{"id":4812,"date":"2019-02-16T09:05:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T16:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/?p=4812"},"modified":"2019-04-19T12:14:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T18:14:56","slug":"on-agape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/on-agape\/","title":{"rendered":"On Ag\u00e1pe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These are some excerpts from my ongoing discussion<\/a> with Antonio on Hegel which I wanted to highlight as they reflect on ag\u00e1pe \u2013 unconditional love\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Comment to Antonio,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to respond to the post on love which you published here – https:\/\/epochemagazine.org\/better-to-have-loved-lost-recognition-love-and-self-211a3948f281<\/a>.  I find the observations you make about love the result of practical wisdom.  Personally, I would not lay the Hegelian grid over the very important and mature lessons one needs to learn to have a successful older age and, in my opinion, a successful life.  Many never learn these lessons: recognition, desire, abstract and concrete love, self-love (and self-esteem), love for the other (I would also include Other \u2013 more on that later) and the \u2018better to have loved than never to have loved at all\u2019 which to me translates to \u2018to be<\/a> or not to be\u2013 that is not the question \u2013 the question is what shall we make of the Other\u2019.  I understand perfectly how negation can apply in all the cases you cited.  \u2018Negation\u2019 in these cases meaning notions similar to what I might think as projection, need, sensual pleasure, recognition by the other which always fails, etc..  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, where I think these dialectics fail is a case you\ndid not mention \u2013 what the ancient Greeks had the unique word for \u2013 ag\u00e1pe.  Ag\u00e1pe is unconditional love like the love a\nparent has for a child.  All the \u2018negations\u2019\nor pitfalls along the way that you mention can derail a person such that are\nincapable of ag\u00e1pe when they have children. \nIn turn, this dysfunctionality can result in children that have barriers\nset up to their mature and full development in the ways of love.  Of course, Freud and Lacan both deal with\nthese psychological pitfalls but I prefer Lacan to Freud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a child to develop in infancy it needs mirroring, first\nby the mother according to Lacan (although I am not convinced others cannot\nfill this role in infancy).  First, a few\nthings about Lacan.  For Lacan, the\nunconscious is language.  Language is not\nprivate or personal but collective, cultural, social, historical, etc..  For Lacan there is a tripartite: Imaginary,\nSymbolic and Real.  The imaginary is the\nroot of meaning, semantic or what we might generally think of as\nconsciousness.  The symbolic is not\nconscious, it is the linguistic writing of the unconscious, the syntax,\nconstituted by mutual differences.  For\nLacan the symbolic is the radical alterity of the Other \u2013 for me the he or the\nshe.  For Lacan the real is an\nontological absolute or what Hegel would call the being-for-itself.  All the parallelisms you name, Being and\nNothing, form and content, appearance and essence, thought and thinking, etc.\nare regions of the symbolic not the real. \nThe real is undifferentiated.  It\nis outside language and absolutely resists symbolization.  It is impossible to imagine and impossible to\nattain.  It cannot be mediated and\ntherefore is the locus of absolute anxiety. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to Desire, Lacan distinguishes need from\ndemand.  Need is the desire for\nrecognition from the other.  Demand both\narticulates need and the demand for love. \nFor Lacan, the demand for love is the need to receive ag\u00e1pe \u2013\nunconditional love.  For me, all of the\ndynamics you refer to in your post fall under the rubric of Lacan\u2019s notion of\nDesire.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a child fails to get mirroring in infancy and fails to\nintegrate transitional objects into its reality, the child will likely have a\nlifelong problem connecting words and thoughts to meaning.  If the child cannot name objects in the world\nand have them correspond to meaning, intense anxiety is the result.  Remember the real is undifferentiated and\ncoupled with the child\u2019s inability to differentiate, to connect, to verbalize,\nto relate the imaginary to the non-present-able symbolic results in the basis\nof anxiety.  When semantic cannot find\nsyntax it flounders in the horrific real which can never come to conscious or\nunconscious.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, as I understand Levinas, the symbolic is the retreat\nfrom the face of the Other, the he or the she. \nThe he or the she is the real. \nHowever, by real I mean the radical alterity of their infinity which\nfaces us.  Their otherness is taken as horror,\nas alien, by ontology.  The retreat from\nthe he or the she as transcendent to me, to my past, my temporality, my\nimagination, forms the basis of what Levinas calls the \u2018said\u2019.  The \u2018said\u2019 is the locus of language and\nhistory.  It is the dread of the scene of\nwriting in Blanchot, the il y a. The said is the mechanical and monstrous\nrepetition of what Hegel referred to as the negation of the idea to the thing \u2013\nthe thing can never appear in itself as alienated and also ontologically\n\u2018present\u2019 (e.g., as if in some metaphysical sense).  So the idea is a phantasm of the thing.  The idea supplants the thing in a ghostly\nform just as imagination for Lacan holds the place of the symbolic, the\nconscious supplants the unconsciousness. \nJuxtaposed to the said is the saying, the other that faces us and speaks\nto us.  Just as with the thing – we must\nsupplicate, supplant, the he or she with the idea, with language, with\nphantasma.  In so doing, we replicate the\nviolence of murder for Levinas.  We\nviolate the commandment against murder, vis a vis our passivity beyond all\npassivity to the infinity of the Other. \nThis why I think of the Concept, the Idea, the Notion in Hegel as a\nreification of the absoluteness of the said. \nThis is why Hegelian idea-ology has been utilized by both fascist and\ncommunists.  The said is\nreplication.  Replication can be\nmanipulated and thus, the imaginary, the semantic, can be determinate as\nviolence, ambition, power.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me back up at this point and give you my personal idea\nconcerning ag\u00e1pe \u2013 giving unconditional love for a child.   If a\nperson can make it through all the pitfalls of love that you explicated, they\nmay be lucky enough to encounter a Desire which is not based on need and the\ndemand for love as reception in the Lacanian sense.  It is still a Desire but it is an absolute\nDesire for the good of the Other \u2013 even against my need or my demand \u2013 even if\nit destroys me to benefit the Other, the child. \nUnconditional love is Desire which we \nconsciously know with absolute certainty that it will never be fulfilled\nbut counts that as nothing in regard to the Other, the he or the she, the\nchild.  Unconditional love lays down its\nlife for the Other, turns the check, accepts abuse without recourse to anger\nand retribution \u2013 to murder.  This, I and\nLevinas, call Ethics.  It cannot be\nsupplanted by violence as violence goes against its absolute constitution.  It is always for the Other over against my\nfears, my imaginations, even my ontological concerns for Being, for my being,\nmy temporality, my past.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One practical example of how this plays out is my experience\nwhen I occasionally would lose patience with my child.  I could never be simply angry with my child\neven if I was the object of abuse.  Any\nfeeling of anger was always and immediately mediated by pain for my child.  Even after the horrific and tragic suicide of\nmy son I have felt anger as to how could he do this to me, how could he rob me\nof my pride and joy for his future – for our future \u2013 even with that anger it\nalways comes with mediation, with pain, with essential concern for him.  I cannot languish in anger only in pain, a\n\u2018full\u2019 pain for him, for what he must have feared that drove him to such an\nextreme act.  Now, what I have left with\nregard to the presence of my son is his absence and the presence of pain, deep\n\u2013 beyond my ability \u2013 beyond my able to be able – to be ultimately vulnerable\nto Chris\u2026but honestly, if that is all I have left, as far as presence, with\nChris \u2013 I will take that with the fullness of his once upon my time with his\ndiachronous time.  My eternal hurt and my\npain pale to the radical infinity, the alterity, that was\/is my son, my\nChris.  I will take the debt I owe him\nfor his Otherness to my grave and count it as the basis of the highest, the\nbest, the most beautiful which imagination could and never can, by essence,\ndiscover.  Because of unconditional love\nfor the Other, my son, I have found contentment even in the most painful loss\nanyone could ever imagination.  I think\nthis is the essence of what Levinas calls Ethics.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antonio\u2019s Response\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No worries about the delayed response, I was actually\nexpecting it to be much more delayed by what you had said prior. Now it’s me\nwith the delayed response. Apologies, my mind has been wandering lately and I\nhaven’t felt the inspiration to properly reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, I must say (and you will see this repeated often\nenough the longer the conversation goes) that we agree more than is at first\napparent. This isn’t just true for this, but I’ve noticed with anyone it ends\nup being about everything. It’s not a something uniquely Hegelian, often one\nfinds it in eclecticism as well, but it seems immanent to the Hegelian\nstandpoint as such. For many this strikes as initially confusing, but it also\nends up striking them as sophistry which moves back and forth, and for the\nextremes it ends up making me the enemy of both while being found nowhere\nbetween them on their flat plane. For me, however, it is no surprise to find\nagreement beyond myself in just about anybody who has anything to say that is\ntrue. The great barrier is, of course, our own background and terminology and\nwhat these really mean as opposed to what we think the other means in\nequivocating our terms which may only share the term name but not form\/content.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Personally, I would not lay the Hegelian grid over the\nvery important and mature lessons one needs to learn to have a successful older\nage, an in my opinion a successful life. \nMany never learn these lessons: recognition, desire, abstract and\nconcrete love, self-love (and self-esteem), love for the other (I would also\ninclude Other \u2013 more on that later) and the \u2018better to have loved than never to\nhave loved at all\u2019 which to me translates to \u2018to be or not to be\u2013 that is not\nthe question \u2013 the question is what shall we make of the Other\u2019.  I understand perfectly how negation can apply\nin all the cases you cited.  \u2018Negation\u2019\nin these cases meaning notions similar to I might think as projection, need,\nsensual pleasure, recognition by the other which always fails, etc..”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I agree that we should not lay such a grid over reality. In\nan existential comprehension, Hegelian structures and dynamics aren’t conducive\nto much of anything, but I would also say what I tend to say to people\nregarding Hegelian analysis and speculation: if you ever did it well nobody at\nall would notice that you were doing it. A good Hegelian never appears as\n“Hegelian,” and the recollection of experience is only possible after\nthe fact, but it is also the case that we do not experientially learn in the\nsame manner that we conceptually learn in abstraction.\u2014That aside, your shift\nfrom “to love or not to love” to “to be or not to be, that is\nnot the question” is interesting. I had not considered that shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Correct my interpretation if I err, but what I comprehend\nhere is this: these are inevitabilities of the very fact of life, that they\noccur or not is not ours to choose, rather we can only choose how we shall\nrelate and what we shall make of the Other once we are in this moment (and it\nmust also be implied that this concerns ourselves).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning negation, it literally applies to everything. Hegel\nbegins with the being of nothing, the substantiality of activity, determinate\nindeterminacy. Any moment of positivity is but the turn of attention towards\none moment of the dialectic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re right to have noticed the deep flaw that is the lack\nof agape in my article\u2014I intentionally left it out. Originally the piece was\nmore than double the length and expanded far more on issues that for need of\nconciseness and clarity I decided I should just leave out with but a passing\nmention without relying on the usual philosophical terminology and Jargon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, you say dialectics *fail* with agape. This is a\nmisunderstanding, for dialectical movement is not exactly what you might think,\nalthough seeing your blog and your knowledge of Zizek\/Lacan I think you are aware\nof what I shall say next. The dialectic returns at full force with agape in its\nfull reflexive inversion when it fully plays itself out on an absolute\nstandpoint. It is not only about what we experience for ourselves, but what we\nend up doing to ourselves in our own faithfulness to our intent. This does not\nimply a failure of our intent, we may succeed in everything we desire all the\nwhile having failed to embody in ourselves an absolute condition. If agape is\nlove without condition and by implication self-regard in its sacrifice, then\nthis only makes intelligible sense as meaningful in its ultimate opposition to\nits absolute other, the self-regarding. To love those who love us and do not\nharm us is easy, to forgive mistakes is simple. The difficulty always lies when\nthe other truly meant to hurt us, was indifferent to us, and shows no sign of\ncaring. You and I know that it takes a very special kind of insight and\nemotional development and detachment from immediate emotions to not just utter,\nbut really experience, the forgiving of such acts and persons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You and I know full well the reality of a situation in which\nthis unconditional love returns as self-harm, complete disregard for ourselves,\nbecoming not our self-constitution but dissolution. No general reality can be\nmaintained with an agape with no self-regard, for when faced with a force that\nis self-regarding it will only succumb to its violence. The beauty of letting\nthe other be and merely reveal itself to us is, I think, a reality for few and\nnot a general reality for most. The language of ‘revelation’ in letting the\nother be was exactly what I used to describe my relation to my mother and to my\nsister, as well as theirs to me. This revelation, ideally, should only be that:\nrevelation. It is, however, a lie we tell ourselves in believing no judgment\nshould come of this as if such revelation is indifferent to us or to them. No\none who loves us, and nobody we love, can make revelations that do not at once\nforce us to make judgments, and judgments at once separate while uniting. Here\nHegel’s concept of infinity is the model of an unconditionality which is in\nfact conditioned by its own necessary reality. In judging others we also judge\nourselves, in their revelation to us we are immediately forced to reveal\nourselves as well. While this is less common now, thankfully, we both can\nremember the absolute fear the LGBT community lived and continues to sadly live\nin many place concerning their revelation not just to society but to family\nitself.  There are plenty of stories\nwhere many parents were put between the contradiction of love for god or love\nfor child, and to this day among the Hispanic community there is still a\nhesitance of this contradiction even though it more than less is beginning to\nshift towards accepting the child “while not accepting the sin.”\nPeople jump through hoops to delude themselves that there can be a difference\nbetween loving their child and hating something that they simply are. This is a\nwilling split between form and content. With a child, and even with a lover and\nfriend this is possible, but it’s not exactly ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think you will disagree, but my view of unconditional love\nis *not* self-sacrifice. My view of unconditional love is ideally the relation\nof two free individuals which operate as one, fully dependent in their\nindependency, no externality imposes the relation and neither is it imposed by\nan internality of emotions that may drive us to self-destruction. This is love\nwhich is at once self-love, full revelation and opening of the self to an other\nwhich accepts it, self-constituting and creative\u2014to me it is truly friendship\nas Aristotle conceived it.  In the\nreality of failure, unconditionality of love hinges on the power of forgiving,\nnot in simply being a passive stepping stone for the other to continually\nrelate to in any way. The other may harm me, it may be too much for me at one\nmoment, but that does not rescind love though it may rescind our contact for a\nmoment. To give my example: the pain inflicted on me by my sister and my mother\nwas great, and in my sister’s case one could even add evil intent, nonetheless\nI never rescind love to them. I shall not be present for their abuses as a\nconstancy, but I am open to contact regardless of the past. Not only am I open,\nbut I attempt to seek that contact as the reality of that openness. I remember\nmy sister with a deeply sad fondness and longing, but not anger or blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With my mother this has worked out and we are much closer\nthan ever, though reservations of revelation persist. With my sister, however,\nI send a message once a year every year wishing her the best and reminding her\nthat if she ever needs help I will help, and if she ever wishes t talk, I am\nopen even though I am terrified of such contact. I maintain a distance not only\nbecause she seems to not want any relation, but also because I am aware of the\nharm it can cause me. I think you would understand what my relation is like if\nyou consider that at the point when I met my sister I was internally not\nwell-constituted and lacked a solid sense of self and self-worth. What she did\nto me then was in large part internalized both positively and negatively, and\nwhile I am infinitely better for it, I am also still carrying the scars of\nnegativity which remained as well as were added then. Imagine if your son\nbefore dying had blamed you for everything, called you a failure as a father,\nand you had taken it *seriously* if only for a moment, and let that enter you\nand become part of you. Radical openness to the other, as I conceive it, is\nthis self which only drinks in the other for its own content. Hegel conceives\nthe other first as this radical falling into otherness. The one that does not\ndo this is in fact not existentially open to the other *as merely other*, for\nits has its own inner otherness to that otherness (the other of the other is\nthe other within), it has a standpoint to keep it at bay and remain\ndisinterested observant to its revelation. You say you feel no guilt for your\nson,and you shouldn’t, but you are someone who clearly achieved a significant\nself-concretization. As Hegel determines it, you are the other which has its\nown otherness in opposition to the other. Most people do not have this, this is\nwhy they cannot stand and bear the other to be. Every little thing the other\ndoes, even just intellectually or sensuously grasped, enters into their own\nemptiness. For you, however, there is no fear, for you are. You have ways to\ncomprehend the other that do not imply their necessary internalization to you,\nall the while you need not do anything to or for them in recognizing their\notherness. You unlike most can let this difference stand because you have\ndetermination which they do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agape, is, of course, not necessarily manifest as some pure\npassivity, it has momentary limits which it may set, but these are not ultimate\nlimits. As you note, no parent that loves their child can truly set that final\nlimit where love, care, desire for well-being of the Other is cut off. The\nreality, is, however, that this relation can almost never be real. It can never\nbe real not only because the other may come to harm us by our own allowance to\na degree that can kill us, but because this unconditionality itself can\nsometimes breed the very soul which destroys us when it itself has never experienced\nthe limit of the Other.\u2014\u2014(This leads to other issues too long to go on here,\nbut I think part of our capacity to have such an active experience as love at\nall has to do precisely with that the Other is in fact perceived not in its\notherness. I mentioned the truly alien in a prior email, to me that is the real\nOther, not any human being. Even to a psychopath we can find a way to relate,\nbut of another being which has different capacities and a different order of\nreason which is indifferent if not different to ours, that is something that\nreally puts us off. Artificial intelligence is also a real candidate of the\nOther, many are just terrified of what an intellect that lacks emotion and our\nembodied limits would think and therefore do in relation to us. They point\nprecisely to this fundamental inconceivability of what the other is within as\nthe eeriness.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agape, while beautiful in one moment, is a terror in\nanother. The assumption behind its beauty is not agape as such in some absolute\nabstraction, but the wise who can bear it\u2014people like you who have the self\nthat stand for itself and can bear this weight without self-destruction. I know\ntoo many people who have unfortunately given themselves for their children\nwithout any restraint, and in doing so they produced monsters who leech their\nlife and bring them to ruin for not having the capacity to set a limit. No\nsociety can actually be based on this bare selfless regard, it destroys itself\neven in its purity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is, to finish this part of my response anyway, a second\npart of the reality of dialectic. Not only is it there in the existential and\nthe logical reflexion, but it is ultimately an abstraction of this as an\nabsolute principle in the intent to show that this in fact is not the basis of\nworld that can function. Here you and I are speaking not just from different\nphilosophical traditions, but of different aims of discourse. You stand within\nthe phenomenal and existential relative, however, I stand within the\nintelligible and universal absolute. My discussion of love concerns its\ncapacity for completeness regarding the standpoint of freedom, which it simply\ncannot achieve even in its most perfect existence. However, this does not\nnegate your standpoint at all, for insofar as we are to be speaking of the same\nmoment of our lives and its experiences, I think we shall find an overwhelming\nsimilarity not just in our stories but our conceptual and experiential\nobservations if we bracket ourselves to this domain and an aim of discussion.\nI’ve noticed this in the general literature of this concept as well, where I\nfind differences of conception, but an immense overlap in those very\ndifferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

——————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, I read your blog post on mathematics and\nparadox, where you mention Hegel. I’ll leave it for another time, but I think\nyour discussion of Hegel there fails by no fault of your own, but rather of\nyour secondary sources on the account of what dialectical contradiction is.\nIt’s something I consider so mundane and baseline that I’m amazed scholars have\nfailed so badly to state it clearly.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Comment to Antonio,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should also apologize to you for a delayed response.  I have been more busy now with regular work \u2013\nsoftware, guitar playing, recording, wife, daughter and working out every\nday\u2026uggg\u2026anyway, I have also been working on a rather lengthy response to your\nprevious email \u2013 the one where you cite your belief in aether \u2013 I found this\nemail intriguing all the way through but I am currently working on the first\npart with regard to the aether.  I have\nbeen brushing up on my knowledge of historic and current schools of thought in relativity\nand quantum mechanics \u2013 which is time consuming in its own right.  I want to understand among the different\nschools of physics where anything such as \u2018aether\u2019 finds its current\nroots.  I have already found much to write\nin this regard but I would like to work through the rest of the email\nfirst.  I appreciate this new email you\njust sent and will add that to my future response as well but I did want to\nmake a few brief remarks about your thoughts of unconditional love.  Unconditional love, even as a pure concept,\nloses its meaning if it becomes obsession or extinction of the self for various\nreasons of self-loathing, projecting on the other ones own failures and losses to\nmove towards maturity, using the other as a tool of one\u2019s own existential\nangst, etc..  Let me point out a few cases\nin your email that exhibit what I think is a loss of the definition of\nunconditional love\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cby implication\nself-regard in its sacrifice, then this only makes intelligible sense as\nmeaningful in its ultimate opposition to its absolute other, the\nself-regarding. To love those who love us and do not harm us is easy, to\nforgive mistakes is simple. The difficulty always lies when the other truly\nmeant to hurt us, was indifferent to us, and shows no sign of caring. You and I\nknow that it takes a very special kind of insight and emotional development and\ndetachment from immediate emotions to not just utter, but really experience,\nthe forgiving of such acts and persons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me say, I have told others that my son, in killing\nhimself, did something to me that my worst enemy could have never done.  However, it would never occur to me to\nconsider forgiveness as an object of importance or even relevance in this\nmatter.  I do not feel the need to\nforgive him as if that would clear the way for love again or something of the\nsort.  Perhaps, this is something that\nwould be a concern for a person who felt jilted or hurt by someone they cared\nabout, possibly like your sister, but for me, for my beautiful son, my\nunconditional love for him goes beyond the grave, beyond the immense pain\ninflicted on me.  The question of\nforgiveness does not even come close to me questioning my love for him or his\nlove for me \u2013 the love I have for him cannot find a negation or a failure,\nremorse, self-loathing projection from some psychological perceived or real\nexistential self-doubt, etc. \u2013 it is not any need on my part to torment or\nnegate my sense of self.  \u2018Sacrifice\u2019 is\nalso irrelevant.  Unconditional love does\nnot love a child to satisfy some sense of \u2018sacrifice\u2019.  Sure, sacrifice is a practical result of this\ntype of love as one\u2019s work and effort is performed for an other to myself but\nwhat might look like sacrifice from the outside is from the inside joy,\nfulfillment and solid satisfaction which is lasting. The types of self related\nand absorbed notions you cite totally miss what I think is meant by\nunconditional love.  In your notions of\nforgiveness and sacrifice, there is a neutrality and irrelevance with regard to\nunconditional love which I will mention more later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cthe reality of a\nsituation in which this unconditional love returns as self-harm, complete\ndisregard for ourselves, becoming not our self-constitution but dissolution. No\ngeneral reality can be maintained with an agape with no self-regard, for when\nfaced with a force that is self-regarding it will only succumb to its violence\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By definition and existential reality, unconditional love is\nNOT self-harm, NOT dissolution of self, NOT passive in regard to some\nmasochistic need to torment oneself.  All\nthese suggestions escape the orbit of unconditional love altogether.  Again, there is a neutrality and irrelevance\nto these concepts which are artificially imported perhaps from other\ndysfunctional types of love but can in no way be called or thought as\nunconditional love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThere are plenty of\nstories where many parents were put between the contradiction of love for god\nor love for child, and to this day among the Hispanic community there is still\na hesitance of this contradiction even though it more than less is beginning to\nshift towards accepting the child “while not accepting the sin.”\nPeople jump through hoops to delude themselves that there can be a difference\nbetween loving their child and hating something that they simply are. This is a\nwilling split between form and content. With a child, and even with a lover and\nfriend this is possible, but it’s not exactly ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think you will disagree, but my view of unconditional love\nis *not* self-sacrifice. My view of unconditional love is ideally the relation\nof two free individuals which operate as one, fully dependent in their\nindependency, no externality imposes the relation and neither is it imposed by\nan internality of emotions that may drive us to self-destruction. This is love\nwhich is at once self-love, full revelation and opening of the self to an other\nwhich accepts it, self-constituting and creative\u2014to me it is truly friendship\nas Aristotle conceived it.  In the\nreality of failure, unconditionality of love hinges on the power of forgiving,\nnot in simply being a passive stepping stone for the other to continually\nrelate to in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, no resemblance to unconditional love at all in my\nopinion.  Of course, it is not\nself-sacrifice, hating what one simply is or some sort of helpless passivity in\nthe face of the other.   All of these\ncriticisms (negations) you cite STILL belong to self- obsession and inability\nto rise above self, me, mine, etc..  This\nis not unconditional love \u2013 this is narcissism whether conscious of itself or\nnot.  Also, an infant-child cannot, by\ndefinition, be fully independent (i.e., like a fully mature adult).  I agree that a healthy love relationship\n(i.e., like the love my wife and I have for each other) can only happen when\neach person is independent and self-fulfilled. \nHonestly, I think unconditional love may be essentially based on a\nparent-child relationship not any other type of love relationship.  An infant is absolutely dependent.  A child and an adolescent are on the\nbeginning of a long journey.  They have\nyet to learn the lessons you cited in your essay on love.  Certainly, a parent that has unconditional\nlove for their child wants them to acquire the basics they need to have a\nchance of learning more mature lessons of love which you have cited and learned.  But wisdom dictates that my child has **their**\nsacred journey and a wise parent does not want to infringe, control or project\non their sacred obligation to allow their child to find their own path, their\nown self –  a wise parent wants to\nenhance a child\u2019s unique right to be but not control their right to be in any\nway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImagine if your son before dying had blamed you for\neverything, called you a failure as a father, and you had taken it *seriously*\nif only for a moment, and let that enter you and become part of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True, that never happened between Chris and I.  He always loved and respected me and I cannot\neven imagine him ever saying or even thinking such things.  Chris was a beautiful and very sweet kid \u2013\nhis elementary school teachers called him \u2018the lover\u2019 because he always stood\nup for other kids that were not popular or ridiculed by other kids.  However, even if that had happened as you\ndescribe it, it would not become a \u2018part of me\u2019.  Sure, it would be hurtful but since I know\nthe extent which I, in practice, loved and cared for Chris day to day and year\nto year \u2013 I could never doubt that real and practical commitment towards his\ngood.  As far as mortally possible I\nloved him unconditionally –  I know the\nextent of that love and I can see no shadow of doubt about it.  I also know that I was the adult in that\nrelationship and my role was not to control Chris or win some kind of\nrecognition but to be steadfast and sincere in **his** regard \u2013 not mine \u2013 a\nmature adult has boundaries not walls. \nBy the way, since I was able to retire when my kids were very young I\nwas able to be full time Mr. Mom to them when I think it was a very critical\ntime for them \u2013 I was really lucky to be able to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel no guilt or remorse about how I loved my son because,\nas far as mortally possible, I loved him wholly and fully through many years of\ntenderness, respect, obligation with wisdom about my boundaries and his.  I can say humbly and without any negative\nconnotations for those that believe differently that, for me, unconditional\nlove is the absolute that love for the other can attain.  Unconditional love cannot even be possible\nwithout learning all the lessons you alluded to in your post on love.  Also, as I mentioned earlier I am not sure\nunconditional love is possible for any other type of love than a\nparent-child.  I am not aware of any\nancient Greek notion of agape that would vary with that notion.  In any case, I think unconditional love as\nthe pinnacle of what love can be sets the height, beauty and wonder for the\nideal of love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a corollary, I think the absolute that healthy, self-love\ncan attain to is ethics.  For me,\nhonesty, compassion, active concern for the other, etc. is only possible for\nthose that have attained integrity.  By\nthe way, integrity is also a duty to oneself to take care of one\u2019s own health\nso that one can be able to be able for the other.  The self is most its own when it holds itself\nopen and fully in an ethical relation to the other.  Hatred, envy, arrogance, violence, etc. is a\npathology of selfhood.  Holding oneself\ngenuinely and ethically open to the other is the highest and most difficult the\nself can attain.  This is why I would\nthink of it as absolute \u2013 perhaps not an absolute from the perspective of\nHegelian Idea but functionally and existentially the state of self-hood which\nis most itself \u2013 healthy, at peace, without regret or self- doubt.  To the degree that one violates selfhood as\nethical obligation to the other (what I think as integrity), is to the degree\nthat one fails to be most their self.  I\nhave seen, as I am sure you have, what happens when people lose their way in\nanger, regret, addiction, desire which simply uses the other, etc..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have no need to make the notions of unconditional love\nlarger than me as towards some absolute constitution of Concept \u2013 it may be\nthat the notions do have such portions but, for me, Concept adds nothing to or\ntakes anything away from these notions. \nI think there have been several instances in my discussion where, from\nthe way I perceive it, there is a neutrality in some of your imported\nobjections\/negations\/dialections (I know this is not a word) to unconditional\nlove.  I suppose you can make unconditional\nlove into a \u2018good and bad side\u2019 (light\/darkness, positive\nassertion\/contradiction, thesis\/antithesis, etc.) which culminates in a union\nof opposites  to the \u2018higher Concept\u2019.  But from my perspective, I am not sure the\n\u2018higher Concept\u2019 has room, is capable of, encoding neutralities ((alien,\nnonrelational, without regard to, irrelevant to, unaccountable to the absolute\nas Concept, simply what \u2018is\u2019 without having the **potentially capacity** for\nessential negation without losing the notion altogether – making the neutrality\ninto dogma, other to System and thus irrelevant, etc.)) into its\nvocabulary.  As an example and question,\ndo we still have unconditional love when we insist on applying all the\nadjectives of negation you cited and I have pointed out in this discussion or\ndo we just have a convenient way to lose the idea which has a definite and\ndistinct existential content?  Does the\nidea lose something in translation from the particular to the universal?  Why must we insist that neutrality, irrelevance,\nto Concept is yet **still** Concept \u2013 is this knowledge or obsession?  Oh well, in any case, for me, unconditional\nlove is heterogeneous and diachronous \u2013 incapable of finding a universal\nfoothold in Concept – works just fine for me.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nl<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are some excerpts from my ongoing discussion with Antonio on Hegel which I wanted to highlight as they reflect on ag\u00e1pe \u2013 unconditional love\u2026 My Comment to Antonio, I wanted to respond to the post on love which you published here – https:\/\/epochemagazine.org\/better-to-have-loved-lost-recognition-love-and-self-211a3948f281.  I find the observations you make about love the result of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-western-philosophy","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4812"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4841,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812\/revisions\/4841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}