Is love selfish?
As my readers on here are probably not aware, I am part of a moderating team for a relationships advice site. An interesting question was posted the other day from a American teenager who was writing an essay on the question of whether love was selfish or not. She made a convincing case for the prosecution citing the fact that when a “person is fed up with crap from the person they’re with then they end up leaving that person” thus “only stay with someone for “love” when they feel like they are satisfied and when they are not they leave to find something else that makes them happy”.
Romantics would, of course, recoil at such cynicism but there can be little doubt in the real world that this is how things pan out. People do sometimes stay in unhappy relationships but it would be untrue that this is due plainly to a generosity of spirit; after all that persons lack of self-esteem or tendency towards emotional masochism, or ‘moth-to-the-flame syndrome’, can be factors that weigh just as heavily in that scenario. Equally some people equate love with suffering and view it as not being true love if there is no suffering involved; that is not to deny genuine selfless impulses exist it’s just to argue against them being the sole motivation for people sticking with an unhappy relationship.
Love is ultimately an expression with our desire to connect with the people around us and a way of mediating the gaps and intricacies of our various emotional and physical relationships that we form as we journey through life. This is the reason for ‘different kinds of love’ and for the definition of love being as highly subjective and individual as it is; for example, one relationship, that we have with those that provide for us as young is governed by family love. The need to procreate and find a mate is governed by romantic love; the need for companionship governed by friendship love etc, etc.
In all of these love’s we get something in return for what is given (or not as the case maybe). Having said that, there is an empathic tendency within most people to derive happiness directly from providing for the happiness and well being of another and fulfilling a sense of loyalty to another which can override our own tendency to self-preservation. I have just finished reading a not unsympathetic account of the life of Marie-Antoinette and there can be little doubt that her determination to stand by the side of her husband, Louis XVI, cost the hapless Hapsburg her life and that of her children too. Life is full of examples of such selflessness done in the name of love.
Selflessness is as deeply routed in human nature as selfishness and it can be said that a healthy dose of both has contributed immensely to the success of humanity as a species. Love is normally celebrated only for its selfless side but there is unquestionably a side to it that is self-serving and perhaps it is time it was celebrated as what it is; an expression of humanity both at it’s best and it’s worst.
Sorry, only skimmed through your paragraphs, but time is evil!
According to your relationship example it should be clear that not love is selfish, but on the contrary not-loving/liking somebody is. You do stupid unselfish things when you’re in love. This stops when your state of being in love slowly fades.
If you mean the example of Antoinette then it is more than worthwhile pointing out; a) she most likely had at least one lover who was not her husband and b)she contributed to the financial ruin of an entire country.
The point is made that we do always seek something in return; our family rear us, our friends support us in our time of our need (if they dont then they can expect, justifiably, to be exiled from friendship) and our lover provides further emotional support, companionship and of course, sexual pleasure…this is part of why love is so essential to humans on so many levels
I have come across numerous instances of, for example, spouses insisting that they sincerly that they love their opposite number but since they cannot, for example, be fully satisfied sexually by them they seek solace in an affair…
I think that’s more a problem of definition. Every social union, relationship,.. relies on people willing to do somthing for the other and vice versa.
The only thing is when you are selfish you don’t want to do or give something in exchange. Love is there a bit more flexible. “I want to be what you need, and you are what I need.”
I don’t think that love as for its definition conflicts with our demands and desires.
Maybe but then you are still looking at a situation where some kind of return is expected where as a pure selflessness would not expect any kind of return whatsoever, and these things can become conditional with one party only willing to give up to a point which depending on context may or may not be construed as selfish…