Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

The concept of universal love

cesare said:
'Over there - look ! Art!'

(Not aimed at you particularly)
Click to expand...

Baboons.450.jpg

"Did somebody mention art?"

[not aimed at you particularly...]
 
Froggy, I bought a few "The Art of Loving" booklets [what a great presie!!!] - they are £1 each + P&P, if you don't mind second hand. So, cheap, cheap, dirt cheap and the books are in good condition... not highlighted and written comments and questions all over the pages, like mine... :)

I recommend it to all, including Philosophers, as Fromm is writing from such a perspective, whereby his concept of Human Nature plays a crucial role in how and what he thinks on the subject...

If one isn't strictly and actively seeking "political correctness" [tongue...] when it comes to homosexuality and if one can see beyond that there is a great chance you'll love it!
 
frogwoman said:
comig into some money soon with any luck so i'll order it off of amazon. Ta for the recommendation!
Click to expand...

I only added my voice to someone else who recommended it to you, but i have recommended this book a few times. In fact, for me fromm is one of my two favourite writers. Escape from freedom and the sane society are two outstanding books that help readers understand (what i see as) the widespread insanity that afflicts our species.

I didn't try downloading it, but try this link, i think you'll be able to download the book free.

http://www.ebook3000.com/The-Art-of-Loving_21724.html
 
fela fan said:
Good post mate, but i disagree about calling it an ideal.

It's not about bad people, and this is why hatred is unnecessary.
Click to expand...

thanks. I should have said 'bad' people. There is no such thing as an intrinsically bad person.
 
Jazzz said:
thanks. I should have said 'bad' people. There is no such thing as an intrinsically bad person.
Click to expand...

No worries.

But it's such a key concept to grasp! People are just carriers of actions. If we as a society would spend more time focusing on actions rather than the people behind them, then i think we'd have a saner, more just, more loving world.

There was a wonderful discussion about bad and good, right and wrong, bad people and good people in the novel shantaram. Within the context of the characters philosophising about it (an escaped prisoner talking with a mafia overlord from afghanistan), it was classic writing. My memory tells me that the overlord was saying that there are no bad people or good people, just people who do bad or good things. We all know this in our more conscious moments, but with the pace of life and the frequency with which we dip into automated unconscious behaviour, we can easily lose sight of it.

I think there is a lot of hatred in britain, and always the focus is on hating somebody, and often it's somebody famous who they've never even met. The hatred is always towards people, and it's so divisive, so useless, not single redeeming feature for it. At the end of the day, when we're able to be in the zone of 'love life', then we have the love that i think frogw was looking for on this thread. Love to me is simply about loving life. Any harm done to life is done to oneself, since we are that life, we are the part and the whole all wrapped up together! Love and respect yourself, and then the rest of it comes easily. I'm sure you'll agree mate!
 
I think it would probably be better to analyse love in terms of Philia, Eros and Agape as opposed to lumping them all together although at base they are all the same.
Click to expand...

This ^^^. Without a better definition of what love we're talking about, this is a dead discussion. It also doesn't help that the phrase has been horrifyingly contaminated culturally by hippy idiots.

Do I have love for my fellow man? For sure. I don't have a lot of love for specific fellow men, but generally speaking I like humanity. Does this mean it's not universal? Perhaps it should be 'generalised non-hating of the rest of humanity'.

And FWIW, love and hate, when taken seriously, are the same thing. They both require lots of energy to maintain in specific situations. Being a generalised misanthropist is no different from beign a generalised happy clappy type, and generally it's any company that you're in who find your universal love/hate more wearing than anything else. ;)

So universal love/universal hate - both so hugely diluted it's essentially meaningless as an idea.
 
kyser_soze said:
This ^^^. Without a better definition of what love we're talking about, this is a dead discussion. It also doesn't help that the phrase has been horrifyingly contaminated culturally by hippy idiots.

Do I have love for my fellow man? For sure. I don't have a lot of love for specific fellow men, but generally speaking I like humanity. Does this mean it's not universal? Perhaps it should be 'generalised non-hating of the rest of humanity'.

And FWIW, love and hate, when taken seriously, are the same thing. They both require lots of energy to maintain in specific situations. Being a generalised misanthropist is no different from beign a generalised happy clappy type, and generally it's any company that you're in who find your universal love/hate more wearing than anything else. ;)

So universal love/universal hate - both so hugely diluted it's essentially meaningless as an idea.
Click to expand...

That's a good post kyser, not really got any time for generalised misanthropists either - how do you "hate" the whole of humanity except for a select few?
 
Bah, he's completely wrong - as per usual :D - it's just "not too much of one thing and not too little of the other, i.e. get a 'good measure of things' and you'll be good" attitude...

Kind of Aristotelian, if my sense of it is still functioning...:cool:

But that maketh no radical, Man!!!!:D

And this forum needs it!:p

Go get 'em, Champ!:D

Luv thy self!!!

[Or know?]

Ahem...
 
gorski said:
Bah, he's completely wrong - as per usual :D - it's just "not too much of one thing and not too little of the other, i.e. get a 'good measure of things' and you'll be good" attitude...

Kind of Aristotelian, if my sense of it is still functioning...:cool:

But that maketh no radical, Man!!!!:D

And this forum needs it!:p

Go get 'em, Champ!:D

Luv thy self!!!

[Or know?]

Ahem...
Click to expand...

That's not what I said, but don't let that stop you.
 
That the idea of 'universal love' is probably just as stupid as 'universal hate', and manages to take something away from the value of both words.
 
Of course I am. But I am just a messenger. You are not saying anything openly, i.e. not stated anything clearly other then imply but it's quite clear...

Don't deflect... I haven't yet claimed anything... :D And I don't intend to... For now... ;)
 
Actually I take back what I said about universal hate - I've just been reminded about Doug Stanhope, a man who probably really does hate everyone. He's probably the embidiment of it, and very funny too ;)

FWIW, were I to offer an opinion on how one should live one's life, I would say reject the middle and tack to the extremes - I'm not some pseudo-Buddhist who thinks life is best lived at 60mph, I just think the idea of 'universal love' is a bit wooly. And stupid.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Koknbul
love or fear
2
Replies
47
Views
2K
Koknbul
Koknbul
B
Of Grammatology - Jacques Derrida (Johns Hopkins University Press)
Replies
19
Views
2K
Beats & Pieces
B
D
The Holographic Universe
Replies
7
Views
611
joustmaster
J
sihhi
Is imperialism still a useful concept? Why and where?
Replies
2
Views
557
camouflage
camouflage
ska invita
Anarchism's conception of the State (and Switzerland)
2 3 4 5
Replies
121
Views
9K
ska invita
ska invita
Back
Top Bottom