Comments by Thor on “Love …etc”
1. “Is love an evolutionary instinct … etc” . Well, if you want it to be. If you are talking about some concoction of evolutionary instincts and decide to call that particular brew “love”, well there is no argument about it. It is then a contextual definition, not a discussion topic.
2. If a discussion is wanted, then it might come in several forms:
a) Supposing that we have some competent knowledge about instincts etc, then we might want to decide which mixture of neuro chemicals and physiological responses it might be useful to call “love”, or whether some other descriptive label was useful for this context (for example, “limerence” – see the Wikipedia entry on this).
b) Following a) we might then go on to hypothesize what kinds of environmental influences, such as nurture, reshaped the primal “love” concoction, to what extent, and in what manner, and for whom (male, female, adult, infant etc).
c) We might in fact decide to reserve the word “love” for wider and more vague cultural contexts. These could indeed include elements of a) and b), but would also take account of general usage of the word in daily life. As a linguist I would have to say that the “love” token is one of the most used and abused terms in most human languages. This in itself is culturally and psychologically interesting. That is, it is worth exploring. In English you can love your wife / husband / boyfriend / girlfriend / child / dog … or even a brand of toothpaste. You can love getting drunk on Saturday night, or you can love a movie you have just seen. Your interlocutor might respond with some exasperation that these are different and unrelated meanings of “love”, not what he wanted to talk about. In that case, you have to ask, very very precisely what he wants to talk about.
3. Since language is my trade, the chimerical meanings of “love” are not uninteresting. This is because the human brain both thinks and produces natural language by processes of analogy. Analogy, examined closely, is a fascinating phenomenon; ( in fact, I think it is a bridge between what are commonly called “mind” and “matter”, but that is too complex to go into here). The salient aspect of analogy for our purposes is that it connects apparently unrelated events, perceptions, or symbols by extracting or asserting shared features, and thus builds a network of cognitive relationships (language and/or other cognition). Thus for all the myriad uses of “love” we can find trails of connections which at some nodes coalesce densely enough for people to put them into a bucket labeled with the word token “love”. Once that happens the poets and spruikers and street kids take over. “Love” hits the billboards, the TV sets and infects the speeches of politicians. If you happen to have the hobby of tracking word meanings, you can then watch “love” spread like an ink stain through the culture.
4. OK, if you ask me, Thor May, what I know about “love” in some everyday, fuzzy context of gender relationships, I would have to say that you have come to the wrong guy. On the existing evidence from an otherwise interesting life, I have few dizzy secrets to recall from the reputed “being in love” mystery which saturates music, literature and film. But probably that is not what this meetup discussion was meant to be about anyway (??).
References
Al-Khalili, Jim & Philippa Perry, Julian Baggini, Jojo Moyes and Catherine Wybourne (Thursday 13 December 2012) “What is love? Five theories on the greatest emotion of all”. The Guardian newspaper, online @ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/13/what-is-love-five-theories
ASAP Science (11 February, 2013) “The Science of Love”. Yahoo video, online @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDMwpVUhxAo
BBC, UK (n.d.) “The Science of Love”. BBC Science: Human Body & Mind, online @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/
Boudreau, Diane (10 January, 2007) “The Effects of Affection”. Research Matters website, online http://researchmatters.asu.edu/stories/effects-affection-960#sthash.sqD8uRS2.dpuf
Big Think (2013) "Love is the product of lousy neurons". Youtube video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alTm7tFzXlA&feature=em-uploademail
Catholic
Encyclopedia (n.d.) “Love – Theological Virtue”. New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia,
online @ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09397a.htm
Doidge, Norman (30 April 2012) "Neuroplacticity". TVObigideas series , online Youtube
video (1hr) @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z1nLJNqpLk
Edwards, Michael (August, 2013) “Can
Love Change the World?”. The Greater
Good website, online @ http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_love_change_the_world
Fox, Beth (1999) “Falling in
Love is a Primitive Instinct”. Vanderbilt
University Newsroom, online @ http://www.newswise.com/articles/falling-in-love-is-a-primitive-instinct
Flanagan, Caitlin
(May 11 2010) “Love, Actually - How girls reluctantly endure the hookup
culture”. The Atlantic, online @ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/love-actually/308094/
GoodReads (n.d.) “Quotations
About Love”. GoodReads
website, online @ http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/love
Haworth, Abigail (20 October 2013) "Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?" The Guardian @ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex
Keltner, Dacher
(2004) “The Compassion Instinct”. The
Greater Good website, online @ http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_compassionate_instinct
Koval, Rick (August 4, 2013) “A mother's love, or an
animal's instinct? Surprising acts of selflessness, courage in the face of
death”. Pocono Outdoors blog, online @ http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130804/OUTDOORS/308040324/-1/OUTDOORS0402
Heinrichs, Markus and Gregor Domes (2008) “Neuropeptides and social behaviour: effects of oxytocin and vasopressin in humans”, extract from I.D. Neumann and R. Landgraf (Eds.) Progress in Brain Research, chapter 28, Vol. 170. Publisher: Elsevier B.V. online @ http://www.psychologie.uni-freiburg.de/abteilungen/psychobio/team/publikationen/ProgBrainRes_08.pdf
Lyubomirsky, Sonja (December 1, 2012) “New Love, A Short
Shelf Life”. New York Times, online
@ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/opinion/sunday/new-love-a-short-shelf-life.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Maestripieri, Dario (March 26, 2012) "Games Primates Play - the evolutionary history of love". Psychology Today, online @ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/games-primates-play/201203/the-evolutionary-history-love
May, Thor (2011) “Snow Flower
and the Secret Fan”. Thor’s New China
Diary blog, online @ http://thormay.net/ChinaDiary2/archives/56#more-56
McCamish, Thornton (June 4, 2005) “Your dopamine or mine?” The Age newspaper, online @ http://www.theage.com.au/news/General/Your-dopamine-or-mine/2005/06/03/1117568370393.html
Michaels,
Paula (n.d.) “Love and Instinct”. Parenting website, online @ http://www.parenting.com/article/love-and-instinct
Minchin, Tim (2011) "If I didn't have you". Youtube video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn6gV2sdl38
National Geographic (n.d.) "What's Sexy?" National Geographic video channel, online @ http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/whats-sexy/
Pattberg, Thorsten (29 October 2013) "No quick fix for China's mistress culture". Asia Times, online @ http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-291013.html
PregnancyWeekly (n.d.) “Is
Maternal Instinct Really Instinct?”. Breathing Space
supplement, website online @ http://www.parentingweekly.com/pregnancy/breathingspace/vol39/pregnancy_health_fitness.asp
Science
Daily (2008) “Why Do We Love Babies? Parental Instinct Region Found In The
Brain”. online @ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080226213448.htm
[ source reference: Kringelbach ML, Lehtonen A, Squire S, Harvey AG, Craske
MG, et al (2008) “A Specific and Rapid Neural Signature for Parental Instinct”.
PLoS ONE 3(2):
e1664.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001664 http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0001664 ]
Urban Dictionary (2013) “Love”. online @ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=love
Wikipedia (2013) “Love”. online
@ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love
Wikipedia (2013) “Limerence”. online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence
Wikipedia (2013) “Eros” [Romantic love… (Ancient Greek: ἔρως érōs) is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can
be rendered into English as “love”… In the classical world, erotic love
was generally referred to as a kind of madness or theia mania ("madness from the gods")… Eros has
been recoded in a variety of ways across cultures and eras ]. online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_%28concept%29
Wikipedia
(2013) “Storge love”. [(Ancient Greek στοργή,
storgē)
Storge or affection is a wide-ranging force which
can apply between family members, friends, pets and owners, companions or
colleagues; it can also blend with and help underpin other types of tie such
as passionate love or friendship. Thus storge may
be used as a general term to describe the love between exceptional friends,
and the desire for them to care compassionately for one another]. online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storge
Wikipedia
(2013) “Phylia”. [(Ancient Greek: φιλία,
philia ) in Aristotle's Nicomachean
Ethics φιλία is usually translated as affectionate
regard or "friendship" … Aristotle divides friendships into three
types, based on the motive for forming them: friendships of utility,
friendships of pleasure and friendships of the good… friendships of pleasure
are based on pure delight in the company of other people. People who drink
together or share a hobby may have such friendships… Friendships of the good
are ones where both friends enjoy each other's characters…the central idea of
φιλíα is that of doing well by someone for his own
sake, out of concern for him
(and not, or not merely, out of concern for oneself..]. online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia
Wikipedia
(2013) “Agape”. [(Classical Greek: ἀγάπη, agápē) ... appropriated in Christian theology as the love
of God or Christ for humankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the
covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for
God; the term necessarily extends to the love of one’s fellow man...].
online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape
EXTRAORDINARY
The
room is an ordinary room,
You are
gone,
The day
is an ordinary day,
Friend's
smiles are just ordinary smiles,
My care
is an ordinary care;
The air
still smoulders.
You
came, some nowhere time
Were
here, a rag doll,
Bedraggled
we thought,
Pale as
a cave-born moth, astounded by light
Urgent
in living, you came
How
brightly you burnt.
Burnt
me woman, warmed the air
Lit the
day, rushed blood to my lips
Made
smiles come out of hiding,
Scorched
the old paper words
That
rustle on our tongues, and dying
Left me
an ordinary man.
Thor, 1995
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Today has lasted for 4 billion and 2
years, 6 hours, 12 minutes and 13.5 seconds
Live fast they said, go wild,
It flies, it doesn't last.
Go chase your moment
Run you mile, strut your hour
Build your pile, and don't come home
Don't come home, don't come home
And this is the way the world
Of the world, world, world, world
stopped.
Susan smiled and waved from the
footpath.
She was walking and smiling;
I was driving and smiling.
We went, went each way
And all day we were smiling
About driving and walking.
Thor, 1973
This poem was also
published (much to my surprise!) as part of an article in The
Hindu, a major national Indian newspaper, on February 1st, 2006.
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