The Problem with Modern Love
Summary
TLDRThis video explores the complexities and contradictions of love in modern society, discussing philosophical perspectives on romantic relationships, the impact of expectations, the importance of friendship, and the challenges of maintaining love. It encourages viewing love as a lifelong skill to be learned and developed, rather than an effortless, idealized experience.
Takeaways
- 💔 The script discusses a perceived 'Dark Age' for love, suggesting a widespread belief that modern approaches to love are fundamentally broken.
- 🤔 It acknowledges the complexity of love, highlighting that while people may agree something is wrong with love today, they disagree on the causes and solutions.
- 📚 The video aims to explore philosophical underpinnings of common love complaints and offer constructive criticism on friendship, passion, and affection.
- 🚫 The speaker disclaims having the final word on love, emphasizing the video is meant to aid individual thinking and reflection.
- 🎨 The script mentions the influence of Simon May and Alain de Botton on the research, indicating the depth of philosophical exploration.
- 💌 It touches on the transformative power of love, as depicted in 'The Sorrows of Young Werther,' and the irrational behaviors it can cause.
- 🔍 The exploration of love's darker aspects, such as obsession and the potential for self-destruction, is used to argue for a more realistic and accepting view of love's impact.
- 🤝 The video suggests that love and friendship should be seen as complementary, rather than opposing, aspects of a fulfilling life.
- 💡 It critiques the modern dating culture's focus on 'the one' and effortless compatibility, proposing that these ideals may be unrealistic and harmful.
- 👥 The script points out the decline in valuing friendship and the potential consequences of this cultural shift on romantic relationships.
- 💸 The video also addresses the role of physical attractiveness in love and the societal tensions around valuing and pursuing beauty.
Q & A
What is the central theme of the video?
-The central theme of the video is the exploration of the philosophical background behind common complaints about love and the examination of how our modern approach to love might be fundamentally broken.
What does the video suggest about the current state of love in society?
-The video suggests that there is a widespread belief that the way we approach love today is fundamentally broken, leading to a 'Dark Age' for love where it has become a great unifier across political and social spectra.
What is the role of Squarespace in the video?
-Squarespace is the sponsor of the video, and the script includes a promotion for their website-building platform, offering a discount code for viewers.
How does the video address the concept of vulnerability in love?
-The video acknowledges that love inherently involves vulnerability, as it can lead to emotional pain and heartbreak, and suggests that this vulnerability is a crucial aspect of the experience of love.
What are some of the philosophical beliefs about love discussed in the video?
-The video discusses philosophical beliefs such as love being seen as a supreme virtue, a redeeming force, and a source of meaning and dignity in life, drawing from early Christian thinkers and the Romantic age.
How does the video view the concept of 'the one' in romantic relationships?
-The video critiques the concept of 'the one' as being unrealistic and potentially harmful, suggesting that it sets unattainable expectations for romantic partners and overlooks the value of friendship and compatibility.
What is the significance of the phrase 'n's famous aphorism that which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil'?
-The phrase suggests that actions motivated by love can transcend conventional moral judgments, indicating a complex and potentially irrational aspect of love that the video explores.
How does the video discuss the impact of high expectations on modern dating?
-The video suggests that high expectations, often fueled by romantic narratives and cultural myths, can lead to disappointment and dissatisfaction in modern dating, as they set unrealistic standards for romantic partners.
What is the video's stance on the importance of commitment in love?
-The video argues that commitment is a crucial aspect of love, but modern society's emphasis on choice and the fear of missing out can lead to a lack of commitment, which in turn can hinder the development of deep and meaningful relationships.
How does the video address the issue of physical attractiveness in love?
-The video acknowledges that physical attractiveness plays a significant role in romantic success but also points out the societal tension between the importance of looks and the disdain for those who prioritize them, suggesting a need for a more balanced view.
What is the video's conclusion about the nature of love?
-The video concludes that love is a complex, often contradictory experience that requires effort, growth, and development. It is not inherently easy or straightforward, but rather a lifelong skill to be learned and refined.
Outlines
💔 The Dark Age of Love
The script opens with a discussion on the current state of love, describing it as being in a 'Dark Age.' It suggests that love has become a point of agreement across political and social divides, with a consensus that something is fundamentally broken in our approach to love. The speaker plans to explore common complaints about love from the internet, delve into the philosophical background of these ideas, and offer constructive criticism on how we approach friendship, passion, and affection. The video aims to challenge the audience's understanding of love and encourage reflection, acknowledging that the topic is vast and complex.
🌹 The Terrifying Power of Love
This paragraph delves into the powerful and often terrifying aspects of love, using Johan Von Gerta's 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' as an example. It discusses how love can lead to vulnerability and potential heartbreak, and how this intense emotional state can drive people to erratic and even violent behavior. The speaker highlights the early stages of dating, where feelings can quickly become irrational and obsessive, leading to a deep emotional investment that can be both rewarding and dangerous. The paragraph emphasizes the need to recognize and understand the darker, more chaotic aspects of love.
🤔 The Expectations of Love
The speaker addresses the issue of unrealistic expectations in love, particularly in the context of modern dating. They critique the idea that men and women have excessively high standards, often based on superficial qualities. The paragraph explores the deeper philosophical expectations for love, such as the belief that love will redeem us and provide meaning to our lives. The speaker references early Christian thinkers who elevated love to a supreme virtue and discusses how these historical and cultural beliefs have influenced our current expectations, leading to disappointment when love does not live up to these lofty ideals.
🌟 The Cult of Eros
This paragraph examines the prioritization of romantic love (Eros) over other forms of love, such as friendship (Philia) and universal spiritual love (Agape). The speaker critiques the modern focus on finding 'the one,' a concept that implies a preordained perfect match. They discuss the unrealistic expectations that come with this idea, such as effortless compatibility and the fulfillment of all emotional needs by a single person. The speaker argues that this focus on romantic love can lead to neglecting the value of strong friendships, which can provide emotional support and understanding without the same level of pressure and expectation.
👫 The Value of Friendship
The speaker emphasizes the importance of friendship in our lives, suggesting that it is often undervalued in comparison to romantic love. They argue that friendships can provide comfort, love, and understanding without the intense possessiveness and expectations that can come with romantic relationships. The paragraph highlights the potential for friendships to be a source of emotional stability and support, and criticizes the cultural tendency to prioritize romantic love over the nurturing of deep and meaningful friendships.
🔍 The Mysteries of Compatibility
This paragraph explores the concept of compatibility in romantic relationships, discussing the common desire to find someone who 'fits' perfectly. The speaker critiques the idea that compatibility should be effortless, highlighting how initial attraction can mask deeper incompatibilities that only become apparent over time. They discuss the pressure this places on relationships, as minor issues can be seen as signs of fundamental incompatibility. The speaker suggests that the idealization of effortless compatibility can set up unrealistic expectations and contribute to relationship dissatisfaction.
💔 The Lack of Commitment
The speaker addresses the issue of commitment in modern love, suggesting that a general lack of commitment is a significant problem. They discuss the concept of 'situationships' and the paradox of people wanting a life partner but seemingly eluding this goal. The paragraph explores the idea of 'despair of possibility' from Kierkegaard, where too many options can lead to an inability to commit. The speaker argues that the illusion of endless choice, fueled by dating apps and cultural narratives, can prevent people from making the deeper commitments necessary for fulfilling relationships.
🌌 The Terror of Beauty
This paragraph delves into the role of physical attractiveness in romantic success, acknowledging that looks play a significant part in initial attraction. The speaker discusses the philosophical history of beauty's importance in love, from Plato to modern times. They critique the societal tension between the importance of beauty and the disdain for those who prioritize it, suggesting that this creates a double standard. The paragraph highlights the challenges faced by those who feel underappreciated in the dating world due to their appearance, and the pressure to conform to societal beauty standards.
🤯 The Expectation of Self-Love
The speaker challenges the common advice that one must love themselves before they can be loved by others. They argue that this view oversimplifies the process of self-esteem and identity formation, which are deeply intertwined with how we are perceived by others. The paragraph discusses the philosophical underpinnings of self-love and its relationship with love for others, suggesting that love is a communal effort rather than an individual achievement. The speaker emphasizes the importance of mutual support in developing self-love and the potential for love from others to help individuals see their own worth.
🎭 The Dissonance and Harmony of Love
This paragraph explores the inherent contradictions and tensions within the concept of love. The speaker discusses the desire for a balance between contradictory qualities in a romantic partner, such as being both close and distant, selfless and selfish. They reference various philosophers and thinkers who have highlighted the unstable nature of love, which requires constant effort and adjustment. The speaker argues that love is not easy or straightforward, but rather a complex and challenging pursuit that involves learning and growth over time.
💔 Romantic Nihilism
The final paragraph addresses the potential for 'romantic nihilism,' a reaction to the broken promises of love. The speaker suggests that the idealized view of love as effortless and perfect can lead to cynicism and despair when reality does not meet these expectations. They argue that love should be seen as a lifelong skill to be developed, rather than an innate ability or a simple goal to be achieved. The speaker encourages viewing love as a rewarding but challenging pursuit that requires effort, growth, and understanding, rather than a mythical concept that will solve all problems.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Vulnerability
💡Philosophical Background
💡Commitment
💡Compatibility
💡Expectations
💡Romantic Nihilism
💡Self-Love
💡Despair of Possibility
💡The One
💡Aesthetic Stage of Love
💡Beauty
Highlights
The video discusses the contemporary issues with love and relationships, suggesting that our approach to love is fundamentally broken.
Explores the philosophical background of common complaints about love from the internet, including the impact of philosophical beliefs on our perceptions of love.
Analyzes the idea that love is seen as a solution to all problems, a concept rooted in historical and religious beliefs.
Critiques the modern dating expectation of finding a 'soulmate' or 'the one', suggesting it sets unrealistic standards for relationships.
Discusses the decline in the value of friendship compared to romantic love and its impact on our emotional well-being.
Examines the concept of compatibility in relationships, challenging the idea that effortless compatibility is natural or desirable.
Touches on the influence of physical beauty in romantic success and the societal tension between its importance and the desire to be beautiful.
Questions the modern belief that self-love is a prerequisite for being loved by others, suggesting it overlooks the communal aspect of identity formation.
Introduces the concept of 'romantic nihilism' as a reaction to the broken promises of love's idealized image.
Suggests that love involves a balance of closeness and distance, and that too much of either can be detrimental to a relationship.
Argues that love is a lifelong skill to be learned and refined, rather than an innate ability or a simple matter of fate.
Proposes that love is like a 'good bad boy' - a mix of contradictory qualities that we seek in a partner.
Points out the contradiction in our attitudes towards love as both a frivolous pursuit and a supreme virtue.
Analyzes the philosophical concept of love as inherently unstable due to the tension between self and other, togetherness and distance.
Advocates for a realistic view of love that acknowledges its potential for struggle, effort, and growth, rather than expecting it to be easy and perfect.
Ends with a call to see love as a humanizing and meaningful aspect of life, despite its challenges and the need for continuous learning.
Transcripts
thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring
this video more about them in just a
moment to love at all is to be
vulnerable love anything and your heart
will be rung and possibly broken it
seems like we have entered a sort of
Dark Age for love it has almost become a
great unifier across the political and
social Spectra no matter who we are and
no matter what views we hold everyone
seems to agree on one thing the way we
approach Love Today is fun fundamentally
broken they may disagree on the causes
or even what is broken about it but they
tend to concur that something is rotten
in the state of Romance when this many
people Converge on a single point you
can normally bet that there is some
excellent philosophy involved and with
something as universal important and
life affirming as love at stake it is
imperative that we take a careful look
at the issue so in this video I'll be
taking some of the most common
complaints about love from across the
internet and explore the philosophical
background behind those ideas and also
consider some constructive criticism for
the way we might approach friendship
passion affection and more get ready to
learn how optimism and cynicism are
close cousins how we have killed
commitment and why our ideas about love
are not just muddled but outright
contradictory as always bear in mind
that there is so much more to say on
this topic than I will do here and that
I absolutely do not have the final word
on the issue I largely hope this can
simply serve as an aid in your own
thinking and Reflections about love I
would also like to give a special
mention to the works of Simon May and
alandi Boton as they were incredibly
helpful while researching this video but
before we get started I want to thank
the very kind sponsor of this video
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but anyway back to love first I
recognize that people get a little bit
embarrassed when they're talking about
love so I want to clear the air by
reassuring you that when it comes to
love we are all a little bit mad one the
terrifying Power of Love in Johan Von
gerta's the Sorrows of young verta we
get one of the most extreme yet
troublingly honest portrayals of love in
all fiction and specifically its darker
and more terrifying aspects the plot
follows a young romantic man named Vera
as he falls deeply in love with a young
lady called Charlotte who in turn is
promise to her lover Albert in the
frustration and pain of his thwarted
love verta becomes increasingly erratic
whereas before he seemed peaceful calm
and generally like a reasonable chap if
a bit eccentric now he was almost
violent in his madness he eventually
drives both Charlotte and Albert away
with his outbursts and alone turns a gun
on himself to end his torment now this
is obviously a very dramatic story and
today it seems incredibly extreme but I
bring it up because I think it hits upon
an important point that often goes
overlooked in discussions about love and
specifically that kind of passionate
erotic love that can hit us at the early
stages of dating I think we all know the
experience of getting to know someone
and it becoming clear that our feelings
for them have become out of touch with
what is reasonable or rational to feel
at this stage you become painfully aware
of the fact that you are too key you
think about the object of your affection
far more than you would admit to anyone
outside of a therapist's office and
suddenly this person who you don't even
know all that well is of supreme
importance to you and their attitude to
you takes on a quasi metaphysical
significance the objectively quite
trivial details of their actions become
tiny opportunities for Obsession the
time they waited before texting you back
whether they laughed at your ever so
slightly cringey joke whether they broke
off eye contact just a second too early
each of these probably means nothing but
your AOS adult brain hunts them through
the night and invest investigates them
for Clues like a modern Seer reading the
future in the entrails of a cat and the
patterns of amorous Insanity do not end
there once you are together you start to
become ever more attached to this person
slowly the sense that you could do
without them Fades into the background
and they become a fixture of your life
you know that you could very well
survive on your own but in some sense
that idea remains unconvincing your
cognitive faculties are at odds with
your emotional reality the other person
starts to feel like an all while you
know that that is not strictly true you
push the idea that you could even be
separated far to the back of your mind
the concepts that your partner might one
day turn around and no longer love you
or die in some horrible accident or that
you might be split by circumstances
outside either of your control all of
these very real possibilities are denied
they are viewed as as absurd as asking
whether the sun will rise tomorrow you
are deep in emotional investment and are
willing to ride this thing as long as it
goes alternatively maybe something
entirely different and equally strange
happens your partner does something that
you find vaguely irritating and all of a
sudden you notice other parts of them
that are annoying as well our Rose
tinted glasses start to come off but
rather than replacing them with a more
compassionate kind of love one that
learns to appreciate our lover for who
they are our minds immediately flip to
the reverse we replace our Ruddy
spectacles with dark ones and everything
our beloved does strikes us as
unconscionably infected with them them
we resent them for not living up to our
expectations while at the same time
crying out for them to love us in the
way that we want to be loved
paradoxically we both desperately want
to stay and desperately want to leave
our mind is torn between two poles and
we start to go a bit mad to take a
fourth example of Love's Madness we
might allow our love to Blind us to
someone who is really quite awful they
might neglect us or hurt us repeatedly
beating us down with their scornful
emotions they seem to Us in contempt
hate us even yet at the same time this
only draws Us in more we say that the
problem must be us and we chastise
ourselves for not earning their approval
the beloved's level of affection becomes
the barometer for our self-worth and we
drive ourselves crazy attempting to
attain it if one of our friends was in
this situation we would tell them to get
out say that they are out of their minds
that almost anything will be better than
their current position and yet we stay
inexplicably against our r Ral Wills
only realizing our own Insanity after we
have already left these four examples
illustrate something that will become a
general theme over the course of the
video it's a thing we all know and yet
we hide from it because it makes us
really quite embarrassed at almost every
level love can make us a little bit
irrational insane and erratic it can
make us do things that we would never
have dreamed turn an ordinary person
into some Earthly Angel and hide the
fact that we are being treated in
incredibly poorly by someone who
professes to love us I want to
acknowledge this point because if we're
going to talk about love then we're
going to have to get over this
embarrassment none of us are perfectly
rational especially in this sphere and
there is a reason why being hit with
Cupid's arrow was seen as almost a sign
of Madness why it drove Dao to the
funeral P even when she had an entire
Kingdom at her disposal many of the
complaints we look at today are going to
acknowledge the inner emotional chaos of
love but I want to let you know that it
is totally okay there is nothing to be
embarrassed about and that it is
Perfectly Natural for this topic to draw
out of us all those aspects of our
characters we desperately want to hide
so for this video I want you to bear in
mind n's famous aphorism that which is
done out of love always takes place
beyond good and evil with that
groundwork laid let's take a peak behind
the curtain of our own affectionate
insanity and see the first complaint
that people have about modern dating two
l
expectations a huge number of the issues
people have with modern dating come back
to the idea that men or women or both
have expectations that are far too high
we are told that all women really want
is an absurdly tall man with baby blue
eyes who works in the city and that
conversely every man desires a comically
proportioned impossibly beautiful young
lady who is simultaneously sexually
veracious and chased to the point of
parody and to be fair I am sure that
there are some genuinely awful
expectations out there and that many of
them are very shallow but I think that
these superficial high standards mask a
far deeper more philosophical
expectation for love that we really
ought to reconsider the idea that love
will redeem us totally and unreservedly
to a certain extent I think this is
baked into the structure of falling in
love the early stages of courtship are
accompanied by an unprecedented flush of
chemicals in our brain that almost
resemble a drug binge and this helps
cement the idea that there is something
truly special and unique on the horizon
additionally we have inherited a whole
host of philosophical beliefs about love
that promise extraordinary things
notably many early church fathers began
to place love and specifically Divine
love as the thing that grants Humanity
its dignity and meaning Simon May
explores this point in fantastic detail
in his history of love for these early
Christian thinkers love eventually Rose
to become the Supreme virtue that we
humans should strive for we see St Paul
write that if we do not have love then
we have nothing we could do whatever
great Deeds we wished have faith Beyond
imagining and even the Divine gift of
Prophecy but if we don't have love then
we gain nothing in other words love is
painted as a missing ingredient and an
essential component of a fulfilled and
meaningful life to a certain extent
religious thinkers have a lot more
leeway here because when they say love
they are often talking partly about the
Divine love of God since God is
omnipotent and all loving there are all
sorts of things his love might be able
to do save us from hell for instance or
give his only son to redeem Humanity the
trouble is many of us are applying this
framework not to God but to other people
a huge number of romantic narratives
present love as having an almost
god-like power even when it is felt by
us mere mortals some have argued that
this is a peculiarity of the Romantic
age that emerged in the 18th and early
19th centuries but I think we can see
examples before them for instance in
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet we often
focus on the traged of the protagonists
and forget that it is their love and the
consequences of preventing it that
caused the two vones families to put
aside their deadly Feud it is because of
the misadventured pitous overthrows of
the two starcross lovers that their
death buries their parents Strife as a
side note a lot of people really rag on
Romeo and Juliet these days but there's
a reason it's a classic it's not just
two teenagers did stupid things even if
it is definitely sometimes that this
idea that love is the Panacea the cure
for all your psychological and
philosophical ills has only increased in
recent years I cannot count the number
of romcoms whose plot is specifically
about a protagonist's personal problems
being plugged by another person romantic
love is pitched as the solution to
everything from Financial stresses to
existential crisis Beyond this we've
inherited historical ideas from the 12th
and 13th centuries about the ennobling
power of love which filtered from the
Muslim world into Europe in the wake of
the Crusades under this conception it is
not just that love can be a motiv Ator
to make you better but that love in and
of itself had a noble ethical quality to
it this idea was famously dubbed the
religion of Love by CS Lewis in his book
The allegory of love and it is true that
Romanticism has only intensified this
idea in everything from Jan Austin to DH
Lawrence you see love as the answer to
General problems of Life which at least
in theory seem to have very little to do
with romance in lady chat's lover the
protagonist is stuck in a Loveless
marriage and her Affair certainly helps
with that but it also manages to fix her
General onwe about life itself this is
actually a really interesting staple of
infidelity plots more generally the
affair not only rekindles the
protagonist's views on Love It
reinvigorates their entire conception of
life as I said I think this is partly
because falling in love does kind of
feel like all your problems are being
solved provided that that love is
reciprocated we are filled with such
rushes of excitement that the very
notion of an issue almost seems a bit
absurd how could we be unhappy when they
are there with Millennia of cultural
artifacts supporting this idea it is
easy to wholeheartedly believe it but
there is a small problem because while
love is wonderful it is not the cure to
every problem we have and deep down we
know this love did not save Tolstoy from
his depression and it will not help us
pay the bills the ideal conception of
Love rubs up against the nonideal world
and does not quite fit this might not be
so bad if we became comfortable with
this IDE idea that love is great in a
whole host of ways but it is not
omnipotent however we often draw the
exact opposite conclusion we say that
since this love did not solve all our
issues it must not be real love we might
not even consciously think this in
explicit terms but we begin to blame our
lover for the things that go wrong in
our own lives or as debaton wonderfully
put it we confuse being unhappy around
someone with being unhappy because of
them in voltaire's candid he makes an
incisive critique of the idea that we in
the best of all possible worlds he shows
how an overly optimistic Outlook can not
only Cloud our view of reality but also
prevent us from actually bothering to
improve our situation he leans towards a
sort of moderate pessimism where we
approach life safe in the knowledge that
things will definitely go wrong and that
there is no total solution to the issues
of existence and I think this attitude
may help us in the way that we approach
love it may be very comforting to
believe that once you are in love the
trials and tribulations of life will
gently Fade Into the background and we
are constantly bombarded with the idea
that this is the case but I don't think
it's a concept that will serve us very
well in the long run it expects our
beloved to have the power of a God and
that is far too much pressure to place
on a single mortal person of course
unlearning such a deeply rooted cultural
belief is far easier said than done but
this exaggeration of Love's power can
quickly become a destructive cycle
because it has the further rather
unfortunate effect
three The Cult of Aeros as is mentioned
in probably every article YouTube video
and thinkpiece on Romance the ancient
Greeks had a number of different
conceptions of Love among others there
is Aeros erotic love filia friendly
brotherly love and Agape or Universal
spiritual love Plato held that every
single type of Love had its place
because all of it set us on the road to
what he saw as the ultimate goal of Love
contemplating the forms of the good and
the beautiful today we tend not to agree
with Plato about the end goal of love
but these distinctions still remain
supremely helpful because the prizing of
romantic love has also led to the
prioritization of Aeros Above All Else
and this has potentially quite
unfortunate consequences let's start by
considering the Romantic concept of the
one in its classic form the one is
something like a soulmate they Walts
into your lives pre-made and perfect
metaphysically destined to be with you
perhaps this idea is best expressed by
Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium where
he theorizes that each of us is one half
of a single multi-med organism that has
been separated by the gods we must then
spend our lives searching for our
missing half so that we may then be
complete this idea has the component of
the one that has received the most
criticism in modern years the
metaphysical uniqueness of the one this
concept that there is one specific
person we are destined to be with is
falling out of fashion and probably for
good reason a te logical conception of
the universe doesn't mesh that well with
dating apps however predestination and
metaphysical specialness are not the
only properties of the one that exist in
our cultural Consciousness there are a
whole other set of qualities that we
often skim over but are equally open to
philosophical critique to name just a
few there's the idea that the one is
someone with whom you are effortlessly
compatible that they trigger an
instinctive erotic response that has a
unique phenomenological character that
all-important special feeling that they
fulfill all of your emotional and
physical needs just by themselves that
you do not argue or dispute or disagree
and if you do then it's a sign of deep
narrative trouble and that they know you
intuitively almost to the point of mind
reading or Clairvoyance you can see so
many of these in our classic romantic
narratives when Romeo has one
conversation with Juliet he is instantly
smitten as she is with him verta
describes in detail the special feeling
that Charlotte arouses in him believing
that they would be the perfect pair in
Notting Hill Hugh Grant is pitched as
being just what Julia Roberts needs and
while in all of these stories there is
dispute or conflict between the lovers
and they may not even end up together
this is pitched as a great tragedy
because of the idea in the audience's
mind that they are meant to be together
that they display all the
characteristics of being each other's
ones now some components of the one
might be very helpful for some people
there are very few things worse than
ending up with a lover who makes you
miserable so it is useful to have some
idea of what you want out of romance for
some people the cultural myth of the one
may do just that and nothing more
however I want to hone in on this idea
that a partner is meant to fulfill all
your emotional needs because this is
quite an idiosyncratic Concepts and I
think it risks idealizing love to the
point of unattainability it asks an
awful lot of just one person for
Aristotle it was not just romance but
friendship that was needed for a
satisfying life he wrote more on simple
felia than he did on the passions and he
specifically praised having a small
group of close friends with whom you
would all strive to be virtuous the
Buddha used to say that being surrounded
by a loving caring Community was a good
step towards Enlightenment while
Michelle deont thought that friendship
was how we became known by other people
without fear where we can reveal our
secret thoughts and be assured that we
are not being used but appreciated in
some ways I think we've taken these
insights on board in our modern
conception of love people are much more
likely to describe their partner as
their best friend than they were in the
previous Century nonetheless if we look
at the emphasis we currently place on
erotic love and compare it to the meager
attention we give to Friendship
culturally speaking there is no contest
besides a few Staples like the buddy cop
movie and the heist film Each of which
also tends to involve a romantic subplot
we give AOS far more attention than its
humbler cousin and we don't just see
this reflected in art friendship itself
is on the decline with the number of us
adults reporting having 10 close friends
dropping from 33% in 1990 to 133% in
2021 though of course the causes for
this are multifaceted I don't want to
denigrate romantic love here it is a
phenomenal part of life and something
well worth pursuing but at the same time
are we not perhaps putting more of our
eggs in one basket than is Wise by
valuing AOS so much more than felia we
may be simultaneously putting too much
pressure on our romantic pairings and
failing to appreciate the finer sides of
a good
strong friendship emotionally friendship
has a lot to recommend it we tend to
feel a lot less possessive over our
friends we are less interested in
impressing them we do not care if
they're attracted to us we are not so
close that we drive one another insane
at the same time they tend to have lower
expectations of us they don't expect us
to sweep them off their feet or thrill
them or show them special devotion while
your average friendship does not tend to
be as close as your average romantic
partnership it still has great potential
to Grant Comfort love understanding and
companionship and these are many of the
things that people look for in Romance
anyway even as an atheist one of my
favorite parts of the Bible is the
intense friendship displayed between
Jonathan and King David where the soul
of Jonathan was knit to the soul of
David and Jonathan loved him as himself
friendship is not inherently less
valuable than romance but we treat it as
if it is I have mentioned this before
but one of the most poignant parts of
the Sorrows of young verta is right at
the end where a series of characters
that we have heard very little about
start to weep over Vera's death these
are people who cared about him deeply
loved him and treasured him but he was
too blinded by his obsession with
Charlotte to see it he had become so
consumed with Aeros that he had
forgotten felia entirely and I think it
may be worth learning from his mistakes
so we don't fall into the same trap this
also links very closely with our
previous point because friends help
fulfill so many of our desires for
emotional connection understanding and
more if we begin to let them go or
devalue them then the expectations and
pressures on our romantic relationships
grow ever higher because they have to
fill an Ever deeper hole I can't see a
reason why love and platonic friendship
need to be opposed in this way ideally
they are the perfect complement in a
balanced life and yet we have tried to
make one the denigrated younger brother
of the other with disastrous results but
next I want to return to this idea of
compatibility in order to display an
unfortunate but liberating truth about
both ourselves and our lovers four the
mysteries of compatibility there are few
buzzword that are thrown around more in
dating than compatible one of the most
common complaints I have heard from
various people both in person and online
is I cannot find anyone who is
compatible with me and this is a totally
understandable concern because you want
to be with someone who you mesh with
someone who slots into you and you slot
into them uh
you know what I mean this wish is only
intensified by the first component of
the one that we just looked at
effortless compatibility we are
constantly shown narratives where two
people are not just compatible but are
so without the slightest hint of
struggle or strain often times the
reason that lovers are kept apart in
these stories is not to do with them
they would be perfect it is just some
pesky external circumstance or
misunderstanding in Disney's Aladdin
Jasmine and Aladdin are already
compatible the beginning of the film and
it is the overcoming of social obstacles
to their love that occupies the bulk of
the runtime the overall message is that
the old original Aladdin was right all
along and he did not need to change in
Rossini's The Barber of Seville the
count and Rosen are already smitten with
one another from the start and the
entire plot Works around how they rescue
our anenu from the clutches of her
guardian in Cinderella The Prince and
our aonomus heroin face no issues of
compatibility regarding their
personality it is just the pesky matter
of Cinderella's poverty and shame that
keeps them apart all of this reinforces
the message that total compatibility
comes naturally and to return to a
general theme so far in the video at the
start it often seems to when you first
meet someone you just don't know very
much about them and they don't know very
much about you Additionally you are both
trying your hardest to put your best
foot forward displaying all of your
Charming characteristics and hiding all
of the ones they might not like you are
unlikely to reveal your unhealthy
healthy obsession with Legos or your
fear of spiders or the fact that you
haven't changed your bed sheets in an
embarrassingly long time and the
beautiful person sat across from you
will also be concealing the way that
their last relationship damaged their
sense of trust or how they really hate
that twe jacket you have inexplicably
decided to wear the trouble is that
eventually our lovers will do something
that deeply irritates us or even hurts
us we will discover that at some level
our personalities or characters conflict
today this is often called by the
monosyllabic Monica it
that feeling we get when our beloved
does something that turns us off and
puts a dent in our idealized view of
them the thing that strikes me and many
other people about the modern I in
dating is just how small and seemingly
arbitrary they can be they range from
wearing a coat when it's cold to dancing
with a friend in a light-hearted and
silly fashion I think the reason that
the ick hits the person feeling it so
hard is because when we meet someone new
and we find them attractive we do an
incredible Gap filling exercise about
every part of them we don't already know
about in effect we become Masters at
self-deception and storytelling our own
personal ESOP crafting fables about our
lover sure we haven't experienced what
our newly minted beloved would be like
in a crisis but we feel assured that
they would somehow remain unflappable we
don't yet see our lover for who they are
but create an image of a sort of super
romantic whose every undiscovered
attribute will be somehow irresistible
to us as franois de Ros Fuko put it
sometimes it is ignorance just as much
as knowledge that keeps love alive this
issue also goes both ways if
relationships are meant to be totally or
mostly compatible right from the get-go
then there is only one thing to conclude
if our partner criticizes us or mentions
that they are upset about something they
are about to leave despite all your love
and devotion they are going to abandon
you because of your fundamental
incompatibility it means every problem
can potentially trigger an intense fear
response because each minor issue is not
just something to deal with as a pair
but instead a symbol of your ultimate
failure to live up to the Romantic ideal
the issue here is not so much the
problems themselves but again our
Strange expectations our habit of
imaginatively idealizing our romantic
Partners in the early stages does have
certain strengths it can encourage us to
take a leap of faith and commit to
someone make them seem uniquely
endearing and reinvigorate our hope if
we have been burned one too many times
but by the same token it sets us up for
failure in the long term because we all
have incompatibilities with one another
idiosyncrasies that will get on our
Lover's nerves and Neurosis that make us
temporarily incomprehensible to the
people around us this is not a sign that
we are broken or unlovable it is part of
Being Human the trouble with the idea of
easy compatibility is that our immediate
conclusion upon encountering a problem
is to suspect that the whole
relationship is doomed and that one or
both parties must be deficient in some
way they must not have been the one for
us after after all we leap from one
extreme to the other from they are
perfect to we are done for put a pin in
this idea as it's going to come up later
in the video this pattern idealization
disillusionment and abandonment seems to
be the cause of a lot of the
dissatisfaction with the current dating
Market people understandably Tire of
living the same cfan cycle of rolling
their Boulder to a first date only to
have it come crashing back down the hill
just a few months later the truth is the
moment we threw ourselves wholeheartedly
into idealization we also unwittingly
signed ourselves up for the latter two
stages the game was rigged from the
start but there is another side to this
that I want to explore and to do so I'll
be drawing from the work of an old
favorite of the channel the Danish
heartthrob himself sain ker guard five
the aesthetic stage of love one of the
most common issues people seem to be
facing in Modern Love is a general lack
of commitment I've heard people refer to
our age as the situationship era and
while the majority of both men and women
seem to want roughly the same thing a
life partner to settle down with this
seems to paradoxically be eluding both
parties normally when two people want
the same thing achieving that thing
becomes a hell of a lot easier so a
mystery emerges what is happening here
to prevent this well I would argue that
part of the problem is that we are
experiencing a despair of possibility
this is a concept I talk about all the
time and it comes from KAG guard's book
The sickness unto death it essentially
describes a situation where there are
too many possibilities and paths to take
and as a result commitment to a single
path becomes more and more difficult to
do until you find that you have wasted
all that precious time and now have
nothing to show for it at first it feels
very strange to think about having too
many choices as a bad thing we come from
a very freedom-loving culture and if
theorists like John Stuart Miller to be
believed more freedom and a greater
number of options tends to breed more
happiness so surely the Technologies
which increase the number of romantic
options someone has access to will make
them happier in love but if kard is to
be believed this is unlikely to be the
case for him an essential component of
fulfillment in any Endeavor is
commitment and commitment is much easier
if our options are any golden mean
between too many and too few much of KAG
guard's work is run through with his
three stages of human life the aesthetic
the ethical and the religious more
generally the aesthetic is characterized
by ISM a general lack of commitment and
an unattached exploration of one's
options so an aesthetic approach to
ideas would be to read widely but to
remain uncommitted to any idea in
particular taking pleasure in the
process of Simply learning the ethical
approach broadens our moral Universe to
include duties and responsibilities it
imates Us in communities and asks what
others require of us then the final
religious stage of Life involves an
unconditional commitment to a higher
power which for kard is God obvious
obvously his full views are much more
complicated than this and I cannot go
into detail on them now but I want to
focus on the commitment portion of the
stages the aesthetic has little to no
commitment the ethicist has some
commitments they take responsibility for
other people and the religious person is
incredibly and almost unconditionally
committed to something that they
wholeheartedly believe in in other works
like the present age kard bemon how
excessive options can leave us in the
aesthetic stage of life in a given
Pursuit there he talks about how too
much information and too many ideas can
dull our passion for anyone in
particular and we will cease to care
about the quality of ideas at all there
is a definite link between his despair
of possibility and the lack of
commitment found in an aesthetic life
and in today's romantic context we have
at least the illusion of lots of choice
dating apps will promise US that there
are hundreds of people just waiting for
us at the other end of the line our
cultural Legends of Love are filled with
handsome strangers chance encounters
romance around every corner even when
someone is in a committed relationship
the image of interrupting the wedding
ceremony and asking them to be with you
instead has become so cliche it is now
just a joke all around us we get the
message that if someone is not perfect
we can safely drop them or to quote a
popular online piece of advice if they
won't then find someone who will there
is not nothing in this idea total
commitments to another person comes with
numerous dangers and very few people
would want to encourage enourage others
to stay in situations that are making
them profoundly unhappy it is just that
this General attitude has a
philosophical trade-off it encourages us
to see love through the lens of the
aesthetic for kicker guard strong
commitment is always a little bit
irrational and to a certain extent I
think that's true Faith plays a huge
role in his philosophy because he thinks
it is a vital component in getting us to
do something that seems irrational in
the short term but is incredibly helpful
in the long run it's a bit like how
believing you will make a jump across
AAP will increase your chances of doing
so at any given moment committing to a
particular thing can seem sort of insane
because of the opportunity cost of
missing out on all of the other
possibilities but if we never commit
then we will end up missing out on all
of the deeper Joys that lie on the other
side of this commitment not least of
which is being freed from the question
of where the two commit I think this
idea of despairing at possibility was
best expressed by Sylvia Plath when she
said her existence felt like sitting
under a fig tree each of the figs
hanging from the branches represented a
possible life she could live a direction
she could take she felt she was unable
to choose any particular one and watched
as they eventually fell down to the
ground dead and rotten if there were
only a few options her decision would
have felt that much easier and she
probably would have chosen a fig this is
a bit like how kard would describe
living your entire life in the aesthetic
stage and when it comes to love that is
a disaster because it bars us off from
the treasures that lie on the other side
of commitment in our constant worrying
about whether we have chosen the ripest
best fig we eventually starve to death
surrounded by the corpses of what might
have been but of course this is only one
side of the equation the problems of
excess are balanced by the problems of
deprivation and there are a great many
who feel like they are deeply
underappreciated in Modern Love
principally because of their appearance
so let's turn to hear this perspective
six the terror of beauty there is a sort
of elephant in the room when it comes to
romance especially in the modern day and
that is that looks are unfortunately
supremely important trust me I was an
incredibly weird-looking teenager and I
am a slightly less weird-looking adult
and it is a night and day experience I
have many friends both male and female
who say exactly the same thing I imagine
it has always been harder to date if you
are not blessed in the department of
looks but as the way people meet one
another becomes increasingly image-based
turning to dating apps and social media
there is the general perception that
things have got much more difficult
philosophically this makes a certain
degree of sense even as far back as
Plato philosophers recognize that love
often began with the admiration of
someone's physical Beauty these
characteristics have always been
acknowledged as the starting point of a
lot of people's affections though
obviously not all however while very few
people historically argue that looks do
not matter there is a rich philosophical
history of pointing out how an
overemphasis on beauty can lead to a
mountain of suffering when it comes to
love in that very same book where Plato
talks about the origins of love in
Beauty he also mentions that the higher
stages of love should aim to outgrow
this physical infatuation while he
thinks we begin by appreciating physical
Beauty we should aim to develop into
treasuring the beauty of ideas again
Plato's particular reasoning for this is
idiosyncratic but the general thrust of
this concept has definitely persisted
Beyond him cognitively we tend to know
that as long as some attraction exists
looks are not highly correlative with
where the someone will be a fulfilling
partner for us in the long term we have
endless cautionary tales about the
seductive yet dangerous Allure of
sensual Beauty from the Trojan War to
the sirens to T Grant's character in
Bridget Jones Diary the message is
screamed from all Corners if you are LED
on by physical Aesthetics alone disaster
awaits the trouble is that people like
beautiful things and as far as I can
tell this isn't going away if it were
that easy to overcome we wouldn't have
been telling ourselves the same warning
for over 2,000 years and yet still be
deceived by a winning smile however you
already know all of that so I'm not
going to dwell on it here I instead want
to point out that there is a tension
between how Beauty functions in society
and how we treat the desire to be
beautiful or the complaint that one is
not sufficiently so on the one hand the
evidence that Aesthetics are important
is all around us but on the other we
judge the wish to become beautiful as in
some way shallow from mocking people who
work out for aesthetic reasons to
decrying makeup is the the domain of the
insecure there is this underlying
contempt often shown for people
attempting to improve their looks or
placing any importance on the at all it
is often seen as vapid or indicative of
some personal defect if they were truly
a great mind or a substantial
personality then surely they would not
concern themselves with such things I
think this is an incredibly cruel
societal message to put out while Beauty
still clearly matters immensely for
people achieving what they would like
both out of life and Out of Love this is
the first example of a themee that will
become more and more important later in
the video the way that we approach love
is mired in contradictions and internal
tensions For Better or Worse it seems
that physical attractiveness is a large
component of romantic success but we
don't like to acknowledge that it forces
us to confront quite an uncomfortable
part of ourselves that we are all
failing to live up to the ethical
standards set by our culture we are all
taught not just that looks do not matter
but that they should not matter from
there it is a short step to to if you
care about looks your own or those of
others then you are ethically deficient
in some way this then creates a
significant philosophical incentive to
engage in a sort of double think on the
surface we say that beauty does not
matter while secretly acknowledging that
it absolutely does but if we tell people
that looks do not matter then there is
only one thing to conclude from romantic
troubles it is something to do with our
character again it's not that this is
never true I'm a massive fan of
Aristotle so you'll very rarely catch me
saying we shouldn't work on our
characters but it is a bit like telling
someone struggling with poverty that
they are just not working hard enough as
an explanatory hypothesis it seems to
miss a huge component of the causal
variables at play it also takes
something multifaceted and complex and
tells someone that it can all be boiled
down to one fundamental fact you are not
good enough not just descriptively but
ethically as well again I think this is
a problem of idealization we want to
believe that love is selfless and kind
and caring about looks is sort of
selfish and sort of not that kind so we
reconcile the contradiction by saying
that love must not care about looks but
rather than this being a soothing balb
to someone's romantic issues it is
instead a cruel kind of optimism rather
than recognizing that we are all partly
at the mercy of causal chains that
existed long before us and that we will
never have full control over any aspect
of Our Lives including our love lives we
reserve every inch of fault for the
person suffering essentially we
transform romantic failures from
unfortunate circumstances to moral
deficiencies with this comes a whole
host of additional baggage like guilt
shame and a feeling of personal
inadequacy but none of this needs to be
there it is an artifact of our idealized
picture of love it comes from the same
simplistic philosophy that brought you
everything that happens in your life is
your fault and you can do anything you
set your mind to to borrow a thoughts
from buun chhan if we can do anything
then the only reason we haven't is
because we are not good enough far from
being a compassionate message to send to
someone struggling with loneliness this
strikes me as almost painfully unkind
this is the source of thought that
sounds friendly on the surface but
conceals a whole host of philosophical
sins that knowingly or not only
increases the sufferer's hardship to
continue this point further I want to
explore the relationship between the
love of others and self-love and how we
may have introduced quite a destructive
and deceptive principle into our
received philosophy of romance seven the
expectation of self-love as I was doing
research for this video there was one
phrase I came across over and over again
regarding dating if you can't love
yourself how can you expect others to
love you this was often said as if it
was ending the discussion a sort of mic
drop moment before the enlightened
purveyor of this aphoristic Amorous
advice strolled into the sunset and I
don't want to be unfair here because as
we shall see there is not nothing in
this but at the same time buried within
this phrase is a picture of love that I
think both demands far too much of us
and obscures its genuinely helpful
aspects my primary issue with this piece
of advice is that it treats our
self-esteem and our identity formation
as something that happens in isolation
it paints a picture where we Retreat to
our cave for a little while learn to
love ourselves and then emerge back into
the public sphere with Ironclad
self-confidence ready to take Tinder by
storm but I don't think this is a
realistic expectation to have of people
over the course of the late 19th and
20th centuries more and more thinkers
came to believe that identity formation
is only partly something we do
individually and is ultimately
Inseparable from how we are perceived by
others jacqu Lan and Jean Paul satra
both talked about how we form our
self-conceptions by seeing how others
react to us and adjusting accordingly I
can say I'm a fantastic football player
but I can't fully believe it until there
is solid evidence and other people to
confirm this position when I stroll onto
a field and immediately slip over trying
to kick the ball not only will other
people be unable to believe that I am
good at football but I will also
struggle to believe it myself this is
part of why a lot of child psychologists
Place such an emphasis on the messages
parents send to Children through their
behavior it forms part of the child's
later self-concept whether they see
themselves as worthy lovable and safe
partly depends on how they are treated
by their parents but then this raises a
question how on Earth are we meant to
fully love our our elves and be
confident in ourselves before other
people do I'm not suggesting that it's
impossible but I do think it is a lot
more difficult than it's given credit
for this view of Love also stands in
stark contrast to earlier conceptions
such as that given by Dante algeri in
The Divine Comedy his love beus ascends
through Paradise with Dante and
eventually Dante even sees the glory of
God reflected in the eyes of his beloved
this picture implies that love is not
simply a matter of two people coming
together already complete and
self-sufficient but rather a process of
mutual development this is echoed in the
works of someone like St Thomas aquinus
who described loving yourself loving
others and loving God as all part of one
shared project this is a far less
individualistic picture of both love and
self-esteem instead of self-love being
something that you learn by yourself and
then bring into the world it is
something that you and your beloveds
support one another in doing by willing
the good of the other for the sake of
the other we learn both that we are love
able and how to love others thereby
creating the conditions for self-love to
emerge or at least this is how I
interpret this idea for dooi it is often
the love and care of another person that
can spur someone onto their own sort of
self-love when aliosha displays his
spiritual love to grushenka this is the
first step towards her learning to find
her personal dignity and when Sonia
loves raskolnikov it is the very thing
he needs to embark on the long road to
abandoning his self-hatred and making
amends for his deed
in these Works love is presented as much
more of a communal effort and there is
no pretense that anyone can wake up one
morning and decide to love themselves it
is rather that we and by we I mean all
of us must help one another to see our
lovable aspects or to again draw from
Christian theology to see someone
Through The Eyes of an all loving God
you don't need to be religious to
appreciate that there might be some
value in this message it's also worth
noting that the love in question need
not be romantic in nature and this
commun task is pretty vital because the
valuable part of the idea that self- Lov
is a prerequisite for the love of
another is that a poor self-image can
lead to all sorts of self-destructive
behaviors that make perfect sense to the
self-hating lover but baffle everyone
around them including their beloved this
is explored in great detail by Debon in
various talks books and lectures he
concurs with other thinkers like J and
Lan that a need to be loved often but
not always begins from some feeling of
inadequacy we see in someone else both
the qualities we wish we had ourselves
and someone whose admiration would help
complete our self-image as a lovable
person it is a bit like how a chef might
desire a good review from a particularly
harsh critic to serve as the ultimate
test of their skill however debaton says
that this is often a catch 22 because
when our self-concept is truly in the
gutter someone liking us does not become
evidence that we were not that bad after
all but rather one of two unfortunate
things happen we either St to like that
person Less on the basis that we do not
want to be a part of any club which
would have us as a member or we begin to
feel incredibly dishonest we suspect
that the only reason that they have not
abandoned us is because they are yet to
discover our fatal flaw we conceive of
ourselves as in some way metaphysically
tainted they only like me we say to
ourselves because they haven't
discovered that I am secretly an ugly
repulsive Goblin this can turn the
experience of being loved into a source
of guilt we feel like we are conning our
beloved because if they still love us
then we must be playing some sort of
trick on them we exist with the
permanent anxiety of being discovered
either way we are apt to run from the
very person we most desire but therein
lies the Fatal tension it is hard to
convince yourself you are lovable
without love but at the same time it is
hard to believe that you are loved if
you hold the Deep seated to belief that
you are unlovable I certainly don't have
a complete solution here but I will
refer you back to the previous section
of the video where I talked about the
importance of friendship friends can
help us see our lovability at a much
lower Stakes level and as a result can
be vital pillars in building our
self-esteem yet another reason to
reinstate the value of friendship in our
society but now I want to move on to
what I think is the root philosophical
cause of a great many troubles about
love and it's going to be a tricky one
to untangle because I think that
fundamentally the way we conceive of
Love suffers from truly Dee rooted
internal tensions that make finding and
maintaining love less like discovering a
treasure and more like keeping 18 plates
spinning at once and that our failure to
acknowledge this sets us up for future
cynicism eight dissonance and Harmony a
brilliant song about love is Bo burnhams
lower your expectations I will spare you
my rendition of it but essentially it
goes through a series of qualities
people desire in a partner and suggest
that they are unlikely to find them all
at once my favorite line however is you
want a good boy a bad boy a good bad boy
a half good half bad half boy I love
this because I think Burnham here gets
to the Crux of the issue in love we
don't just want something special we
often want a connection where various
contradictory properties are kept in
perfect tension a great psychoanalyst
who touches upon this point is Esther
Perell she has written extensively on
how to keep romance alive within
long-term relationships and she talks
constantly about the two properties of
closeness and distance according to her
too much ESS has a tendency to kill
desire we forget that our partner is
another person that they are independent
and that they are not simply an
extension of ourselves it is hard to
feel intense attraction for someone who
you view as analogist to your arm but on
the other hand too much distance and
this can create distress anxiety and
damage the very foundations of the
relationship in her therapeutic
experience it is only when we
simultaneously feel safe and secure with
someone but also recognize that they are
separate from us that attraction
blossoms and blooms over the years this
meshes quite well with what a lot of
different philosophers and thinkers have
said about love in the Bible the
togetherness aspect is represented by
the two lovers becoming one flesh and
the separateness aspect is found in the
analogy of the married couple being like
Christ and his church two separate
entities for Aristophanes it was the
existence of a destined other half
versus the fact that they have been
cleaved in Twain for Tolstoy it was the
illicit availability of count vonsky and
the tragedy of Anna's pre-existing
marriage for DH Lawrence it is the
intense passion that exists between lady
chatly and her lover coupled with her
unhappy marriage and their class divide
for from it is the wish to meld with
another person coupled with the
recognition that they are not you this
tension between self and other
togetherness and distance makes love
inherently unstable by this I don't mean
that it is always chaotic but rather
that it does not rest in a single state
it is a bit like shopen how's Will
endlessly raging onward never stopping
never waiting requiring endless work and
struggle luckily there is little that is
more meaningful to struggle over and
this is only the start of the in
attentions in our concept of Love on the
one hand we are taught that love is in
some way frivolous a thing for children
we proclaim the virtues of total
self-sufficiency that is what is
required to succeed in this world a hard
exterior and the unwillingness to rely
on anyone else from the men going their
own way to the boss babes The Cult of
individualism buries its clause deep but
on the other hand we tell people that
love is a supreme virtue that it is
ennobling kind generous patient that all
you need is love and that a life without
love is simply meaningless we tell
people that love is one of the most
important human Pursuits and then
denigrate them for wanting it is it any
Wonder we end up miserable and Confused
to take another example we are often
told that love is selfless but on the
other hand we're often attracted to
someone who wants us in a slightly
selfish fashion we are present presented
with a sanitized idea of love that is
purely good incredibly chased and stable
and then we reach adulthood and a whole
chunk of us find that this is not all we
want we also want excitement and for our
lover to sometimes desire us as an
object at the same time we want to be
respected and cherished yet also be on
the receiving end of someone's
occasional selfishness we want them to
want the best for us but avariciously we
want excitement and comfort risk and
security stability and a rocking boat we
want sweetness Vitality gentleness
ferocity tenderness Instinct
Independence and possession we want our
lover to be both our best friend and a
beautiful stranger to know them better
than we know ourselves and yet for them
to remain full of mystery the
contradictions abound the tensions are
endless and even if not everyone is
instantiated in every individual person
some of them normally are love as
experienced by real existent people is
the desire for a Harmony of a whole
series of qualities that are at war with
one another and when we are at our most
unguarded say when writing or reading
romantic fiction we often admit this I
say all of this to bring one idea to the
Forefront on almost any plausible
philosophical analysis love is difficult
and only gets more difficult over time
there is something in the image of being
hit by an arrow or of Romeo's sweet
sorrow at parting from Juliet or of
hadway following the phrase what is love
with baby don't hurt me perhaps this is
the biggest myth we tell about love of
all that it is meant to be easy
straightforward instinctive and low
effort this perhaps sets us up for
failure more than anything else and it
is an Insidious thing to tell people
struggling with love surely it is more
realistic to see love as the well- one
reward of years of toil growth and
development as we learn to integrate a
whole another person into our lives and
us into theirs as we slowly develop the
skill of loving someone how they wish to
be loved and teaching them to do the
same for us Aristotle used to say that
for many skills and virtues there was no
other way to learn them but by personal
practice contemplation and habituation
he recognized that almost any personal
quality worth having was not going to be
a simple matter of knowledge that we can
reason out in an academy rather we will
have to investigate the world for
ourselves with the approach that we are
learning a skill developing practical
wisdom and improving little by little at
our chosen Pursuit I would gently
suggest that we start to think of love a
bit more like this it has numerous
strengths whether alone or with our
lovers we can start to look at our
romantic failings hiccups or
difficulties not as evidence of our
fundamental unlovability but of our
status as students at Cupid's feet we
can follow in the experimental attitude
of John Dewey and see this aspect of Our
Lives as not simply a goal to be
achieved but rather a series of Trials
to be slowly refined over time when we
inevitably mess up in love we can view
it like we've just knocked over our
paintbrushes or written a cliche in our
notebook it no longer supports the
hypothesis that we are broken but rather
that we are learning a lifelong skill
and one we won't be finished with when
we close our eyes for the final time
hopefully with a heart bursting with
love I can hear people already saying
that this idea of Love requiring
constant effort and learning and skill
and development has robbed it of much of
its luster so allow me to say why I
don't think that is true and in any case
that it is far better than the
alternative nine romantic nihilism in
all my research for this video I still
did not come across a singular term to
describe the general malays that many
people feel about the concept of Love at
the moment and I would like to propose
one romantic nihilism in my favorite
analysis of philosophical nihilism John
Stewart identifies that nihilism begins
a reaction to broken promises for
hundreds of years we were told that
there was a God and afterlife and our
lives had inherent meaning and gradually
people started to view these as false
and more than that as lies with nothing
to fill the void they became cynical and
pessimistic in a moment of empathy ner
describes how these nihilists had put
their entire trust and faith into a set
of ideas only to discover that they were
wrong all along now they feel foolish
forever believing them they display the
same sort of General undifferentiated
skepticism towards the world that many
who leave a cult describe in effect they
leap from one extreme to the other from
optimists and idealists to pessimists
and cynics and I think nature is really
on to something here about the dangers
of idealization in any sphere we like to
think that if we present a Rosy and
optimistic view of the world or of key
Concepts then that will protect us and
if they turn out to be false well then
we'll just adjust our views accordingly
but this is not necessarily the case if
nature is right then once the ideal
Falls away we just as often collapse
into total despair we reject
wholeheartedly the thing that we used to
desire recognizing that it is
unachievable in the way we wanted we
fall into resentment and Scorn we view
the object of our wishes as childish and
we declare that it is dead this analysis
fits almost uncannily well with how many
of our attitudes to romance have shifted
strangely it is easier to go from from
Love is Everything To Love doesn't exist
without our philosophies ever resting in
the Middle Ground the promises of love
we were fed as children are being broken
and we are reacting in a classically
19th century fashion straight from the
frying pan of the ideal to the fire of
the cynic if love is not to be
effortless endlessly glorious and solve
every one of our existential problems
then we don't want it anymore and I
think this is a real shame because at
heart I am a total romantic I firmly
believe in the powerful things love can
do be it romantic platonic or familiar I
think that it can stand alone free from
its mythical adornments it can bring us
someone to commit to someone to know us
and for us to know them it does have the
potential to make us Kinder and more
caring it is a natural way to infuse
life with felt value it can bring out
our selfless and generous Natures it can
truly be patient kind non-judgmental and
non-transactional we can learn to love
someone in a way that makes them feel
truly fulfilled and teach them how to do
that to us it is not that love will be
the cure to every one of our ills but we
have every reason to think that it can
be a real pillar of our meaning but we
also have to recognize that it will come
with struggle and strife endless effort
tension and contradiction however if we
continue to think that love must be easy
that it is endlessly Pleasant without
trouble or conflict that our partners
must be Gods rather than men and that
the ability to love is innate rather
than taught then I fear the greater
sides of love may be forever out of our
reach so if there is one idea you
consider from this video I hope it is
this much like a lover love itself is
neither Angel nor demon it starts out
seeming faultless then shows its flaws
and then finally we learn to love those
flaws too but this is not our god-given
gift but rather the end result of long
protracted efforts to learn how to love
to see our lovers as humans damaged and
battered by by the world fractured and
faulty in ways that will drive us insane
but when all is said and done we see
them as they are and we care for them
all the same safe in the knowledge that
they are looking at our broken bruised
and slightly mad psyches and thinking
the exact same thing the more false
promises we sell people now the more
future nihilists we will create when the
scales finally fall from their eyes and
they wonder what else we have lied about
but as always I encourage you to think
about each one of these ideas critically
there was a lot in this video to take in
and every single part is open to further
discussion criticism and development I
hope this acts more as a pump for your
own ideas than as a lecture and if you
want a totally different perspective on
love then click here to watch my take on
dov's radical and revolutionary
philosophy about love and care in all
its forms thank you for watching and
have a wonderful day
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