Without love society will collapse

 Introduction                                                     

Love remains one of the more commonly used words in our language, although its use is less than the 19th century when romanticism figured more strongly in literature.

The ancient Greeks defined love as either Storge, Phileo, Eros or Agape. Storge was for your family and relations, Phileo was the affectionate love you feel for your friends and Eros was driven by desires to exemplify passionate love, whilst Agape was the pure and ideal unconditional love.

But Italian poet and moral philosopher Dante had a different view to that of the stoics who thought one should be wary of our desires and rely more on reason. Dante considered all love to be good so long as it is properly applied. One gets the impression reading his epic work “The Divine Comedy” that one should follow our desires to love properly and if love should fail you then you simply learn by your mistakes. Pick yourself up and start all over again as the song goes.

 

What has provided a challenge in our Judeo/Christian culture is the combination of the Hebrew thinking aspect to love expressed as a covenant which conflicts with Greek rationality applied to Christianity by St Paul. Kierkegaard provided his synthesis as a way forward but in the process discredits Pauline theology for a much simpler basic Christianity- the golden rule. 

The existential movement also had a lot to say about love. Camus saw love as the driving force for his existence whilst Kierkegaard regarded love as the substance of life which unites the self to joy. He saw the necessity to better understand others' actions to calm one’s initial hostility and make way for love as in the act of forgiveness. 

Epic novelist Herman Melville (Moby Dick) who was a member of the transcendentalist’s movement, offered a critique of the interpretation of love from his strict Calvinist upbringing …and whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.

 

For when we attempt to define its essence (as in true love) we come against the glass ceiling of language.  

Then the essence of love is more a question of whether such feelings that arise to underpin love can transcend nature or are just part of it?  

There is the mystical element- yet another possible topic? – Mysticism!   

Mystic Cynthia Bourgeault whilst discssing the author of 'The Cloud of Unknowing’ had this to say.  

"Typically we think of love as having something to do with emotions - with our feelings of affection? But if we assume that this is what our author (of the 'Cloud',) has in mind, we quickly tumble into the sand trap of that old "head versus heart" dichotomy.

“Whatever the author means by love, it is something of an entirely different order from our usual sense of devotion and affection. It is not a property of our faculties (memory, reason, emotion, will) but of something that emerges from far deeper in the soul."

So that this rather grand vision is just a belief - which can’t be proved, as per the quote from Professor David Buss of the Psychology Dept. of the University Of Texas at Austin.  

But true love takes its own course, through unchartered territory. It knows no fences, has no barriers or boundaries. It is difficult to define. Eludes modern measurement, seems scientifically woolly. But I know true love exists. I just can’t prove it.

 

The one we more readily identify is possibly the instinctive love of a parent for an infant child, but it’s not always the case in situations for instance in postnatal depression.

So, summing up, love can mean so many different things - a personal affection in intimacy, devotion, the love of a cause, as a duty in patriotism, references to selfless love, in the love for one’s country which can turn to war as referenced as the supreme sacrifice or in the desire or admiration for beautiful objects or art form expressions.

We even see GOD-like devotion directed towards a sporting team or when we simply say with sincerity “I love you". What becomes rather obvious, is that as 'love' is used so freely, one struggles to define it.

So, for the purpose of this discussion paper I will provide a working definition as follows.

 

Working Definition- Love as in a loving Union.  

Love as in a loving Union reflects love as an emotive deep affection, a feeling of warmth or fondness and regard within relationships with partners, family or a group.

Of course, in our subsequent discussions, one might find such a definition inadequate or the need for amendment. But by providing a working definition you offer the opportunity for more specific discussions and questions.    

Where does this loving union come from?

To reiterate, probably the one we immediately identify as such a relationship is the instinctive deep feeling of love of a parent for a child, but that is not always the case as in postnatal depression. The inclination is to link love as emanating from the heart (a pleasing or joyful emotive feeling) whilst others think love is more a matter of daily decisions to consciously act in a loving manner It immediately raises the question (as it is often assumed) one’s duty is to love unconditionally our children.  But is that practical or possible?

Maintaining that loving feeling.  

The positive emotional feedback arises within us of pleasure or satisfaction that reinforces a positive repetitive discourse just as feelings of rejection or alienation have the reverse effect. What seems apparent to me is love begins within our feelings or emotions, whatever union is involved. Central to the maintenance of the union is the security afforded where the union feels it is based on trust.

Unconditional Love

A question arises in relation to the union with one’s children that it is a duty to love unconditionally our children.  But is that practical or possible?  

The biblical authors distinguished between passionate love as in intimacy -versus Agape, to mean "unconditional love", but who’s rather grand application, given our limitations as human beings, also seems to me to be somewhat of a contentious issue. There may be many instances of unconditional love we feel are valid but usually there is some overarching reward in mind even if it's only the good feeling that subsequently arises. 

Trust and Reciprocity

The question of reciprocity is also influenced by trust. In the absence of trust one sees irrational “get even” behavioural responses to sever a loving union.

One party feels betrayed and hence the union bonds are broken. It can only be repaired once the healing process takes place, which is usually seen as a form of love.

Hence it is the power of love that gives one the capacity for loving unions to continue to blossom over time, dependent usually upon a continuing encouragement or willingness to compromise, sufficient to withstand the mounting pressures of life’s experiences. The idea to me then that love leads to a more willing  desire to make compromises or sacrifices seems more realistic than “unconditional love”, that can remain an aspiration rather than a reality.   

There is also the risk of strong emotions which give rise to our feelings which tell us the truth about how we feel, but not necessarily the truth, so that there remains the possibility we become so attached to the security of a loving union that our judgment becomes clouded. 

Love in terms of reciprocity is tied to the idea of community to facilitate a merger of common interests. If the situation arose where one side becomes subservient to a lopsided emphasis on another’s interests, it is hard to imagine that represents a loving union. Even so, that doesn’t mean it can be ruled out, particularly in a caring arrangement.  

For instance one can refer to instances where there exists an agreed understanding in the relationship. The proviso then is dependent on a remaining genuine concern between the parties, to accommodate more support of one's interests over another’s. However, there is obviously a clear distinction between feeling autonomous in knowing your points of view will be respected in a loving bond as opposed to the excuse of an ego driven controlling notion that inhibits any respect or awareness.

Autonomy

The feeling of autonomy is one of the values of love where the union enhances a feeling of being comfortable with what can be said. A confidence and or secure feeling of a loving relationship acknowledged in the patience and awareness shown of the needs of the other party. 

A loving union of course does not necessarily have to involve any surrender of autonomy as in some instances the reverse may be true where one belongs to say a group where one finds such support as gives way to exchanges of concerns previously inhibited by controlling influences. 

But the question arises is that sense of concern (as to the welfare of one to another) sufficient? Is it fair? Such questions go to the heart of how parties see the expression of a loving union playing out and suggest a sustainable loving union must involve some form of sacrifice one way or another.

This then raises the question of independence and what sacrifice is willingly entered into and maintained as unforeseen events place existential pressure on the loving union.

In any union there will be new networks that invariably involve different ideas that may render the parties having different perspectives. So, the question is how much autonomy does one have to give up to sustain a loving union?  If we regard autonomy as good and a loving union as compromising that autonomy, how then can a loving union be a healthy union in that context ?  

To reiterate, do we need to assume it is a necessary part of love to be willing to give up some of our autonomy but if so to what degree? One might conclude that almost all or at least a fair degree of our identity or autonomy can be maintained provided we embrace self-examination that allows one to adapt to life. That in turn relates to how firmly we hold our views and the preparedness or otherwise to see different perspectives whilst maintaining that mutual concern for one another. 

This then may entail a sharing of group vulnerabilities that strengthens the ties in keeping with the loving union thematic. 

What do the respective parties gain from the union? – Does the heightened sense of security (if applicable) feature in meeting one's respective needs in a loving union?     

Dignity

There is a presumed dignity we hold towards the other, reinforced in day to day interaction. Love might be seen as a way to disarm the emotive responses that might otherwise preclude many essential discussions that would not occur in the absence of a loving bond.   

Furthermore, love affords that dignity to allow for the love of an irrational relative who constantly meddles in affairs and so gets on one’s nerves.

The proviso is of course we don’t always respond in the same dignified way to everyone, who may for instance not be acting in an ethical manner or may communicate in an inconsiderate manner. In other words there is the matter of judgment which goes to the heart of selectivity. How do we choose to love someone and expose ourselves to vulnerability? Because of hastiness and lack of discernment in our decision-making this becomes a common thread leading to many emotionally scarred unions.    

In simple terms what makes (in our eyes) one who is considered lovable or not and might this be considered a matter of discernment?  

Finally, it is also the feeling of autonomy because one is free to express oneself within reason in the knowledge of patience and awareness practised by the respective parties bonded together by love.  

Does Empathy act as a precursor for building a loving fruitful union? 

Philosopher Peter Singer posits practising empathy is fundamental to fruitful loving unions. He encourages people to view empathy as crucially important in making ethical decisions in any union or group.   

Conclusion   

Sentiments usually represent emotions or feelings that seem to ultimately become an expression of love. That is providing the discerned traits are met with our approval and the union continues to afford dignity, reciprocity and usually a form of autonomy or mutual satisfaction or agreement embodied in such a union. Trust is not the same thing but in its absence it is hard to see how a loving union could survive. I believe in true love but I can’t prove it.  What's more without loving unions society would collaspse.  

Human all too Human- Analysis of Aphorisms 630 & 631

 Introduction

 Nietzsche’s “Only to Human” was his first in the aphoristic style after he retired as a professor from Basil University due to ill health.

 

Although it pre dates the emergence of his “will to power” and his later vigour against morality (Genealogy of Morals) those early seeds of thought are already evident.    

 

Overview

 

Herein in the aphorisms we observe his contempt for societal views based on absolute truths arising from convictions.   

Rather, Nietzsche believed truth (with a small t) depends upon whichever interpretation prevails at a given time which is a function of power.  Page 45 - "What Nietzsche Really Said" - Solomon /Higgins. 

The appearance of a postmodernist view is negated by his quest (never realised since his mental breakdown precluded this project) to create human values in respect of the inescapable sense of self. He also concurred with the aims of the empiricists and adopted a western style in his philosophy.  

He saw history as bedevilled by abstract delusional religious convictions which could be overcome by a new civilization (redemption if you will) emerging via the superman – “The Übermensch”. But he never outlined the new values that would subsequently emerge to support such a vision  

 

Discussion Topic: Belief and Conviction: Good or Bad?

 

Affirmative 

Nietzsche’s philosophy represents a narrative expressing his conviction of the foolishness one can covet or know absolute truth.

To embark on such a quest he believed is illusory, a view that has wide acceptance today as it brings with it the risk of unnecessary irrational suffering if one clings to childlike abstract ideas linked to an unhealthy devotion to a cause- whether religious or secular.  

 

Doubtful 

In respect to Nietzsche that opposition to abstract values and childlike belief belonged to Christianity -but not to Christ, who he believed was the only true Christian.  

The problem with this assertion is that alternative ideologies could just as easily arise with similar adverse outcomes to the inquisition.       

 

Quotes out of context and conflation

 

I believe it because it is absurd-   credo quia absurdum est” as the standard of extreme fanaticism.  

It is not the struggle of opinions that has made history so turbulent; but the struggle of belief in opinions,—that is to say, of convictions.

 

Note his use of this quote is out of context and the phrase ……but the struggle of belief in opinions is a conflation of two different things. 

 

An opinion is a judgment based on facts in attempting to draw a reasonable conclusion from factual evidence whereas a belief is a conviction based on cultural or personal faith, morality, or values.

 

Although one gets the gist of what Nietzsche is trying to say in fact you wouldn’t usually conflate a belief with opinions – since strictly speaking opinions are not beliefs. 

   

 

In a nutshell Nietzsche is asserting:

 The disastrous societal belief that one can ascertain absolute truth has led to untold suffering and strife.  

The fanatical adoption of abstract beliefs and sacrificial undertakings based or promises of an after- life risks overriding rational thought.  The yield of catastrophic results such as was the case in the Inquisition.   

 The unnecessary suffering that has occurred could have been avoided if such beliefs were substituted by a will to investigate what was right as per the scientific inquiry method.              

 

Then work out what are the supporting arguments (premises) for the conclusion(s) and what is mere rhetoric or polemic.

 

  A valid argument is made against the idea we can ascertain absolute truth.

 The subsequent arguments against societal views based on opinions and matters of faith or belief are polemic or a narrative.

  A weakness is he makes no allowance for secular outcomes to yield the same disastrous results as the childlike religious ones.

 

Mostly I believe he is on the right track given our propensity to hold strong convictions about things which have alternate views in that context.

 

In a number of respects he provides a precursor to post modernism which has influenced the way we view the world to provide a brake on fundamentalist type religious thinking.

 

A catalyst for one to think about our values and the often subjective manner they arise.   

  

I don’t think he influences my belief system to any great extent since I don’t knowingly subscribe to any of the excesses he rallied against.

 

Nietzsche wanted to reclaim that divine element he saw as a potential in humanity so he was totally devoted to the here and now. That’s an important lesson.  

Process Philosophy leading to process theology

Process philosophy is a 20th century philosophical movement embracing novelty of experienced reality to rely on intuition and reject permanence, uniformity and materialism.

Henri Bergson 1859/ 1941 was considered a founding father who proposed life’s experience entailed a continuum of creating oneself analogous to existentialism.   

He appealed to both academia and in common and general appreciation culminating in his Nobel Prize awarded to him in Literature in 1927.

First educated at Lycée Condorcet in Paris in 1878 to 1881 he studied at the École Normale Supérieure, as a brilliant student at home in both Greek, Latin and scientific subjects. 

Early work- introducing the concept of lived time.   

His principal focus concerned his concept of the inner flow of his so called lived time which opposed the scientific spatialized conception of time as measured by a clock. .

His concept was to recognise an inner awareness and liberty to reject scientific determinism. 

In 1891 he married Louise Neuburger, a cousin of the French novelist Marcel Proust. 

Mind and Body- memory is independent of the body

He correctly conclude memory is not actually lost but rather it is only the bodily mechanism that is lost and unable to recall memories which was a ground-breaking idea at the time. . 

Bergson concluded that memory, and so mind, or soul, is independent of body and makes use of it to carry out its own purposes.

In 1897 he returned as the professor of philosophy to the École Normale Supérieure, having first entered as a student.

In 1900, he was called to the Collège de France, the academic institution of highest prestige in all of France, where he enjoyed immense success as a lecturer until the outbreak of World War I. 

William James was an enthusiastic reader of his works, and the two men became warm friends. 

1903 - 'An Introduction to Metaphysics' – the two ways of knowing 

The two ways of knowing separate the scientific approach  o see things as solid and discontinuous whilst the intuitive way conceptualises the global, immediate or references matters that reach into the heart.  

The first gets things done but cannot view reality as it leaves out duration and its perpetual flux, which is inexpressible and can only be grasped as in self-awareness. 

Créatrice (1907; Creative Evolution), is  considered his greatest work to define him as a process philosopher. He proposed that the evolutionary process involves an enduring  (“vital impulse”) that is continually developing and generating new forms. Evolution is creative and not mechanistic. 

His ideas then are remarkably similar to modern day evolutionary biology that understands our DNA blueprint is constantly subject to the environment. It doesn’t represent a form of Neo-Darwinism as portrayed by evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins and others as a form of genetic determinism.

In this developing process, he traced two main lines: one through instinct, leading to the life of insects; the other through the evolution of intelligence. Both he suggested is the work of one vital impulse that is at work everywhere. Bergson was on the right track as in modernity we know, having spent billions on the DNA project we know our genes only play a limited role and the novel environment is far more influential. The switches within DNA can be switched on and off according to the environment which is far more influential. 

Summary of Bergson's main ideas:

·         Evolutionary and not materialistic. 

·         Life has an 'inner flow', an inner spirit, which is known by intuition and accounts for material/bodily changes.

·         Two kinds of time exist: Scientific, mechanical, objective, 'out there' time; and inner time, subjective, of our immediate intuitive flowing experience.

Understanding the self.  

He argued any attempt to understand the self by analysing it in terms of static concepts fails to reveal the dynamic, changing character. Reality is a continual process of change and is apprehended intuitively via the inner time awareness as a continuum of all existing changes or movements, with no break; a continual flow, ever evolving creatively.

There is a 'life force', an elan vital that has endured the ages and accounts for the creative evolution of life, instinct and intellect in all living things. It is the driving force propelling life to higher and higher levels of structure and organisation, an impetus which is creative but whose endpoint is not known. 

 His idea was that the ‘Elan Vital” cannot be known empirically or through the sciences which are concerned with the static, material, discrete way of apprehending reality.

Instinct is limited because it grasps the fluid, dynamic nature of life but is limited to the individual; intellect is limited because it can construct general truths and categories of existence but by doing so it imposes a static character to reality. 

By intuition knowledge is possible which is superior to that of instinct or intellect working separately.

His system is dualistic, insofar as he sees reality divided between life (and spirit in life) and matter. It is life that is the impetus to creativity, the flow ever evolving, unrestricted, not predetermined.

What flows is whatever we deem to be there, such as matter (inanimate) in tension with life, (the living, organic spirit). All part of a flowing reality. Matter tends towards inertia and it is life that is creative, using matter or whatever there is, to evolve into greater free forms, not prescribed or limited by the 'dead hand' of matter. 

Critics and analysis of his Philosophy

The idea that intuition is instinct, becoming aware not only of its objects but also of itself and is a necessary part of consciousness; (self-aware) is contrary to the Rationalists, Kant and Hegel who prioritised the intellect as the way to grasp the nature of reality.

Bergson claimed that the intellect evolved as a tool to divide and subdivide the flow (matter of life) - a continual creative process. This intellect-tool is a projection upon reality, upon the flow, which is reflected back to us so that we suppose it to be real, made up of clock-time static objects.

But it is not like that; it is just our way of subdividing the endless, continual flow so that action can be undertaken.

Later career.

It was until 25 years later in 1932 he published “The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, where he claimed that the polar opposition of the static and the dynamic provides the basic insight. 

According to Bergen there are two sources of morality with one having its roots in intelligence and the other based on intuition, and finding its expression not only in the free creativity of art and philosophy but also in the mystical experience of the saints.

Influence of Bergson

His influence has been greatest in France, but it has also been felt in the US and Great Britain, especially in the work of William James and Alfred North Whitehead. 

Alfred North Whitehead 1861- 1947.

He was an English mathematician and philosopher, who collaborated with Bertrand Russell on Principia Mathematica (1910–13) and, from the mid-1920s, taught at Harvard University and developed a comprehensive metaphysical theory.

The Concept of Nature (1920).

Whitehead was influenced by Henri Bergson's anti-mechanistic philosophy of change.

1925 Boston Lectures- A critique of “scientific Materialism”

He criticized Materialism as mistaking an abstract system of mathematical physics for the concrete reality of nature. 

Whitehead's mind was at home with such abstractions, and he saw them as real discoveries and not intellectual inventions. 

Religion in the Making

In 1926, Whitehead interpreted religion as reaching its deepest level in humanity's solitude, that is, as an attitude of the individual toward the universe rather than as a social phenomenon.

Gifford Lectures

In January 1927 the University of Edinburgh invited him to give a set of 10 Gifford Lectures in the ensuing academic year. 

For this, Whitehead drew up the complex technical structure of “the philosophy of organism” (as he called his metaphysics)

The lectures reflected Whitehead's speculative hypothesis that the universe consists entirely of becoming, each of them a process of appropriating and integrating the infinity of items (“reality”) provided by the antecedent universe and by GOd (the abiding source of novel possibilities.

Whitehead had an unwavering faith in the possibility of understanding existence and a superb power to construct a scheme of general ideas broad enough to overcome the classic dualisms. 

But he knew that no system can do more than make an approach, somewhat more adequate than its predecessors, 

to understand the infinitude of existence. He had seen the collapse of the long- entrenched Newtonian system of physics, and his “Adventures of Ideas (1933)” was Whitehead's last big philosophical book. 

Whitehead emphasized the impulse of life toward newness and the absolute need for societies stable enough to nourish adventure that is fruitful rather than anarchic. In this book he also summarized his metaphysics and used it to elucidate the nature of beauty, truth, art, adventure, and peace. 

By “peace” he meant a religious attitude that is “primarily a trust in the efficacy of beauty.”

Main Ideas of Whitehead's Philosophy

 ·          The conventional, scientific/materialist accounts of the world (matter, bits of it in motion and that is all there is) is deeply flawed as it fails to give a any proper account of reality (the universe).

·         Physics (the primary science) has no place for qualia (secondary qualities we perceive, such as colours, sounds etc...) in its narration of what there is and   doesn’t offers a place for ethics, beauty or the religious experience.

·         Physics deals with natural laws, concepts like mass, universal constants and force but cannot provide an explanation of the reason why the universe is as it is. .

·          Everything in reality is super sensitive to the presence of everything else, to represent our experiences of “the other” through a non-conscious awareness or 'feeling.'

·        Our experience tells us that reality encompasses causation, valid rules of inductive inference, that the qualities of things must belong to them, that aesthetics, ethics, religious intuitions are parts of the world not just figments of the imagination. 

·         Everything is connected/related to everything else in a vast organic-like whole and this connection is a 'knowing' the other through feeling. 

What I liked: 

Rather obviously our view of reality is constrained by the fact one can’t step outside of the universe of which we are inextricably linked and view it independently. That case is argued under process philosophy rather successfully so that the only way we can view our place in the world is to understand the processes involved.

I think one can say that process philosophy ideas have practical benefits in inviting us to consider the appropriate process involved and to arrive at an optimum solution. 

So that Whitehead might be seen more as one who integrated those past ideas into his philosophy. 

Beginning with Henry Bergson the notion of lived time and the idea we have an inner self we have the psyche/spiritual aspect to our existence as in process philosophy which spills out to process theology. 

Process Theology  

Whitehead’s perspective is the soul has two poles, a mental/active and a physical/passive. The (infinite) World-Soul’s references as the “primordial nature of God.” It is sort of like the cosmic genetic code. 

Roughly speaking Process Theology in my view does not conflict with the idea of existence preceding essence as in existential thinking. 

There is “God", and there is man, a fragmented image of “God" if you will. 

At every moment, we have the ability to make a choice. We either make that choice based on our past experiences, or we make it based on a possibility that transcends our past. What allows for that transcendence? According to Process Theology, it is something like a mirror that gathers “the data” of all of the activity of the fragments and mirrors back to each one all of the past experiences along with a new possibility that would be the next best step to take given all the current data. Do we take that "leap of faith” into a new experience, or do we stick with the comfort of our past experiences? Whatever we choose, gets mirrored back to “GOD”, which is likewise the change in our choices and so the exchange continues… It’s a process.
As Nietzsche put it, do we remain a camel and follow the path that has been laid out for us by our familial and societal customs, or do we manage to gain the courage of the lion and create our own path? If we take on the role of “lion”, then we must be willing to slay every scale on the dragon, otherwise we will continue to repeat history.

One might hold the view that this can best be achieved by meditation and introspection. Another way to look at it is to say one can “transcends the Ego “?