Love, a beautiful thing

Love is such an abused concept that many people are embarrassed to use the word. Yet it is also an absolutely crucial concept in defining our humanity. I have (appropriately I hope) chosen a Frenchman as this month’s world-class thinker: the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville. A distinguished scholar from the Sorbonne, Comte-Sponville has written many articles and books in French. Thankfully three of his books have been translated into English and I have all three in my library.

Interestingly this philosopher has written a fair bit on “love”. In his best selling book A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues he distils all our human virtues down to a list of eighteen. His opening chapter is on Politeness, which he says precedes morality, and his closing chapter is on Love, which he says exceeds morality. Love he claims is the most interesting of all subjects. The early Greek philosophers had two words for love: eros and philia; and much later a third Greek word was added – agape. Let’s look at some of his insights by examining these three words.

First insight: erotic love strives to possess and to retain what it does not currently have. This is the simplest form of love. New lovers at a St Valentine’s candlelit dinner stare passionately into one another’s eyes. A significant part of their pleasure is their anticipation of what is to follow, what is not yet. The gifts of chocolate and the Valentine’s cards are attempts to get what we don’t yet have. And there’s nothing wrong with that! But as soon as eros possesses what was desired and retains the object of erotic love, passion dissipates. Interest wanes and boredom may even set in. Eros is that driving, almost blind biological love that longs for what one does not have and weakens when one gets it. Eros is such a strong passion, with characteristic butterflies in the tummy that we are often tempted to think that erotic love is what life is all about! However, according to Comte-Sponville, Plato was only partly right when he described love as eros pure and simple; for not all love is erotic, passionate and possessive – spent as soon as it has been attained. There are, as Aristotle argued, other forms of love; “to love is to be joyful” within the context of intimate friendships.

Second insight: philia is the love shared by intimate friends and it is a joyful delight. Usually translated from the Greek as Friendship, Comte-Sponville points out that philia is a “benevolent” love that loves another for the other’s sake. It is a love that rejoices in the pleasure that it gives and is the secret of happy relationships. Parents and children delight in loving one another in this warm way of devotion; so too do spouses, lovers, partners and philia often combines with eros illuminating relationships with the mutual pleasure of ‘making love’. For Aristotle, philia (to love) is to be joyful and to wish happiness on the person one loves. It is the love we experience when we are secure in our relationships; it is the comfort of true friendship rather than the passionate possessiveness of erotic love, though it may combine with eros on occasions.

Third insight: agape is to love one’s neighbour which is to say anyone and everyone. Neither Plato nor Aristotle would have known the Greek word agape. They knew only passion or friendship. Long after their time, Jesus, a seemingly insignificant Jew in a far-off Roman colony began in his strange Semitic tongue to say astonishing things like “love you neighbour” and “love your enemy”. No Greek word for this! Who in their right mind would passionately try to possess humankind? Or who could, absurdly, be close friends with their enemies? The English translation of agape is usually charity which carries the meaning of compassionate care for others who are in need. It is a love that is liberated from egotism and is therefore in itself liberating.

Comte-Sponville argues that while it is okay intellectually to distinguish between these three kinds of love they are not discrete, mutually exclusive entities. He sees them as three points in the single realm of love; three possible impulses in the complex process we call life.  What is great to know and to experience, especially for those of us who are no longer in enthralled bondage to erotic love, is that philia and agape increase in importance and desirability with age. Friendship and compassionate care for others remain ultimately meaningful and incredibly satisfying when eros no longer dominates one’s every waking thought!

I wish you lots of love in all its interesting manifestations my friends…