Wednesday, March 23, 2011

TR 8:25am

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love is a strong emotion between individuals. Misleading for some, and straightforward for others, love is what you make it. I am familiar with the six types of love, but before I was unaware of them. I honestly thought there was only one love: passionate, physical attraction, and intimacy. There is eros, pragma, storge(store-gay), mania, ludus, and agape love. Eros is usually passionate and romantic. Ludus is game playing, uncommitted love. Storge is friendship-based love. Pragma is practical. Mania is obsessive or possessive love, and agape is selfless love. People love because the either want to or was taught to love. The teachings of love come from family members, entertainment, and the society we live in. The problem with love is that the majority of individuals, who do it, think love comes from the heart. Psychologically, you love with your mind. Respect is a key component of love. One cannot love and disrespect, therefore it is not love.
Kevaris Doughty

Nicole Hernandez said...

I believe love can be defined as the self is defined. It is a process. It is not a constant variable. It is a process of emotions that are different and range to great extremities. I sometimes think it is almost indefinable. It is felt.
There is an innate eagerness though to define it. So on that search for the answer, I agree with all the ideas mentioned on this blog. When love strikes, we are bonded to that other person. That bond can be traced from the limbic system. Chemicals produced in the brain may explain where these feelings come from. I also believe it can be altered by propinquity. The extremities of love can be demonstrated in the many love styles from agape to mania. Culture has exploited the idea of love. What sometimes we forget is if it is selfish, it is no longer love. Many of us search for love that is compassionate and/or passionate. Hatfield suggests these two types of love. I do not believe that passionate love lasts up to 30 months. I think the length of time we feel love towards anyone is relative to the relationship. I like Deleuze’s outlook on love. I am an optimist so focusing on the positive side of love is ideal. As to the question, is it possible to love and respect, I think you cannot love someone without any respect. If there is respect, we can crave attachment that is caring and intimate and receive it. Rubin makes a good point that we have these desires. We are in the pursuit of constantly fulfilling them. That is life; but that is another topic to blog about.

Unknown said...

Love is more than just an emotion of affection. Everybody loves differently, hence the six styles of love. Some people might like someone for his/her looks, some others would appreciate a friendship relationship before anything, and others will put their needs before anything else. It all goes down to a personal view of what love is and how we manage to express it along with our partners. There's a lifetime to experience and I believe people will experience all of these kinds of love at some point. For example, when I was younger Eros love was predominant in my choosing of relationships, as I grew up I started to experience the other styles of love that involved friendship, need list, even extreme love such as Mania. As of now I consider myself to be an storge lover, which doesn't mean I'll stay as such for the rest of my life.

Unknown said...

For me love is more than just feel butterflys in my stomach whenever I am close to my love one (passioned love). For me love is freedon. I believe that it can't be love if it doesnt have wings to fly. for me love is also time, listening and understanding (compasioned love). love is very hard to explained I think is a very broad topic. We can even feel love in different ways depending who are we refering to, if a family member, friend or boyfrind/girlfriend, But I can explain love as freedon. learning to give personal space to your love ones learning to let go and learning to accept their decitions for me is a very important key in any relashionship and very respectful and beautiful of showing love.

Anonymous said...

Alberta Kovatcheva:

I am so happy that we are discussing love in philosophy because I am so confused about it. Going back to what professor Triff was saying, many people see love as a form of ownership because of the psychological/emotional and financial investment in a relationship. This feeling of ownership, I fear, leads to possessiveness and can be deadly. It causes anxiety and is simply detrimental. I see these feelings manifest themselves when women marry rich men for their money, the so-called "gold-diggers." We should not be too judgmental. In reality, these women are trying to mine out the gold from all of the muck in life. They think that material satisfaction will lead to emotional fulfillment. They are content with being inferior in the relationship. Then the rich men feel that these women belong to them. I am not being sexist. It goes the other way as well. Men can also marry women for their money. The possible economic gain of a marital union simply turns the marriage into a "business." Feelings of affection and caring can quickly evaporate. Then, the only satisfaction of the relationship is physiological. With time, this vanishes too. Many people marry young. Later, they ask: how did I go wrong? Youth is easily blinded by carnal desires, such as sexual satisfaction, physical appearances, and possible economic gains. Take the money out of the relationship. Would one still marry if this person did not have money. Should people marry at their own socioeconomic status to prevent being used, to find emotional comfort and security in a person at their level? Does one choose to fall in love? Can falling in love be avoided? Before marrying, I think, people should consider social, cultural, and psychological implications. To what extent is love an affair of the mind rather than with the body? Some people are shallow and cannot look past this. I concur with Nicole Hernandez that love is a process. It is based on how one defines it. I also agree with Canelita and Kevaris that love is freedom. If one partner is possessive over the other, this is not love. However, I disagree with Professor Triff that love is a phenomenon of Western culture. We simply have a more liberal interpretation of it. However, romance is universal. I am an idealist and I seek the most altruistic emotions. However, I know that life is not a fairy tale. Some marriages are arranged or forced. I cannot say anything with respect to this. Yet, a person can find happiness in any situation of life. One does not have to accept and conform to the negative things in life, but rather, silently rebel against them to find happiness.

Alberta Kovatcheva

Kira L. Mendoza said...

Love is a very broad subject due to the fact that there are many emotions that are closely related to love, and along with other different types of affectionate love asides from the ones mention in the post. I must say that my take in this post will most likely be psychologically based due to the fact that I am a psychology major. Recently I studied in my human growth class that as a child is born he or she is rapidly expose to a hormone (oxytosin) that will allow this child attachment to his mother easier and later on in life is linked to empathy, and the ability to being able to attach correctly to others. Now with technology and all advances on child birth such a c-section often the child does not go through the birth canal and is not exposed to the release of oxytosin which bring about a clingy adult or an adult that does not know the difference of attachment.
In reality I do not considered love as love is mostly a form of attachment. It is not that we accommodate to what society tell us is the right thing to do and if you have not fallen in “love” then there must be something wrong with you, or your actions. When in reality or at least mine; loving and being capable of attaching to someone other than your mother is more of a predisposition that you are born with. Of course society now makes it seem like a trend or the right thing to do.
Psychologist Elaine Hatfield was right when she made a distinction between the different types of love there are such as passionate, and compassionate love, because since there are many different types of affections then the distinction between such is much more than obvious. Companionate love is more realistic than passionate love, because the fact that like a mother loves her child the child will love her mother; it is an unstated agreement (also aside from the fact that there is a very strong connection between the mother and the child since implantation). Passionate love is definitely a more fantasizing way of love “the one” and then you mate, and you have offspring; yet ending up in a break up that damages the children and everything around it. Passionate love completes all the expectations of a regular social life. Now how was it that you picked your mate? Because of physical appearance, then that is the closest result to it. In reality mating and loving was meant to procreate and create new and better species of man. If so and everything is physical then there is not much respect for one another; because then you ignore what really matters. What will bring you one step closer to evolution? “Love” is just a word implanted by society for profiting. As long as there is some other type of believe while in the process of attachment then is just advertisement.

Meeme said...

The more I try to understand love the less I know about it. I absolutely don’t know what love is. I only know that it exists. I feel it, I need to have it, and I need to share it. I have tried, for a long time, to find the good answer that explains this thing. I gave up. I have learned, like in this blog, many forms of classifying love, but it never seems to be enough. This thing is in everywhere, but it doesn’t fit in any box, scale, or ending definition. Diving in my ignorance, many times I think that nothing works without it. It might be true, who knows? I also think that it doesn’t matter if love is passionate, compassionate, maniac, physical, psychological or whatever category it may be classified, since it works perfectly between the parts interested, not causing any damage to the third part, it is fine and it is valid. Someone already said that “freedom is to choose our own prison”, so, what I learned from this is that we should wisely choose which “love” we are going to nourish.
With love, Sheila Guisard

Anonymous said...

Plain and simple, take on love has never been affected by the influential nature of the economy, but, that may because I am still young. I don’t worry about money too often, even though I am quite conservative. In any case, I don’t really know if I can consider a relationship based on physical attraction, or infatuation, a genuine kind of love that I am familiar with. That is mainly because the way I have been shaped in society. I’ve seen a lot of hearts broken and a lot of feelings hurt and I’ve learned from that. As defined by Hatfield, this is known as compassionate love. Love should be a relationship based on the principles of compassion. If you really love a person, you wouldn’t let money get in the way, and respect should not even be questionable. I don’t think respect is earned, I do think it can be lost; but all can be forgiven. Unfortunately, we are all human and subjects to our desires, even if they may not be from the heart. It’s the pursuit of happiness and joy that love can harvest; something that can’t be found in material that attracts me.
Aaron Le Jeune

Latanya F. said...

The word love can be broadly defined, but the most common definition for love is the profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. Love is also a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection. Certainly, love is a universally phenomenon and a constant emotion displayed towards others, however, love comes in many shapes and sizes, in order words, a particular love is given for a particular reason to a particular type of relationship between one or two persons . Conversely, love has also been seen as a tool of manipulation to gain an effortless amount of attraction to objects that may not present themselves so grand or to receive pleasure only for one’s own best interest. For example, the saying that “sex sells”, is widely seen in commercials, politics and money. A predicament that society holds that love is the only source of happiness, or the only way to receive love. -Tanya

Anonymous said...

It’s amazing to see how much our nation has flourished throughout the years. We went from barely being able to communicate with one another to having everyone you need just a click away in your pocket, we’ve managed discover medicine and treatments for diseases that were never even heard of back in the day; but it’s incredible that such a simple topic such as love, is still “taboo” for us. Love is the one of those words that has a limitless amount of meanings. Yet, the word is being used as if it meant nothing at all. We have created a form of criteria as to what a man/ woman needs to have in order for one to love them. When in reality can that even count as love? Instead of being infatuated with one another, people are more in love with the cars their partners’ drive, how much money they have in the bank, and whether they’re going to be a burden to you financially. Our society has become so obsessed with the material aspect of life, that we have forgotten what’s actually important. The amount of marriages ending in a divorce just keeps increasing and increasing throughout the years, and the evil master mind behind all of these broken hearts is simple: money! But plain and simple: Love is one of those things that can never be explained, “It’s putting yourself out there when you know there’s a possibility you might get hurt, but still taking the risk anyway”. Personally, that “risk” is what love truly is.

-Jennifer Vidal :)

Anonymous said...

Love is a great thing when used wisely. I do not think that it is a disease unless it becomes an obsession. If it isn’t used in a smart way then it can turn into an imbalance and that is not what anybody should want. What constitutes using love in a smart way in my opinion is giving other people their space and not telling them what to do.. If it becomes an obsession than it is not love, it is dangerous other people. Obsession is why there is so much violence in couples which is bad for people. If you love somebody than you will let them make decisions and not boss them around or nag them to do it your way. As for external desires, I don’t think that constitutes love, which is just a desire a person has that wants to achieve. Being able to be intimate with another person may also constitute what is love, whether agape or strong emotional feelings for another person.

Sincerely Yours: Steven Russi ^_^

Anonymous said...

In today's society, i believe that most of the people do not really know what they mean when they use the word love nor the meaning of the word. You hear teenagers say "i love you" to their significant other after they have been dating for only a month, in some instances a week. Obviously, there are many types of love just as this article stated. Love for a friend is different for the love of a family member. For me love is something you need, a desire to make you happy. Love doesn't necessarily need to be directed to a person or any living thing. It can be towards some action, like the love to play a sport.
When loving someone or something, it shows respect. When you disrespect, it can not be a form of love because you never had the desire to make the other person mean something to you.

-Martin Iglesia

Anonymous said...

Love has always been a confusing feeling. However I think that money should not be a key factor in a relationship. Love should be based on respect, compassion, and reciprocity, but this is not always found. Before this class I was already familiarized with the three basic types of love described by Lee and how they could be combined to create secondary styles. After reading all the theories exposed here I think that Lee’s is the most accurate and the one that best describes love as we see it every day in society. Although I agree in part with Zick Rubin when he says that romantic love has three elements: attachment, caring, and intimacy. On the other hand I also believe in the compassionate side of love and its superiority over passionate as Elaine Hatfield pointed out when she says that compassionate wins, passionate loses.

Ivonne Almeida