From: fjc@mips2.ma30.bull.com (Frank Casper)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: What is Love?  _The Story of O_
Date: 10 Sep 92 17:38:25 GMT
Reply-To: fjc@mips2.ma30.bull.com (Frank Casper)
Organization: Bull Worldwide Information Systems  (Billerica, MA)

RE: The _Story of O_:


Charles,

	Thats a hell of a story. It reminds me of a book I'd read
in college called "Boys and Girls Together". I think the authors
name is Goldner. "Boys and Girls Together" is my reference for 
what I think your book illustrates. That is, it addresses itself 
to the depths of human depravity. That the characters in the book
call it love does not make it so. It may be the authors way of 
illustrating just how confused and, shall we say, hopeless the
human circumstance can become. I don't deny any of it. In fact,
it is my view that on the whole, situations like the one your story 
describes are permanent possibilities of the power context that constitutes
the human condition. I spent no time in my post describing that context,
which is what I think you're trying to draw attention to. My post was
trying to draw attention to the fact that there are other, better
possibilties as well. 

Let me relate a story to you, a story written by a friend of mine,
George Pickering. It's called "Dinner Talk". It's a true story. It
concerns a conversation that took place over dinner on Devils Night
last year in Detroit. For those of you who don't know, Devils Night 
is the night before Halloween. Two of the participants in that
conversation discovered that they each had considered and continued
to seriously enterain suicide. The story drew parallels between the 
hovering threat of violence in the surrounding culture of Devils
Night in Detroit, and the recurring threat of violence in the lives 
of these two otherwise charming and engaging people. The story ends
with the following paragraph:

	Though dire deeds had been discussed and no great problems
	had been solved, a conversation was opened and a concern
	expressed without either putting the truth aside or 
	pretending to know what it was. That's what theology is,
	concersational vigilance about spiritual distubances. Maybe
	thats what it takes to be helpful; but only friends can do it.

There are those that seem to conclude that the more sinister prospects
of the human condition are the only or the primary dimensions. They 
seem to reduce the affections between people to selfish bids for 
escape, but by calling it selfish cut off any prospect for the good,
the better, and the best. The tendency toward this kind of moral
isolation is a permanent part of the experience of power in human
affairs. I think I understand that. It is not easy to either get or to
maintain a culture in which one can honestly takes ones own life
seriously. That is what both stories point out. I'm trying to say that
friendship seeks to establish or restore connections with the world
broken by moral isolation, thereby empowering us to have and to 
live lives of our own. I agree whole heartedly with one prominent
suggestion of your response, that we need very much to understand
the power context in which our lives take place and take shape. But
this is part of what friendship makes possible and even necessary. Its
aim is to improve the capacity to think about and understand the basic
human experience of power, the dynamics and conflicts that come with
the territory of solitude, of being alone with others. It is a matter
of getting ahold of ourselves. It is the first step in taking responsibility
for and openly participating in the power struggles that are our lives.
Love and friendship, to quote Pickering again, "are not 'instruments'
for beating back or abolishing your aloneness. They are affirmations of
the best way you can be alone with others of your own choosing".

I'll be on vacation for a week. But I'm keenly interested in
continuing this discussion. I request that those posting to this
thread please copy me by email so that I don't lose the drift.
Thanks

fjc