From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Subject: Re: WHAT love is
Organization: Oklahoma State University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 04:08:43 GMT

From article <1992Aug31.131049.25265@ddsw1.mcs.com>, by eshin@ddsw1.mcs.com (Eshin-Fun):
>>>tucker@mitre.org (William Tucker) writes:
>>: 
> Perhaps, we should all start with that narcissistic side of the love of
> one's self first, by which we may be able to extend to appreciate the love
> from some one else. For how can you expect some one to love you if you
> cannot love yourself?

Ok, I think we need to think about the "narcissistic" side of love
more carefully.  Your statement seems to imply that self-love is
narcisism.  In fact, I believe that it is the opposite.  The problem
with the narcisist is not that he looks to himself for approval, love,
etc, but that he looks "outside" for himself.  The trick to the
narcius myth is that he looked into the lake and he saw not just himself,
outside of himself, but everything "behind" him.  Narcisitic love is
the opposite of self-love.  Narcisism is different than solipsism in 
that the narcisist knows all too well that that which is outside of
him is not self-identical.  This is what fuels the fire of the narcisist
and forces him to continue searching outside of himself for himself.
The solipsist, on the other hand, is perfectly self content with
the outside world as it IS him, not just a REFLECTION of him.
THe narcisist must look outside for examples of love of himself, though
he may find it difficult to find, because he can not affirm himself 
internally.  This is why the narcisist is in the most dangerous position
of all: he really falls to the whims of others.  Because he lacks
any degree of self-love, he looks to the outside for those examples.
Whenever he finds one, he latches immediately to that example(be it
a "romantic" love, or a religion, etc).  Once he is latched, he
finds himself worthy of that love, though continually questioning of
it.  Thus, he exerts a sort of pressure on a relationship that is
unnecessary.  In the romantic love situation, the lover may feel
that (s)he is forced to continue offering praise and so forth, and
that her own feelings are ignored.  If the other lover should need
her own reassurance, she is likely to be let down because any
dissatisfaction with life is generally interpreted, by the narcisist,
as dissatisfaction with the relationship, and in particular, the 
individual.  Thus, the narcisist needs the outside affirmation which
is easy to loose because the outside can not always be affirmative.
What can happen, and often does, is that the outside leaves and the
narcisist is crushed and has found himself yet another reason why
he is unloveable.   Of course, the data for this comes from the outside
once again as if the world were nothing but symbols of his own livelyhood.
Indeed, the narcisist knows no self-love.

> 
> [...]Heterosexuality is still in an awful mess
> because of *morality* and ignorance.

   This statement brings to mind two things:  Virginia Satir's famous
statement, "I want to love you without clutching..." and a friend
of mine's remark thereto: "I could do all of that provided there 
wasn't such a thing as sex."  Second, Milan Kundera's statement
"Sexuality freed from its diabolical ties with love [becomes] a 
joy of angelic simplicity."  (_Of Laughter and Forgetting_).  I
would only add, "Love freed from its diabolical ties with sex
becomes a joy of angelic simplicity."


> To  have a need, *is* to create desire, To have *desire* and to suppress it
> is to create neurosis!

True, hence one of the methods of psycho-analysis is to identify 
need/ethical conflicts and dissolve them.  (Just a note)

> 
> So, what is love? No words can define it. Not example is good enough, for
> in its dynamicsim it is a personal experience that cannot be viewed, but
> perhaps if you are able to know how to "give" of yourself, (which most
> people are incapable of doing) perhaps then love may allow you that reality
> which experience leaves no doubt that love is a God!

  Back again to the narcisist:  The narcisist canot not "give" of
himself because he doesn't know what the "self" is to give.
And is it a wonder, then, that Fromm thinks western culture to
have turned in to such a narcisitic AND materialistic phenomena?
It seems that the "look to outside" brings out the materialistic,
and if we be one or the other, we be the other. So saith Fromm.

> 
> Eshin-Fun
> 
BCnya,
  Charles O.  Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III  Account at Oklahoma State University for summer.
Graduate Student in Religious Studies           onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu
University of Chicago
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Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta