From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Subject: Re: WHAT IS LOVE?
Organization: Oklahoma State University
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 01:38:38 GMT

From article <la7726INN71c@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM>, by danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR]):
> 
>  >(Daniel Kranowski):
> 
>  > Consider the words "you...affected" in the first sentence, which more or
>  > less answers William Tucker's question.  If I perceive pain or distortion
>  > in another person, if I *empathize* with that person, I feel pain because
>  > of his anguish.  I want to stop his trauma fundamentally to erase my own
>  > pain; if I hadn't felt my own empathic pain, I wouldn't have cared about
>  > his.
>  
> (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR):
> 
>    The question becomes:  why did you feel pain in his respect?
>  If love, in either respect, be selfish, and if pain be not good,
>  and if we really strive towards pleasure, then why would one accept
>  a friends pain, in the empathetic mode, at all?  
>  
> <devil's advocate mode ON>
> 
> Because seeing pain in another we care about (a reflection of
> ourselves) reminds us of similar pain in ourselves; if we can
> help another, we help ourself with our own pain.

  Already you are talking about "another we care about."  Which is
precisely my point: care, love, etc, are all PRIOR to any NEED for
empathy.

> 
>  In terms of non-mystical literature, consider Paul's statement "Love
>  is patient."  Once hardly needs patience when one is dealing in pleasure.
>  
> Ah, but the greatest pleasures can come to one who waits.

THis is not necessarily true.
> 
>  >(Daniel Kranowski):
>  > This is definitely on the mark.  "I need you," a common expression of
>  > lovers, plainly demonstrates the selfishness of love.  The needs of the
>  > self explain why we say, "I'm falling in love"; you "fall" in love because
>  > you lose control, the one you love has a hold on you and power over you.
>  
>  (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR):
>    I thought you were just saying it was selfish.  Your distinction
>  between the feelings and policies of love does not help the matter.
>  IF love is a loss of self-control, a loss of power, how can it be
>  selfish?    If it were truly selfish, then it would hardly
>  be a situation anyone would want to be in.  I like to equate "falling
> 
> It is still selfish: by demanding that someone else help 
> fill your needs. By communicating one's "falling in love" 
> to the beloved, one is trying to set up an obligation on
> the behalf of the beloved to help take care of the initiator.

Yes, but you are still only telling HALF of the story.  Thus, you still
do not account for the OTHER Isolde.

> 
> 
> <devil's advocate mode OFF>
> 
> Dano

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

p.s. In terms of defending the "selfishness of love" I find your
"devil's advocate mode on/off" a highly appropriate metaphor.

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