Introduction
1. Love as the highest value
1.1 Types of love
1.3 Theories of love
1.4 The moral meaning of love
2. The meaning of life
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Love is probably the most mysterious and most dual of human feelings. Why do you suddenly begin to feel an acute attraction to another person? Why is this person you want to see, you must see, you cannot but see? And why is it for others - it is not the main of all the magnets, and so - something semi-noticeable?
The answer to this can, perhaps, only approximately, by comparison.
The purpose of this test is: to understand the moral meaning of love and the meaning of life, using various sources, including philosophical ones.
1 Love as the highest value
Love is one of the most exalted feelings common to all mankind. Among all peoples at all times, it was sung in literature, deified in mythology, heroized in epic, dramatized in tragedy. The theme of love was considered by philosophers of all eras.
The philosophy and ethics of love began to take shape in ancient times. Love belongs to the most complex and multifaceted human relationships.
1.1 Types of love
Love is a feeling of attachment to the object of love, the need for connection and constant contact with him.
The moral foundations of such attachment differ depending on the object to which it is directed. Love is a feeling of attachment to the object of love, the need for connection and constant contact with him. The moral foundations of such attachment differ depending on the object to which it is directed.
You can think of love as:
love for the whole world, for all people, the ability for mercy (humanism);
love of God is a manifestation of the transcendent principle;
love for the fatherland, the people underlies the worldview and manifests itself as a deep patriotic feeling;
love for parents, children and grandchildren is one of the manifestations of this feeling, which often becomes the meaning of a person's life;
love for one's work, dedication to one's profession as an all-consuming passion.
But, of course, most of all people's minds are occupied by the feeling of love between a woman and a man. In the broad sense of the word, love is a feeling that is expressed in a disinterested and selfless striving for its object, in a need and readiness for self-giving.
1.2 Versions of the origin of love
People are still thinking about how love arose: did a person take it out of the animal kingdom, from cave life, or did it arise later and is a product of history. There are several approaches to the question of when love arose on earth.
According to one version, the phenomenon of love appeared about five thousand years ago. The wife of the Egyptian god Osiris, the goddess Isis, who resurrected her deceased husband with her love, is considered the ancestor of all lovers. Since then, love has firmly taken its place in the life of mankind, its culture and way of life.
Another version is based on the fact that in ancient times there was no love. The cavemen lived in group marriage, did not know any love. As Schopenhauer writes in The Metaphysics of Sexual Love: “…… in individual cognition it is expressed as a sexual instinct in general, without focusing on any particular individual of the other sex…”
Some believe that in antiquity there was no love, but only bodily eros, sexual desire. Only with the fall of antiquity and the period of barbarism, on the wave of Christianity, a spiritual upsurge begins in society. Philosophy and art are developing, the way of life of people is changing. One of the indicators of these changes is the emergence of chivalry, which became the patron and bearer of a developing culture and a special cult of love. This love was predominantly spiritual, its center was in the soul. However, these versions should hardly be accepted. Numerous documentary sources testify: love arose and became known to people from ancient times.
1.3 Theories of love
Each people, each nation in its own way understood and evaluated and created its own philosophy of love, which reflected: the features of the national culture, moral and ethical ideas, traditions and habits inherent in this culture. The European theory of love differs significantly from the Eastern one.
The Eastern cult of love, which originated in ancient India, proceeds from the fact that love is one of the main goals in life (along with wealth and knowledge). Hindu love was associated with the world of human feelings and knowledge. Sensuality rose to the level of an ideal, acquiring a spiritual content. The most famous treatise on love is the Kama Sutra.
In the Arab countries there was a cult of bodily love. The Arabs in the tales of "A Thousand and One Nights" show that love is a holiday, a feast of all human sensations.
The ancient Greeks recognized four types of love:
1) enthusiastic love, bodily and spiritual passion, craving for possession of a loved one (eros);
2) love - friendship, a calmer feeling; united not only lovers, but also friends (filia);
3) altruistic, spiritual love, full of sacrifice and self-denial, indulgence and forgiveness, similar to motherly love. This is the ideal of humane love for one's neighbor (agape);
4) love-tenderness, family love, full of attention to the beloved. She grew out of natural affection and emphasized the carnal and spiritual kinship of those who love (storge).
The myths of Ancient Greece say that the goddess of love Aphrodite in her retinue had the god Eros, who personified the beginning and end of love. He had: an arrow that gave birth to love, and an arrow that extinguished it.
In Pythagoras, love is the great principle of the world (cosmic) life force, physical connection.
Starting with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, theories of spiritual love appeared. Love is a special state of the human soul and human relationships.
So Plato has a feeling that connects a person's craving for beauty and a feeling of something missing, the desire to make up for what a person does not have. In love, everyone finds their own, unique other self, in conjunction with which harmony is found. According to Plato, the features of the love of a particular lover are found not in what he feels, but in how he treats his beloved and what reciprocal feelings he evokes.
In the Middle Ages, heavenly love, love of God, was opposed to earthly love.
"Carnal ties" were rejected, but sensual relations between spouses were allowed as a condition for procreation.
In the Renaissance, human sensuality was poeticized. Interpreting that love is a thirst to taste pleasure from the object of desire; believing that love is inherent in everyone by nature and through it the fool is equalized with the wise and man with the animal.
In modern times, Descartes shared love:
for love - affection - this is when the object of love is valued less than oneself;
love is friendship, when the other is valued on an equal footing with oneself;
and love is reverence, when the object of love is valued more than oneself.
According to Kant, the motive of moral activity is not love, but duty; he spoke of the obligation to do good to another, regardless of the attitude of the other towards him.
Dostoevsky argued that in love a person has the opportunity for self-realization, for the manifestation of an active, caring attitude towards people. He thought. That love is the metaphysical basis of morality. Vl. Solovyov (1853-1900) believed that the meaning of love is in overcoming selfishness, recognizing the value of another, that love leads to the flourishing of individual life. Love is such a coexistence of two personalities, when the shortcomings of one will be made up for by the dignity of the other.
Solovyov distinguishes three types of love.
First, downward love, which gives more than it receives. This is parental love, which is based on pity and compassion; it includes the care of the strong for the weak, the elders for the younger.
Secondly, ascending love, which receives more than it gives. This is the love of children for their parents, it is based on feelings of gratitude and reverence.
Thirdly, love, when both are balanced. The emotional basis of this type of love is the fullness of life reciprocity, which is achieved in sexual love; here pity and reverence are combined with a sense of shame and create a new spiritual image of a person.
Solovyov points out five possible ways of developing love:
a) the false path of love - "hellish" - a painful unrequited passion;
b) also a false path - "animal" - indiscriminate satisfaction of sexual desire;
c) the true path of love is marriage;
d) the fourth way of love is asceticism, the rejection of any relationship with a loved one;
e) the highest - the fifth way - is Divine love. when the main task of love is solved - to perpetuate the beloved, to save him from death and decay.
In the 20th century, psychoanalysis and anthropological philosophy continued the study and analysis of love and all its manifestations, and jurists compiled the Family Code, which outlines the rights and obligations of spouses.
But it must be borne in mind that theoretical analysis, rationalistic approaches to the phenomenon of love are not able to reveal the innermost meaning of love, its mystery and riddle.
No one can understand why this person loves this particular woman or this man.
1.4 The moral meaning of love
Love that binds a man and a woman is a complex set of human experiences and includes sensuality, which is based on a true biological principle, ennobled by moral culture, aesthetic taste and psychological attitudes of the individual. Love between a man and a woman as a moral feeling is based on biological attraction, but cannot be reduced to it. Love affirms another person as a unique being, a Person accepts a loved one as he is, as an absolute value, and sometimes reveals his best, not yet realized possibilities. In this sense, love can mean: a) erotic or romantic (lyrical) experiences associated with sexual attraction and sexual relations with another person; b) a special spiritual connection between lovers or spouses; c) affection and care in relation to the beloved and everything connected with him.
But a person in love needs not just a being of the opposite sex, but a being that has aesthetic appeal for him, intellectual and emotional psychological value, and a common moral concept.
Only as a result of a happy unification of all these components does a feeling of harmony in relationships, compatibility and kinship of souls arise. Love brings bright joy, makes a person's life pleasant and beautiful, gives birth to bright dreams, inspires and elevates.
Love is the greatest value. Love is a human condition, it is also a human right to love and be loved. Love manifests itself as a feeling of incredible inner need in another person. Love is the most vivid emotional need of a person, and, apparently, it expresses a person's craving for a perfect life - a life that should be built according to the laws of beauty, goodness, freedom, justice.
At the same time, love also contains specific motives. They love for individual features, beautiful eyes, noses, etc. Abstract and concrete characteristics of love, generally speaking, contradict each other. This is her tragedy. The fact is that in a relationship with a loved one, thought, apparently, moves in the same way as in the usual process of cognition. Love begins with specific moments, ignites on the basis of the coincidence of some individual features of a loved one with an image previously formed and presented in consciousness or subconsciousness. Then begins the selection of the essence of another person, in an abstract form, inevitably accompanied by the idealization of this person. If this process is simultaneously accompanied by reciprocal emotional reactions, this leads to increased feelings and closer relationships. In the future, apparently, the movement from the abstract to the concrete begins, the thought, as it were, begins to try on the abstract image formulated by it to reality. This is the most dangerous stage of love, which can be followed by disappointment - the more rapid and strong, the more powerful was the degree of implementation of the abstraction. With different spiritual development, mutual misunderstanding may arise associated with various intellectual requests.
Psychologists believe that love lives and develops according to its own special laws, which include both periods of violent passions and periods of peaceful bliss and peace. Then comes the stage of addiction and often a decline, attenuation of emotional excitement. Therefore, in order not to fall into the terrible trap that love prepares, one should definitely strive for mutual spiritual development in love.
1.5 Pragmatic and metaphysical meaning of love
The pragmatic meaning of love, of course, is to enjoy the other. The metaphysical elements of love are associated with embellishing the other, focusing on him, or even deifying him.
But here it is important to emphasize that the pragmatic meaning, paradoxically, is lost if the metaphysical elements disappear. The complete elimination of metaphysical meaning eliminates this phenomenon.
As ethnographic studies have shown, ancient societies did not know the phenomenon of love in the mentioned metaphysical sense. The people of this society did not understand how it is possible to suffer because of love, let alone sacrifice one's life. But, knightly times - this is the period of the romantic cult of love, the union of lovers was necessarily delayed, which led to tension of emotions and increased passion.
The strong emotions that accompany love, Ibn Sina tried to explain as a disease and wrote methods of psychotherapeutic influence for a cure. A. Schopenhauer argued that love is a big hindrance in life. He said: "....this passion leads to a madhouse." In the Eastern tradition, strong love emotions were treated with caution. Considering that they are able to unbalance a person, thereby causing harm to health and distracting from other important matters.
Feuerbach used the pragmatic elements of love in describing love. From his point of view, loving to take care of another person simply for selfish reasons, so without the happiness of this person, his own happiness will not be complete. Feuerbach's position presupposes a certain morality that confronts his rational egoism. From the point of view of Feuerbach, taking care of the object of love for purely pragmatic reasons, however, this object must be the same. This imposes certain moral obligations arising from the need to take into account each other's weaknesses, forgive mutual shortcomings, and mutual support.
The pragmatic position is dangerous because in it the foundations of love turn out to be purely selfish. If selfishness, personal happiness, and, ultimately, pleasures form the basis of love, there is a danger of rejecting love altogether as an unnecessary feeling, while retaining the other only as an object of one's own pleasure. It follows from everything that if the pragmatic moment of love does not lose its metaphysical meaning, then this elevates a person in his personal virtues, for which he can be loved. Love is a breakthrough to another person through a lot of obstacles. created by life. A necessary premise of love is respect for a person as a person, seeing him as a unique spiritual being. Here metaphysical and pragmatic characteristics interact in the form of equal components, one of which reinforces the other in an avalanche-like order. It seems that the feeling of love increases constantly until the love itself is completely destroyed.
2. The meaning of life
In ancient times, questions arose in the mind of a person that are related to understanding the meaning of one's being, determining a person's place in life. Who am I? Why am I? Who are we? Why do I live? What do I want from life? Each person thinks about it, everyone has their own scale of values, it is impossible to give specific advice here, because these questions are personal, even intimate, and therefore a person must decide on them independently, look for his own solution.
2.1 Basic concepts of the meaning of life
In any ethical system there is always an idea of the meaning of life. The meaning of life for Socrates is in the rational content of the “art of living”, for Plato the concept of the meaning of life is associated with the idea of the highest good. The meaning of life in perfect activity - in Aristotle. In keeping the commandments and striving for divine perfection - with Jesus Christ.
It is quite conditionally possible to single out three approaches to the question of the meaning of life in the history of ethics: pessimistic, skeptical, and optimistic. The pessimistic approach is to deny any meaning to life. Life is perceived as a meaningless series of suffering, evil, disease, death. A pessimistic approach to the meaning of life often leads a person to a fatal step - suicide. Moreover, exalted romantic natures take their own lives in order to do something “out of spite”, to prove to parents, teachers, who surround their dignity, their rightness. This is cruelty and frivolity, first of all, in relation to oneself, in relation to one's own unique and only real concrete life.
A skeptical approach to understanding the meaning of life is associated with the presence of doubts about the meaning and significance of earthly existence.
Skepticism is expressed in excessive caution, suspicion of everything unusual, peculiar; in fear of an act, in inaction. In the absence of any activity.
An optimistic approach to the question of the meaning of life is expressed in the recognition of life as the highest value and the possibility of its realization. Optimism in the approach to understanding the meaning of life requires first of all to turn to life itself, the sphere of basic human desires and interests. The meaning of life is to get maximum pleasure.
2.2 Meaning, meaningfulness and purpose of life
Apparently, the most optimal approach to interpreting the meaning of life is the view that the meaning of human existence lies in love.
People consider love in general and the love of a man and a woman in particular to be the meaning of their life. It is believed that L. Feuerbach was the first to most fully formulate this point of view. He believed that all people at all times and in all circumstances have an unconditional and obligatory right to happiness, but society is not able to satisfy this right equally for everyone. Only in love Feuerbach saw the only means of satisfying the desire of every person for happiness. Of course, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of love in human life. Nevertheless, the philosophy and ethics of the 19th century came to the conclusion that love cannot be the only meaning of life - despite the importance of love as an essential element of a person's personal life. Modern philosophy, primarily psychoanalysis, makes it possible to clarify some socio-psychological mechanisms for the formation of an individual's idea of the meaning of life. Philosophers believe that a person's desire to search for and realize the meaning of life is an expression of a special kind of indicative need. This is an innate tendency. It is inherent in all people and is the main engine of behavior and personality development. The need to search for and realize the meaning of life is formed under the influence of:
a) the conditions in which the child’s initial activity takes place: the child’s actions must correspond not only to specific practical actions, but also to the requirements that adults impose on the child;
b) the expectations of the individual in relation to the results of his activities, practical experience;
c) the requirements and expectations of the environment, the group;
d) personal desire to be useful to others;
e) the requirements of the individual to himself.
A person must believe in the meaning that his actions have, and the meaning requires its realization.
The meaning of human life is set by a system of certain higher values. These are values: transcendental, socio-cultural and personal life values.
Transcendental values are representations of:
b) about the absolute principles that underlie the universe;
c) about the system of moral absolutes.
Transcendental values allow a person to comprehend his life and death, give meaning to life, they unite people into society.
Socio-cultural values are:
a) political ideals;
b) the history of the country;
c) the culture of the country;
d) traditions, language, etc.
A person can see the meaning of his life in serving the Motherland, its culture.
The values of a person's personal life are:
a) an idea of health, a healthy lifestyle;
b) the values of creativity, the main way of realization of which is labor, as well as the success, fame, prestige that accompanies it;
c) love and sensuality, family life, children.
The presence of the meaning of life is a positive emotional state, which is accompanied by:
the presence of a goal;
awareness of their importance in relationships with other people;
acceptance of the existing world order, its recognition as a blessing;
awareness of one's place in the world, one's calling.
At the same time, finding meaning does not mean realizing it. A person will never know until his last breath whether he has really succeeded in realizing the meaning of his life.
Distinguish the meaning of life and meaningfulness.
Meaning presupposes an objective assessment, a substantive criterion.
Meaningfulness is a subjective attitude to one's life, awareness of its meaning.
To realize the meaning of your life means to find "your place under the sun." The concept of purpose is closely related to the understanding of meaning. The goal is a certain milestone, and the meaning of life is not the ultimate goal, but the general line that defines the goals.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the following should be noted. It is quite natural that there are different points of view on the problems of love and the meaning of life. Sometimes these points of view are mutually exclusive. But it is important to remember that in these questions of moral life a significant role is played by the belief that after all love and the meaning of life exist. Without this faith (even if weak), human life will become too burdensome, burdensome.
A person's life is filled with meaning, becomes meaningful, worthy of a person when it is useful to others, when a person goes about his business with pleasure and full dedication, when his existence is imbued with love, moral goodness and justice. Following N. Berdyaev, one can exclaim: “We do not know what is the meaning of our life. But the search for this meaning is the meaning of life.
Bibliography
1. Golubeva G.A. Ethics. Textbook / G.A. Golubeva M.: Publishing house "Exam" 2005 - 320s. (Series textbook for universities)
2. Razin A.V. Ethics. Textbook for high schools. 2nd ed. M.: Academic Project 2004 - 624s. (Classic university textbook)
3. Popov L.A. Ethics. Course of lectures M.: Center 1998.
4. Schopenhauer A. Selected Works M.: Enlightenment, 1993.- 479s.
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For a man who believes he loves? In principle, what a person describes as an important attribute or as a desired goal of a relationship with a partner can be considered valuable.
Erich Fromm describes the problems of the value orientation of modern man as follows:
“Modern man is alienated from himself, from his neighbors, from nature. He is turned into a commodity, he perceives his vitality as an investment, which should bring him a profit, the maximum possible under existing market conditions.
Human relationships are essentially an interaction of alienated automata, each of which bases its security on keeping closer together in the herd and not being different in thought, feeling or action. Although everyone tries to be as close as possible to the rest, he remains extremely lonely, imbued with a sense of danger, anxiety and guilt, which always appears where human isolation cannot be overcome.
One of the most significant goals in love, and especially in marriages with their alienated structure, is to achieve "cohesion." With this understanding of love and marriage, their value is emphasized as a refuge from an unbearable feeling of LONELY. An alliance of two is created against the world, and this selfishness of the two is mistaken for love and intimacy.
So the value of a love relationship can be called (from this pragmatic point of view) that “together is twice as fun”, or twice as easy to endure the hardships of life.
In the words of Karen Horney, “The need for affection, for human warmth and closeness, is a powerful motivator for developing the qualities that make us sweet and cuddly. The feeling that you are loved - and even more so - that you can be loved is perhaps one of the greatest values in life. Conversely, the feeling of being unlovable can be a source of deep suffering.”
Thus, the value of love is ACCEPTANCE AND RECOGNITION.
It is safe to say that all the aspects of love considered in that section are (or may become) values for this or that person - depending on his life attitudes at a given moment in time. And, depending on which aspect of love is the most valuable for a person, he will focus on this aspect of love in his love relationships, which, of course, will be reflected in his behavior, in his statements and in the very nature of the relationship. with a partner. An excessive value attitude to one or another aspect of love can be in the nature of an SUPERVALUABLE IDEA.
THE VALUE OF THE OTHER
Another aspect of experiencing the special value of another is described in the article “LOVE AND IDEALIZATION”.
According to Erich Fromm, people tend to think that they do not have to make any effort in love. They think “it’s easy to love, but it’s hard to find a genuine object of love or to be loved by this object.” Hence, Fromm argues, we are dealing with an attitude towards love as luck, which “is based on the view that this is a problem object, not a problem of ability."
One result of such CONFIDENCE can be passivity. A man is waiting for his betrothed, which he is "obliged" to present
In a broad sense, love is a moral and aesthetic feeling, expressed in a disinterested and selfless striving for its object, in a need and readiness for self-giving. Love is an unusually capacious, multi-valued and multifaceted concept: it includes love for people (humanism), and love for the Motherland (patriotism), for art, nature, travel, and parental love, and the love of children for parents. But the love of a woman and a man occupies the minds of people most of all.
Love is a feeling of purposeful attachment to a subject or object, requiring constant and close contact with them. The main difference between love and friendship is that the object of love can be anything, while friendship is a two-way relationship with another person. In addition, friendly relations, despite their individuality and specificity, are more unified in their forms of manifestation than love relationships. Love has the most diverse forms and ways of manifestation. Love refers to an extremely dynamic reflection of feelings and relationships. Friendship, having arisen and created its own rituals, does not change over the years. Love is constantly evolving, changing its strength, direction, forms of existence. But it is wrong to think that love is an attitude only to a specific person, to the object of love. If a person loves only one, this is an attitude of extended egoism, love is a form of attitude towards the world as a whole.
Common signs of love: the need to connect with the object of love, whether it be things, people, material objects, processes or spiritual entities. That is, you can love jewelry, parents, picking mushrooms or poetry and strive to get what you love or do what you love, enjoy intimacy with the object of love. It cannot be said that love always has the same moral value: one cannot compare love for chocolate and love for a mother, love for animals and love for one's country. But any love has a moral value in the context of human behavior. If for the love of chocolate a person is ready to steal it, then his love is immoral and socially dangerous.
It is quite difficult to build a hierarchy of the moral value of types of love. We can single out: a general attitude towards love, i.e. openness to the world, the need for closeness, the ability to care, pity, compassion, the moral value of which is in the elevation of the individual; love for objects, so to speak, of a higher order - the Motherland, one's people, which, combined with a sense of duty, honor, responsibility, forms the basis of a moral worldview; individual love for parents, children, a man or a woman, which gives a special meaning to life to a particular person; love for objects and processes, which has an indirect moral value.
Individual sexual love is interpersonal unity with another person. However, can any interpersonal unity be called love? To love in the moral sense means, first of all, to give, not to receive. But by sharing his life, a person spiritually enriches another person. In this way, we encourage the other to give in the same way, and on this basis we create something new. The ability to love, giving depends on the development of personality.
The ancient Greeks recognized four types of love:
Eros is an enthusiastic love, bodily and spiritual passion, a violent craving for the possession of a loved one. This passion is more for oneself, there is a lot of egocentrism in it. She is "male type", it is rather the feeling of an ardent youth or a young man; it is less common in women.
Philia - love-friendship, a more spiritual and calmer feeling. Psychologically, she is closest to the love of a young girl. Among the Greeks, philia connected not only lovers, but also friends.
Agape is an altruistic, spiritual love, full of sacrifice and self-denial, built on indulgence and forgiveness, similar to motherly love. This love is not for yourself, but for the sake of another. For the Greeks, this is not only a feeling of love, but also the ideal of humane love for one's neighbor.
Stporge - love-tenderness, family love, full of gentle attention to the beloved. It grew out of a natural attachment to relatives and emphasizes the carnal and spiritual kinship of those who love. The ethical, moral nature of love is deeply revealed by the Russian philosopher Vl. Solovyov in the treatise "The Meaning of Love". According to Solovyov, the meaning of human love is "the justification and salvation of individuality through the sacrifice of egoism."
Love for Solovyov is not only a subjective experience, but also an active intrusion into life. Just as the gift of speech does not consist in speaking in itself, but in the transmission of thoughts through the word, so the true purpose of love is not in the simple experience of feeling, but in the fact that thanks to it the transformation of the social and natural environment takes place.
Solovyov sees love in five possible ways of development - two false and three true. The first false path of love is "hellish" - a painful unrequited passion. The second, also false - "animal" - indiscriminate satisfaction of sexual desire. The third way (the first true) is marriage. The fourth is asceticism. The highest, fifth way is Divine love, when we are confronted not with sex - “half of a person”, but with a whole person in combination of male and female principles. Man becomes in this case a "superman"; it is here that he solves the main task of love - to perpetuate the beloved, to save him from death and decay. At the same time, the essence, the meaning of love is determined by him through the measure. But how can love be measured? It is very difficult to determine this. No one could do this as accurately as Blessed Augustine, who said: "The measure of love is love without measure."
Love is the greatest value, property and right of a free person… A person who loves becomes more sensitive to beauty. A special aesthetics of love arises - a person's craving for a perfect life, which is built according to the laws of beauty, goodness, freedom, justice. Love unites one person with another, helping him overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness. There is a paradox in love: “two beings become one and remain two” (E. Fromm).
However, love is not a fluke or a fleeting episode; love is an art that requires self-improvement, dedication, readiness for an act of self-sacrifice from a person. E. Fromm identifies five elements of love: giving, caring, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
Love as a giving is the highest manifestation of the power of a person who is able to give, the forces that give rise to reciprocal love are a way of self-realization, which consists in giving, not taking.
Love as a manifestation of care and interest implies a spiritual response, an expression of diverse feelings in relation to a loved one. It is creative and fruitful, it resists destruction, conflict, enmity. It is a form of productive activity.
Love as responsibility is a response to the expressed or unexpressed needs of another human being, a state and readiness to "respond". A loving person feels responsible for his neighbors, just as he feels responsible for himself. In love, responsibility concerns, first of all, the spiritual needs of another person.
Respect in love is the ability to see and accept a person as he is, and not as I need him as a means to my ends. It is a willingness to be aware of its uniqueness and individuality.
But “it is impossible to respect a person without knowing him: care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge” (E. Fromm). Knowledge is a necessary aspect of love that allows one to penetrate into the essence, the “secret” of a loved one and realize all other aspects of love. Absolutely complete, all-encompassing love presupposes the organic unity of all these aspects.
So, love is not only the highest moral value, but also a real earthly attitude, and attraction, and a relatively independent desire, and need, and in this capacity it is the highest form of interpersonal communication.
Human psychology is the most ambiguous, but the meaning of love in human life is defined as the main one. Although our life is both simple and complex, love always occupies an important place in it. What does love mean for a person in life? There are so many interweavings and variations in it that, at times, the head is spinning from love. But it is still possible and necessary to understand it. Sometimes.
A man and a woman are two different poles, very much in need of each other. Why? They themselves do not know this, but they feel a mutual need. What in this case does love mean for a person in life, codependency? Then what unites them? Of course, love and not only. That's what the romantics say. And skeptics will certainly ask what it is. What is the meaning of love in human life?
Poems, fairy tales and legends are composed about love, music and paintings are written, sculptures and entire architectural ensembles are created. But what should a simple person do, taken aback by the storm of his own feelings and experiences, surrounded by all these masterpieces. What then does love mean for a person in life? Perhaps this is inspiration?
According to one of the legends, the sage tried to help a young man in love, pointing out the difference between love, passion and affection, but even he could not answer what true love is. Just noticed that true feeling stands the test of time.
When irresistibly drawn to a person, when no one else seems better than him - this is only love. She is fleeting. She swooped down and swept away with a changeable wind. When a person is in love, the imagination draws a bright image for him, which in reality may differ from the imagined one. Love sees all the shortcomings, understands and accepts them.
An irresistible desire to touch a person, to dissolve in his arms is a passion or lust. Here you can not do without the chemistry of feelings, to which the body reacts so quickly. Unfortunately, it is also transient, like any other chemical reaction that does not last forever. Love is calm, balanced and uniform.
If longing for a person makes the heart shrink, it is more like affection. It may just be long, but it's still not love.
But isn't love accompanied by infatuation, passion and affection? Yes, sometimes it all happens at once. Therefore, it is so difficult to distinguish and understand your feelings. To love a real person, and not a fabulous image, you need to get to know him, and this takes time. It must pass in order to allow the passions to subside. In the heat of the moment, what kind of firewood can not be broken. And attachment at a distance sooner or later weakens.
No matter how trite it sounds, but time has no power over true feelings. Love passes, passion subsides, attachment weakens, but true love remains. She does not let this whole cocktail of feelings go out, stirring and heating it, forcing it to flare up again and again with renewed vigor. And before a person learns to understand and accept another, he learns to understand himself. Love unites thoughts, hearts and souls. This is no longer one person, these are two, but united into a single whole.
In a broad sense, love is a moral and aesthetic feeling, expressed in a disinterested and selfless striving for its object, in a need and readiness for self-giving. Love is an unusually capacious, multi-valued and multifaceted concept: it includes love for people (humanism), and love for the Motherland (patriotism), and love for art, nature, travel, and parental love, and the love of children for parents. A person in love needs not just a being of the opposite sex, but such a being that has aesthetic appeal for him, intellectual and emotional-psychological value, common moral ideas, sexual and erotic attraction. If at least one of these components is not present, love "will not take place" or its illusion will arise, which will inevitably collapse, perish. Without harmony, without spiritual intimacy, compatibility of characters, true love between people is impossible.
Love is the greatest value, property and right of a free person. A person who loves becomes more sensitive to beauty. A special aesthetics of love arises - a person's craving for a perfect life, which is built according to the laws of beauty, goodness, freedom, justice. Moreover, this craving for harmony and ideal affects both the mind and the deepest emotional layers of the human soul. Where do such feelings come from? Perhaps love is the strongest of all emotional needs, a person’s “hunger” for a person, a feeling of incredible inner need for him, recognition of his unconditional value. Love unites one person with another, helping him overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness. At the same time, it “allows a person to remain himself, to preserve his integrity and individuality. There is a paradox in love: two beings become one and remain two at the same time ”(E. Fromm).
However, love is not a fluke or a fleeting episode; love is an art that requires self-improvement, dedication, readiness for action and self-sacrifice from a person. E. Fromm identifies five elements of love : giving, care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
Love like giving- this is the highest manifestation of the power of a person who is able to give, the power that gives rise to reciprocal love, this is a way of self-realization, which consists in giving, not taking.
Love as a manifestation of care and interest involves a spiritual response, the expression of diverse feelings in relation to a loved one. It is creative and fruitful, it resists destruction, conflict, enmity. It is a form of productive activity.
Love as a responsibility there is a response to the expressed or unexpressed needs of another human being, a state and readiness to "respond". A loving person feels responsible for his neighbors, just as he feels responsible for himself. In love, responsibility concerns, first of all, the spiritual needs of another person.
Respect in love - this is the ability to see and accept a person as he is, and not as I need him as a means to my goals . It is a willingness to be aware of its uniqueness and individuality.
But “it is impossible to respect a person without knowing him: care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge” (E. Fromm). Knowledge - a necessary aspect of love, which allows you to penetrate into the essence, the “secret” of a loved one” and realize all other aspects of love.
Absolutely complete, all-encompassing love presupposes the organic unity of all these aspects. So, love is not only the highest moral value, but also a real earthly attitude and attraction, and a relatively independent desire and need, and in this capacity it is the highest form of interpersonal communication.