MORITMER J.
ADLER ON THE GREAT IDEA OF LOVE- PART 2
LOVE AS FRIENDSHIP
WEISMANN: I would like now to develop a fuller understanding of this kind of
love: love between friends, love between parents and children, love of country,
or of truth, or of God.
To recap: we have discussed the contrast between two kinds of love:
sexual or erotic love on the one hand, and fraternal or friendly love on the
other.
These two kinds of love are often fused. In order to examine the second
kind of love in complete separation from all elements of sexuality or erotic
desire, you proposed that we consider it in an imaginary world—a world in which
there was no sex, but everything else would be the same. In such a world, there
would be desires on the one hand—desires like hunger—and, on the other hand,
there would be love—parental love, the love of friends, the love of patriots
for their country, and love of God. Not only would love and desire be quite
separate, but they would be sharply opposed to one another: as liking is to
wanting, as giving is to getting. We have here impulses tending in quite
opposite directions: the impulses of love being generous and benevolent, the
impulses of
desire being selfish and acquisitive.
I would like our discussion to center on the love which is fraternal or
friendly, the brotherly love or friendship which is not rooted in acquisitive or
selfish desires . But before we start, there’s one
thing I have to know, and so does everyone else probably.
In which world are we going to carry on this discussion—the real world, or your
imaginary world without sex?
ADLER: Let’s start off
where we all are—in the real world. When it becomes necessary to move into the
imaginary world without sex, I’ll give you notice—in plenty of time to get your
imagination working in tune with mine.
I will start with
Aristotle’s analysis of the reasons why men associate with one another. Men
value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant or sources of
pleasure, and as excellent, or as intrinsically admirable or
honorable. Examples of these kinds of
associations are: 1) associations based on utility (business relationships,
political alliances, marriages of convenience); 2) associations based on
pleasure (sexual attachments, infatuations, perhaps also the conviviality of
bon vivants); and 3) associations based on the
excellence of the persons involved (friendships arising from mutual admiration
and respect).
WEISMANN: Is my understanding of Aristotle’s thesis correct in that only the
third type of human relationship —based on mutual admiration of personal
excellence —is genuinely love? The first is not love at all, and the second is
not love either, unless it is somehow joined with the third, but the third,
without any trace of either the first or the second, is love—true love?
ADLER: That is correct. The
first two are imitations or counterfeits of love; they resemble love insofar as
they do involve some mutuality or reciprocation. There is no mutuality in
ordinary desire: the hungry man wants to eat the food, but the food does not
reciprocate—it doesn’t want to be eaten. But this resemblance, while present,
is superficial, because the mutuality is based on something outside the persons
involved. It is a quid pro quo relationship —a fair
exchange of favors; each serves the other in some way, or each gives the other
some pleasure. As a result of this, those kinds of relationships are highly
precarious and unstable. Love is more permanent; as Shakespeare says in one of
his Sonnets, “Love is not love that alters when it
alteration finds.” Most important of all,
desire is the root of relationships based on utility or
pleasure—desire for money, fame, or power, desire for bodily pleasure of one
sort or another. In sharp contrast, in relationships based on the excellence of
the persons involved, love is fundamental and is the root or source of
whatever desire comes to exist.
WEISMANN: You said at the beginning that love differs from desire as giving
differs from getting. Now you speak of love as being the root or source of some
desire. Do you mean a desire to give as contrasted with a desire to get?
ADLER: That is precisely
what I mean. The desire to give, or perhaps it would be better to say the
benevolent wish or impulse, the impulse of goodwill toward the person loved, is
the very essence of loving. Loving someone may involve more than goodwill
toward them—wishing to benefit them or give to them, but it must involve at
least that. If it doesn’t, it isn’t love at all.
WEISMANN: Wait a minute. Let’s look at this point a little more closely. As soon
as you say “goodwill”, a question comes to mind. Is the loving will the only
form of goodwill? Isn’t the just will also a form of goodwill to other men? If
so, what is the difference between love and justice—between the goodwill of loving
and the goodwill of being just?
ADLER: That is a most
important distinction, and I’m glad you raised it. The answer is that love
consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the other. That’s why true love is never
based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange. We
love even when our love is not requited. That’s why we say: “It is better to
have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”
Here’s a more
concrete example: when we are sorry that someone doesn’t love us as we would
like to be loved by them, we don’t complain that they are not being fair or
just to us. When we ask for love, we don’t ask others to be fair to us—but
rather to care for us, to be considerate of us. There is a world of difference
here between demanding justice (and here we have a right to demand) and begging
or pleading for love (and here we
have no right).
WEISMANN: I find this distinction between love and justice to be of crucial
importance. Could you be more explicit?
ADLER: Though both
involve goodwill toward one’s neighbors and one’s fellowmen, they are quite
different in all other respects. Justice consists of paying our debts; it is
obligatory—we discharge our just obligations; fairness of us in relation to
others. In contrast love consists, not in paying our debts, but in giving
gifts; its acts are not obligatory but gratuitous; it prompts us to show
consideration toward others. Let me give you two examples of heroic acts of
love, and you will see how they differ from
the dutiful acts of
justice.
The first is the
legendary Roman hero, Marcus Curtius. He plunged
himself and his horse into a deep chasm in the Roman forum. It had been
prophesied that this chasm would not close unless
Another example of
heroic love is the American hero—Nathan Hale, who was hung as a spy during the
Revolutionary War. At the base of his statue are engraved his last words: “My
only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country.”
Think
how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than
justice. Think of Aristotle’s penetrating remark: “When men are friends,
they have no need of justice.” But no such societies have ever existed on
earth. Most societies are those in which justice prevents discord, rather than
societies in which love produces concord.
WEISMANN: Are we now ready for a definition of love?
ADLER: I think we are.
But instead of giving you my own words just now, I am going to read you two
passages which state the definition perfectly.
The first passage is
from Montaigne’s essay on friendship. He says: “In
true friendship, I give myself to my friend more than I endeavor to attract him
to me. I am not only better pleased in doing him service than if he conferred
benefit upon me; but, moreover, had rather he should do himself good than me.”
The second passage
is from Aristotle’s Ethics, Book IX, Chapter 4.
Here Aristotle defines friendship: “We define a friend as one who wishes and
does what is good for the sake of his friend; as one who wishes his friend to
exist and to live for his own sake, which is what mothers wish for their
children; and as one who grieves with and rejoices with his friend, and this,
too, is found in mothers most of all.” Notice that Aristotle uses a mother’s
love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.
WEISMANN: Are we to understand that true love is entirely benevolent, entirely
unselfish, entirely selfless? That the lover wants
absolutely nothing for himself—not even to be loved in return? If you mean
that, then you are living—or rather thinking—in an imaginary world—not only
with sex removed, but most of human nature, too.
ADLER: No, no, no. That
would be going too far. Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent
and generous, without being selfless. Moreover, it is perfectly proper for the
lover to wish something good for himself, as well as for his beloved. These two
wishes go together; they are quite compatible.
Let me explain.
Proper self-love is inseparable from the true love
of another. In fact, it is its basis and measure. It is the second precept of
charity. The mutuality of love arises from loving in ourselves the same
excellence we love in others. Without amour-propre or proper selfrespect, true love would be impossible.
WEISMANN: Then when we love another person, we wish them well, we wish something
good for them. Hence the question: when, in loving another, we also love
ourselves, what do we wish for ourselves—what good do we seek for ourselves?
ADLER: We wish to be
loved, and with that we wish the joy of love—the joy of companionship, of being
in the presence or company of the other, ultimately, we wish the joy of perfect
union with the person we love. Let me summarize the three wishes of love for
you. They are: 1) to benefit the other; 2) to be loved in return; and 3) to enjoy
the closest union with the beloved.
WEISMANN: That word “union” troubles me. I cannot help asking—which world are we
in—the world with sex or without it?
ADLER: Let me clarify
what union means in this sense, quite apart from sex. Hence, please move into
the imaginary world with me .
Eliminating physical
contacts of all sorts, what sort of union do we mean when we say that love
wishes the joy of perfect union? The answer is spiritual union: through
compassion and sympathy, through sharing and liking the same things, through
living a common life, through knowing and understanding each other.
The reference to knowledge helps us to understand this point. We can possess things in two
ways, physically and spiritually; by consuming them and by beholding them, by using them and by
knowing them. Love possesses its object in the manner of knowledge. Love is
like knowledge, only better than all forms of purely intellectual
knowledge. That’s why Aquinas says: it
is better to love God than to know Him, and better to know things than to love them.
WEISMANN: I had a discussion recently with a college professor who asserted that
“love is merely a cultural accretion that is in no way essential to man’s
existence, and that the human race will probably sometime learn to dispense
with it.” What is your comment on that statement?
ADLER: I am glad to give
it. The need for love is one of the deepest needs in human nature, because we
are by nature social. But we are social persons, not social animals. Hence we
cannot be satisfied, as the gregarious animals are, simply by herding together,
simply by being useful to another, or simply by the pleasures of bodily
contact.
We want to share one
another’s lives. How can this be done? Only by conversation—which
is indispensable to love. Love without conversation is
impossible. Conversation without love is quite possible, but then it is only
abstract discussion, not the heart-to-heart talk which is the conversation of
lovers.
Unless we love and
are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely. Unless we enjoy
the community of love—the communication or conversation of love, we cannot get
out of ourselves, and we are shut out from all others, as animals are, even
when they herd closely together.
Everything I have
said today about love as friendship indicates that it can exist in a world
without sex. My last point about conversation shows this quite simply.