Introduction

Pictured above: A wishing well with locks hanging above. The arch has writings and inscriptions, of which, the most common is “te quiero.”  Literally, this translates as “I want you,” but a better translation encompasses the way in which couples in this context use it to mean “I love you.” Nestled in a garden in Salamanca, Spain, lovers carve their initials in the lock, hook it onto the arch or chain of locks, and throw the key into the well. The hope is this symbolic gesture of binding themselves with love and throwing away the key will ensure that their love will last forever. Even if they break up, the locks acknowledge that they are forever connected, linked together by the time they spent as a couple and impacted by the love they shared.

This picture symbolizes romantic gestures, but what is love exactly?

What is love?
 

Throughout this course, we have spoken a great deal about different components of love, how people feel and express it differently, how it has various meanings, and on and on.  But no one seems to be able to define it well, which is to be expected.  Love is something very personal, so it is obviously difficult to create a definition that is equally applicable to various people.  Love could be called a boundless term in that it has different meanings for everyone, so we can’t bind this abstract into a single definition.  I know I can’t come up with an all-encompassing definition.  As an anthropologist, the best way for me to understand love is to learn what it means to others; this is why this class has been extremely beneficial.  This blog is my attempt to situate what I know – from experiences with friends and family – in a limited body of scholarly work in an attempt to define what love is to me, or at least one possible trajectory of the development of various types of love.

To start my commentary, however, I felt like I needed some definition of love, even though defining love is not the focus of this paper.  I decided to journey back to our first class, three months ago.  Alain Badiou’s views on love, in particular, resonated with me.  Even though we criticized him in class for being a romantic who may fail to recognize the potential negative consequences of love, I found certain passages to be in line with what I hope to portray.

In a unique manner, Badiou equates love with communism: “‘Love and politics are the two great figures of social engagement. Politics is enthusiasm with a collective; with love, two people. So love is the minimal form of communism’” (Jeffries 2012).  I had never thought of love as being similar to politics or communism; therefore, I think this quote can be interpreted in many ways.  For me, it means that individuals lose their individuality when they love someone.  They share all of themselves with the other, from their flaws to their aspirations to their possessions. 

I argue that this is the case whether the love dyad consists of a father-son or husband-wife.  Love is selfless and involves complete sharing.  I do not agree that one has to give up everything of himself, but he must be willing to share with his partner, who must accept what is being offered.  This always requires work; it is laborious to reveal oneself to another and requires and ongoing effort to understand one another while working through life’s challgenges.  Essentially, we cannot pick and choose what we want to know about the other.  If we love them, we must be open to it all and willing to accept it all.  That is not to say that we will love or even like everything about this person; I simply think Badiou means we must accept that that comes with this person.  If not, we’re likely one day to wake up to a “stranger.”  Singer-songwriter Billy Joel warns:

“Well we all fall in love
But we disregard the danger
Though we share so many secrets
There are some we never tell
Why were you so surprised
That you never saw the stranger
Did you ever let your lover see
The stranger in yourself?”

Bibliography:

Jeffries, Stuart

2012    Alain Badiou: A Life in Writing. The Guardian. www.guardian.co.uk.

Joel, Billy

1977    The Stranger. The Stranger. New York: A&R Recording, Inc.