through our friends and the lover.
ReplyDeleteIt is this transitive aspect of eros love that makes it virtuous. Eros love, this desire to complete the incomplete, while it could lead to suffering, can also lead to these friendships. This friendship is one possibility for bringing forth, which is one way that "love can escape absolute want, absolute deprivation, and absolute misfortune" (236). By having a passion, by investing one's eros love into something, such as creation, science, art, or politics, one's love for it has a physical expression of product or a child that can spur the emotional eros time and time again. Child-caring, science, art, and politics are long-term, procedural tasks whereby new feelings pop up and develop overtime, so that eros does not become bored permanently. It may lay dormant for awhile, but when the child grows up to adolescence, that child something new and thus spurs new feelings. These new feelings create a new moment of eros and make one recall all the old moments of eros as well. When a father tosses a ball to his thrity year old son on a Fourth of July weekend, the father remembers throwing his son that ball when he was ten or five. That is an emotional as well as an intellectual experience. Furthermore, when a couple that has been married for fifty years dances, they remember all the other dances from half a century before. This spurs eros love. Of course, the father and child and the couple did not experience that same kind of passion all the time, that same eros love constantly, but that is where the virtues had to be the substitute.
I’m certainly interested to hear the discussion of Eros tomorrow afternoon, because I’m confident that I am not the only one who is depressed by Comte-Sponville’s first definition of love. I at first was going to say that I was disappointed rather than depressed; but I must concede that the author’s definition of Eros is indeed interesting, even if it is disheartening. This is not to say, however, that the chapter is not without certain inconsistencies.
ReplyDeleteBefore C-S begins his discussion of Eros, he makes a few comments about the nature of love in general. That he states that “[love] is the alpha and omega of all virtue” (226) should not surprise us; each and every chapter leading up to this point has made some reference to love, and we have by now discerned that all other virtues are necessary insofar as they stand in love’s place when love cannot be felt. While we can strive to perfect all other virtues, we cannot practice love; as C-S emphasizes, “Love cannot command, for it is love that commands” (223). Love is incredibly unique in the sense that it is the only virtue that we cannot strive to put into practice, but it is still the most inherently virtuous of all.
It is here that I find the greatest inconsistency in the discussion of Eros. As presented by C-S, there is absolutely nothing virtuous about this form of love. As I continued to read the chapter, I hoped that he would end his discussion by stating what could possibly be virtuous about constantly feeling desire, about relentlessly pursuing that which we lack and always, in the long run, being disappointed. At first, I was willing to give C-S the benefit of the doubt. And I still am left with the thought that perhaps I am unrealistic and idealistic; maybe I am one of those who “confuses love with the illusions we have about it when we are in love or with how we imagine it when we are not in love and want to be” (241). Along this line, C-S says that “truth itself is fatal to love, which is why those who celebrate love would like to do away with truth: some will freely admit their preference for dreams or illusions” (242). While certainly thought-provoking, I’ve come to completely disagree with this concept; and through this disagreement, I think I’ve stumbled upon—at least in my opinion—the only virtuous quality of Eros. C-S believes that love stems from desire—of wanting to possess something specific which we lack. I generally agree with this statement. True virtue can be found, however, when we can master this desire; when we have the ability to keep our passions alive, even when they are being satisfied. If love is both the ultimate virtue and the concept from which true happiness stems, it can be said that the most fulfilled individuals are those who are capable of feeling a constant love. C-S would argue that this is not possible, but I wholly believe that it is.
What better way to feel such a constant love than through being a part of a couple? C-S presents the concept of the couple as the death of love throughout his discussion of Eros. Through experience, I can say that I completely disagree. If we truly can only love what we desire, what we lack—C-S’s very definition of Eros love—then the concept of the couple being the death of love would technically be correct. But it is here that I find fault with this definition; I would argue that love in its purest form exists when we are in the presence of what we desire most, and it is from this presence that we derive the purest form of happiness. Being apart from those that I love makes me appreciate them all the more, but I feel the most love, and the most happiness, when I possess the people and the things for which I feel the most desire.
Ah love... Such a wonderful, mysterious, magical, frustrating concept. Where to even begin??
ReplyDeleteEros brought some frowns as I read C-S's beliefs on this facet of love, and it sounds like I wasn't the only one frowning. I vehemently agree with Karlie's disagreement with C-S's statement "love may have it's roots in sexuality"(223), but I'm not sure I agree with her definition of eros love. Eros love does involve physically, passionately loving someone. Blessed John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI both addressed the importance and beauty of Eros love, and the difference between Eros love and Agape love.
"Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved" (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est).
Simply put, Eros is physical love that unites the spirit and the body. Benedict goes on in his encyclical to explain that because God created man as a fleshy creature, Eros love is not only good, but it is holy for a husband and wife.
"...it is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature composed of body and soul, who loves. Only when both dimensions are truly united, does man attain his full stature. Only thus is love —eros—able to mature and attain its authentic grandeur"(Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est).
Eros love, in it's pure, uncorrupted form, is an expression of unity and true love.
Thought previously stated, I must reiterate the feelings of my above classmates in the fact that I had some strong disagreements with Comte-Sponville's section on Eros. I think Andrea said it perfectly that mastering desire results in true virtue. According to C-S, once our passions are satisfied, they fade. If this is true, I would have trouble seeing Eros as virtuous. I do believe, though, if we are able to overcome this cycle and still find passion once our passions are satiated, we have achieved a virtuous love. Again, I agree with above points that I don't think being a couple results in a lack of love. I think that the more time you spend with loved ones, the more your love for them grows. I feel as though it would be very difficult to truly love and desire that which I am never around. I feel as thought my desire grows the more time I spend with someone, rather than having the opposite effect.
ReplyDeleteAs for Brianna's definition of Eros love, I must agree. I believe that physical passion is an important part of truly loving someone. That's not to say that if physical passion is absent true love is impossible, but I do feel it does play an important role. Karlie made a good point too, and maybe the physical aspect comes after a stronger bond has been formed...like I said, though, in my opinion physical love is giving yourself completely to another person, and when this is done purely (key word), it is the ultimate expression of love.
I think that Eros and Agape are, sort of, two sides of the same coin. I don't think it is possible to have a true Eros kind of love without having first mastered Agape love. And realistically, I wonder how much of just "ordinary" love/friendship has an Erotic element. If you notice, most groups of friends are more or less the same level of attractiveness. Like, there's usually the one ugly friend (if you don't know which one that is, it's probably you), but for the most party everyone is at least in the same ballpark beautiful/ugly/nondescript etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the reason for this? I think, based on absolutely nothing, that even when we don't sleep with all our friends (I guess it kind of depends on what kind of people you hang out with; if for example you mostly hang out with the people in soap operas you've probably slept with pretty much everyone you know), we sort of like to have attractive ones around just in case. Or to tell the world, "I am this level of attractive." (I guess if all your friends are hideous, all the attractive ones were taken).
So I wonder if all your "Agape" friends are your friends at least partly because of Eros. Food for thought, no pun intended. If there was a pun there.
On an unrelated note, I really liked Brianna's and Kelsey's posts. I think that people take the usual definition of "erotic" and run with it, and don't really understand what Eros is. I think the two of them did a good job analyzing it.