Falsifiable Subjectivity

Love (not an assignment)

Love is often taken for granted, and that is what Cynthia realized in her first college semester away from home at the University of Philadelphia. In the first eighteen years of her life she had not taken the time to realize all that her parents truly meant to her, not one moment of appreciative sentiment, which all of a sudden, through a steady stream of tears soaking her pillow, has led to an outburst of repressed emotion only one month after being apart from them. This sadness occurred because Cynthia had never understood the love her parents poured out to her on a daily basis: the hot breakfasts before school, the birthday surprises, the comforting when she was overwhelmed, the perfect attendance and encouragement at her volleyball games, and the shoulder to cry on. But now that it was gone she began to understand that love, perhaps more than she would have wanted to.  But the good news is that Cynthia’s next visit home will be the first time that she encounters them with an understanding of the mutual love that they share for one another.  

                Hopefully this is helpful in trying to understand what love is, but it is certainly not an all encompassing example that leads us to an objective definition of love itself. Love is certainly an ambiguous term, and there are several theories about it that date back to the beginning of time. However, there is one particularly interesting idea about love that I will discuss, and that is one that comes from Harry G. Frankfurt, who writes about it in his book “On Truth.”

                He actually introduces the concept of love through the means of joy, another human experience that he argues is somehow intertwined with love. While Frankfurt is reviewing Spinoza, another author who has done work in understanding love, he comes to his own conclusions on the matter. He uses the example of physical exertion in the endorphin pumping process of working out, which leads to a feeling of being “more vividly alive” and an inevitable sensation of joy (Frankfurt 43). This joy is possible through romantic emotions for someone else, diving into a good book, smoking an expensive stogie or literally anything else that creates an experience of joy. It is experience oriented at the present time, not something dwelled upon afterwards or anticipated for in the future. He then states that whatever is the cause of this joy, is an object of love in the individuals life (Frankfurt 44). I think that I agree with this theory on a matter of levels, but I also hold reservations in others.

                This philosophy on love is remarkable because it introduces love as an emotional capacity rather than a premeditated decision. What I mean by this is, according to Frankfurt, love is only gauged through the sensations that are caused by the object. So if gladness, or some other kind of affirming sensation, emerges for a particular article or individual, that means that you carry a certain propensity of love for this object. As a human being who has experienced these emotions for various people and things, I can understand why Frankfurt has come to this conclusion, but this theory seems unstable to me because I do not believe love can be measured. And unfortunately my disbelief gives me a few questions for Frankfurt regarding the factor of fluctuation. Perhaps this example might help to explain, you have two high school students, Dan and Lisa, who think they are in love (which means they share a mutual joy for one another). What if Dan experiences more joy from Lisa one week then he does in another week? Does this mean that his love fluctuates with the amount of joy he is experiencing? If that is the case, then where do we draw the boundary of love and a glorified liking? I am not trying to shoot bullet holes in his idea of love, because I think there is some plausibility to it, I just simply wish some of these things would have been explained a little better.

Well, now that I have officially established myself as the devil’s advocate, which is an easy position to be in by the way, I will explain what I believe love to be. I find myself agreeing with more of a Christian (as well as other beliefs) perspective, that love is more selfless rather than selfish. Frankfurt agreed with Spinoza when he says, “One who loves necessarily strives to have present and preserve the things he loves.” This reveals an intrinsically selfish motive of the lover, who desires to be in the presence of what they love. This is completely reasonable and frequently the case when dealing with love, but it is not universally true. This, by the way, reminds me of a disclaimer I need to communicate, that I do not want to position myself in the opposite side of the ring against Frankfurt. I simply think that love is exercised as a sacrifice for someone else. If you truly love something, you do not necessarily care about your own exposure to the object, you are more so concerned about whether or not it is in good hands and being taken care of. This probably is what he meant by “preserve,” but I do not agree that you will always strive to have those you love close. Perhaps this can be portrayed through the example of a father and a son, where the father loves his son, but knows it is best for his own development and independence for him to move out of the house. The most “loving” thing the father can do is to push him to leave so he will mature into a well rounded individual.

To conclude these opinions that I have elaborated upon, I want it to be known that I do not present anything antithetical to Frankfurt in my ideology of what love is, but I do offer some qualms and alterations to Frankfurt’s description of love. Realizing that these two things can coincide, I think it is necessary to create a distinction between sensationalized emotion and love, because they are not inexorably the same thing. My primary goal was to notify readers that love has more of a complexity to it than Frankfurt portrays, and it cannot be regulated and understood by a few different rules that one would like to implement.