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Philosophy of Love
Lee Perlman
December 13, 2018
Romantic Love
In The Road Less Traveled, the physician and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, defined love as “The will extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” The first reaction to the statement is shock, confusion, thinking the statement is insensitive, and almost random on irrelevant. With no mention of the common things we associate with love; flowers, hugs, kisses, desire. But if one were to look into Peck’s idea, there are a number of legitimate points that actually manifests what is required for a strong loving relationship with longevity.
Peck feels that the essence of love is the nourishment of spiritual growth. The nurturing of one’s spiritual growth is performed through work, one of the least erotic things. This work of compromising, sacrificing, facing fears isn’t any different than anything else that one wants to nurture or work for its success. Yet, this is slightly different because it is not a one-sided establishment, both parties must work. Both parties must sacrifice. Both parties must love.Without full participation, neither partner can grow spiritually. The relationship is still thought to be one of love, but it is clearly misnomered since relationships are better described as parasitism, stunting, or vampirical.To further clarify this point, I would like to bring in another way of viewing Peck’s point. There are three words in the Greek language for love; eros, agape, and philia (which I will not talk about because of irrevelance). Eros is the “love of desire.” It can be considered to be similar to our understanding of the word erotic, but only because of its desirous aspect of longing and striving. It is almost sexual, but in the way of uniting the different. Agape is described as“spontaneous and unmotivated.” Examples can be seen as the love given by the Christian God, or parent to child love. Agape is given despite character faults or value. Though, a debatable topic (how different types of love play among one another, or if/how they can simultaneously occur), the idea that romantic love requires both eros and agape is a part of Peck’s opinion. Since Peck feels that love is effortful, one must obviously give, but must also be willing to receive. Lovers must be willing to give up a large portion of themselves, as well as, take the person for who they are and who they are capable of becoming.
Love requires that both partners love erotically and agapically. They must be willing to transform themselves into well-developed individuals. A lover’s transformation can only happen through the breaking of ego boundaries. Peck defines ego boundaries as the things by which one identifies oneself. This includes anything from societal gender rolesto previously established roles within the relationship. Still, it does not have to be just roles; it can be just learning something from the other person. By breaking down these boundaries and exploring parts of themselves that may have never been touched before, the lovers are able to spiritually grow and extend themselves. He must become independent of the other. Because “When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual. There is no choice, no freedom involved in your relationship. It is a matter of necessity rather than love. Love is the free exercise of choice.” By breaking free of these boundaries the lover is forced to confront the freedom of love. Since the now more independent and spiritually grown lover can more easily choose to leave, but the beauty of the love is the lover chooses to stay. That is the agape. It is the love that keeps the lover loving the beloved, despite who they are. Since it is indifferent to value and unmotivated, there is nothing that can make it stop; it is unconditional. Without the agape, there would be no loyalty or stability; there would be no love, because there wouldn’t be any effort. Yet, there still exists a risk in true love, because agape is not all of romantic love. It is said by Anders Nygren “But the man only desires and longs for that which he has not got, and of which he feels a need; and he can only strive for that which he feels to be valuable.” Therefore, by increasing that independence and risk, one is increasing their lover’s eros. Because with thebeloved being more spiritually grown, not only have they become more valuable, but also the lover holds less of them. By always working to break ego boundaries, lovers in return preserve their eros. But it is the agape that gives them the strength and confidence to actually break them.
Though, I agree with many of Peck’s ideas, I do not feel deviate in saying that his view of love is a little dry. Even if, he doesn’t discount desire, lust, or any of the other “fun” aspects of love, he chooses to not mention them either. Being that he is too busy saying that love is action. This approach makes the hotter aspect of love seem secondary, or less important, of which I partially agree. By being a woman in a relationship with a man of whom not verbally affectionate, is a man of action. He frequently showshis love through his everyday actions, and expects that to be enough. Yet, with the rare verbal expression, I find myself left feeling insecure, unloved, and dissatisfied. Frustratingly, I also feel guilty for questioning his love, but I comfort myself by reminding myself that we can’t really help how we feel. If the person loves and is willing to walk that extra mile, why can’t that extra mile be verbal expression? Can you have love without verbal affection? I can know that he cares, but without that verbal confirmation there is always doubt. It’s like saying the few words make it all true and all clear. Similarly, my professor once said while discussing Peck that no one wants to hear, I love you so much and am willing to do anything for you, but I am not sexually attracted to you. This is the kind of statements that the speaker feels should/could be taken well, but the recipient feels nothing but negativity. People want to be desired, and it is of most importance to be desired by your beloved. If this feeling is missing due to the lack of desire or the lack of verbal expression, one can not feel properly loved. Either it be societal or pure genetics, we as beings need to feel all types of affection in all ways possible. Please do not misunderstand me. I strongly believe that a man of all words is almost useless. Anyone can say they love someone, but not everyone can show it. If the motivation of love is not there, then there is no love. Consequently, a man subject to love in action is a man that truly loves, but a man of only action loves but keeps his beloved perpetually feeling only half loved. While a man of just words has an unloved beloved. Like always, one needs ALL to be fully loved.
In addition, I feel that Peck should put a lot more emphasize on sexual desire. I think Peck should have addressed it to demonstrate that it is something of importance, and not ignore it as if totally irrelevant. He does mention sex only as a temporary state in which ego boundaries are broken. As mentioned earlier, sex is uniting the different. Therefore, sex should be desirable because the lovers are able to unite, break down those love inhibiting boundaries, and be able to experience unreal unity. It is a known fact that couples with a healthy sex live are happier and closer than couples without one. When couples are having bad times; the sex stops. Therefore, there is must be some connection that Peck did not bother to touch on. Still, the connection could just be that couples who love each other a lot have good sex, and couples who don’t, don’t. Especially, since couples who have been together for a long time, sex may not be as interesting, i.e. the awe of the unity experience is not as intense. So I ask, can you have love without desire? And I say no, there must be desire. There cannot be love without desire, though there can be love without sexual desire. Since there can be other forms of desire, such as something as simple as the desire to make your lover a better person (eros). I say that desire is needed for love, because it is that longing that Kabir talks about that makes love, love. It is that longing, that desire, which motivates people to action, and gives them an infinite supply of work to use for their beloved. Desire blinds the person from full reality, the same way love blinds. One can never view their beloved as the world does, or without some form of bias. I feel that love is also powered by desire, hence why love can not exist without it.
“When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion—through the fact that for that someone (or for ourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful.” One who loves has the motivation and desire to work. The work becomes a part of a lover’s life. As stated in the poems of Kabir, a 13th Century religious poet, “It is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.” This fully captures Peck’s idea of love, for if one is unwilling to put in the required effort, then it is not love.Though it is the eros which makes lovers work and become better individuals for our beloved, it is agape that keeps them together.