Love and Other Catastrophes
September 15th, 2008 | by Matthew Smith |This week’s Philosopher’s Zone was a bit different: they featured a recording from the Melbourne Writers Festival of Jeanette Kennett discussing the topic of Love in Philosophy. Her opening anecdote was quite funny and the whole talk is worth your time:
...I discovered [the following] a few months ago from a philosopher who shall remain un-named, and I quote: ‘If X loves Y, then X wants to benefit and be with Y, and he has these wants, or at least some of them, because he believes that Y has some determinate characteristics, V, in virtue of which he thinks it worthwhile to benefit and be with Y. And he regards satisfaction of these wants as an end and not as a means to some other end.’
Well, be still my beating heart. One can only imagine Y’s deep delight at a lover’s declaration couched in such terms.
I liked how she progressed through various approaches to love starting with the rather shallow idea of it being attributes based (i.e. I love her blonde hair) and moving towards ideas of it being about a unique relationship (we have shared experiences and a unique understanding of one another), looking at the idea that relationships form our identity and finally discussing the pure irrationality of love and the idea of love as the simple recognition of another self unto themselves. I suppose my critique would be that Kennett moves from talking romantic love to something else at some stage and perhaps I missed that transition.
My reflections were that love takes many forms in many contexts and moves between all of the understandings presented by Kennett. For example, I think romances often start in the shallow excitement of sexuality and desire and only move to a deeper place as over time these two people might encounter each other in other aspects of their being.
In the context of my previous post on feminism I think feminists such as de Beauvoir and Firestone may have underestimated the role of love in sexuality for both men and women. For example, de Beauvoir felt that the outlook for independent women was bleak yet she didn’t see that men are capable of love and in that role might be able to respond to new ways of relating. Is there much feminist writing that looks at how men respond to feminism and their role in social change? (I’ve only had feminist readings from the early nineties so I’m a bit behind in this area)
2 Responses to “Love and Other Catastrophes”
By Mark Lawrence on Sep 15, 2008 | Reply
No, sorry, I missed it. Though judging from your quote from her opening, I’m not sure if I regret that. It’s probably unfair of me, but I had limited cash to spend on this year’s festival, so I picked my horses carefully.
Your reflections are interesting, though.
“Is there much feminist writing that looks at how men respond to feminism and their role in social change?”
Don’t know of anything off the top of my head. But I know a few men have commented on that, from a ‘pro-feminist’ perspective. Most of the stuff that I know of is related to fathering, though, rather than love and relationships per se.
By Matthew Smith on Sep 15, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for that, the Philosopher’s Zone link I posted goes to a transcript and an audio download if you have interest and spare ears for 25 min or so.