OMNIA VINCIT AMOR:
A Panegyric for a Valentine
A Panegyric for a Valentine
It has often been lauded as high praise to Love that it is blind; also that it conquers all things to overcome the universal condition of man, that is to say the brokenness and dysfunction present in each one of us. A brief reflection on these qualities shows them to be incompatible, leaving us to determine whether Love is a dichotomous entity, a dialectic, or possessing of an entirely separate quality from these.
When it is said that Love is blind it is not meant to be complimentary, that much is certain: The phrase is almost entirely reserved for the trite observation of a somewhat more seasoned, skeptical individual as pertains to a young couple happily floating along. The implication is that in Love one does not see the faults of the loved, but only sees the things they want to in their partner. This is most certainly blindness, but is it Love? It is analogous to a doctor, seeing his patient blind, saying that it is the feet of the man which cause the problem because the patient only stumbles while walking!
What is blinding is fear: Fear of being alone, fear of failure, fear of change. It is most certainly human nature to avoid being wrong. The more vacuous a relationship really is, the more we need to hope and pray that it's okay- turning a blind eye to the problem, and leaning on a sophism that says that ignoring the problems is in fact the key - no, the hallmark- of a healthy relationship. To say that it is Love to be blind to a person is to discredit Love terribly; loving an image of someone you've imagined is no love at all. Loving someone blindly is only foolish.
So does love conquer? This is the older idea of the two; Virgil proposed it in the middle days of the Roman Empire. Today we use it as the justification for our blindness- if Love conquers all things, then our differences and our problems are no problems at all, in fact they'll be overcome and happily packaged for us by Love! This is what the woman who knows her boyfriend is practicing an infidelity tells herself as the woman walking by thinks that Love is blind; it is a way for us to feel safe and secure in a flawed relationship while creating for ourselves the image of some kind of nobility. Ultimately, however, this is no Kierkegaardian sacrifice but a Wertherian romanticism; it will only lead a downward path to hurt and despite.
We further must consider what it would mean for Love to conquer our differences in relationship: A conqueror is rarely benevolent. The word itself is not a word of peace nor love, nor is it pleasantly connotated- neither was it in Virgil's day, a war-like time of Roman pride. (Keep in mind, Virgil was commissioned to write an epic history for Rome. Key words: WRITE HISTORY) It was in 47 BC that Julius Caesar used the words "Veni, vidi, vici" to describe his conquest of the Gauls- a campaign that can be equated with massacre and annexation of land for the purpose of ethnic cleansing and the expansion of an Empire.
If Love is about one person seizing control of another, ethnically cleansing them, and using them to expand their empire, it's been seriouslly overrated.
And that's the problem with both of these sophisms: They're just that; catch phrases that are just close enough to how it really is to seem right, to sound nice and wise, but to ultimately ring hollow. Love is something in the middle; or something that looks similar. Like we might say a blind man has a problem with his feet because we know no better ourselves, this diagnosis is unable to provide a solution.
I will include here a confession of my own that I am not especially eager to air publicly, because of my pride, but which I know that I must. I have partly out of pride, partly out of fear, spent most of my life living that Wertherian ideal; finding the most painful possible outcome and throwing myself into it out of a sense that it is noble to suffer, that it is better to lose love and write epic ballads about it than to have a happy, healthy relationship.
I've idolized the Brahms, the Mahler, the Phantoms of the Opera in this world; it hasn't been pretty. I've hurt a lot of people around me doing it, and I've hurt myself too. When you spend years orchestrating social failures for yourself, you start to forget how much of it you set up in the first place. I began to believe that I really was a failure, that I really wasn't loveable, and that I couldn't trust the people who said I was.
I'm free of that now in part because of recent experiences, in part because I've come to see what really is incredible about love. The experiences simply served to teach me that it is worthwhile to do hard things, not just things that feel hard. The Wertherian route is the easy path to take- you garner a lot of sympathy for a problem you don't really need to have in the first place. To actually make love work is a lot harder, and isn't as glamorous, but it is noble. And wonderful!
The problem with love being blind or conquering is that it means you can only love something that is as you like it. One way or another you're hiding from the truth of who someone else is, and loving an image you've created of them. It's false, it has no merit. If you believe someone is perfect, it's easy to love them! Why wouldn't you love a perfect being?
And if you have no choice, it has no merit. This is where Love becomes spectacular: You don't need to! We as humans have been loved by God not because we are perfect, but because we are flawed- not in spite of that fact, but because of it! Love is only possible where there is imperfection! If real love is more that just a feeling of warmth but rather a committment we make to another person regardless of feelings, an ideal we look up to and, if we understand it, would never violate, then it is certain that love must not be blind- for a blind person can see perfection no better than flaws- nor can it conquer- for to love a conquered person is to love oneself.
Love cannot conquer all things. It does not erase the past; it cannot change the present. Love will not alter persons or circumstances. It is no respecter of monies, of classes, nations, borders. Love is no feeling, no magic. Love is the ability of one entity to see another entity, in all their wretchedness and say- in full awareness- "This is beautiful".
Love cannot conquer all things- and that is what makes it beautiful: It doesn't need to.
Immer,
Benjamin
When it is said that Love is blind it is not meant to be complimentary, that much is certain: The phrase is almost entirely reserved for the trite observation of a somewhat more seasoned, skeptical individual as pertains to a young couple happily floating along. The implication is that in Love one does not see the faults of the loved, but only sees the things they want to in their partner. This is most certainly blindness, but is it Love? It is analogous to a doctor, seeing his patient blind, saying that it is the feet of the man which cause the problem because the patient only stumbles while walking!
What is blinding is fear: Fear of being alone, fear of failure, fear of change. It is most certainly human nature to avoid being wrong. The more vacuous a relationship really is, the more we need to hope and pray that it's okay- turning a blind eye to the problem, and leaning on a sophism that says that ignoring the problems is in fact the key - no, the hallmark- of a healthy relationship. To say that it is Love to be blind to a person is to discredit Love terribly; loving an image of someone you've imagined is no love at all. Loving someone blindly is only foolish.
So does love conquer? This is the older idea of the two; Virgil proposed it in the middle days of the Roman Empire. Today we use it as the justification for our blindness- if Love conquers all things, then our differences and our problems are no problems at all, in fact they'll be overcome and happily packaged for us by Love! This is what the woman who knows her boyfriend is practicing an infidelity tells herself as the woman walking by thinks that Love is blind; it is a way for us to feel safe and secure in a flawed relationship while creating for ourselves the image of some kind of nobility. Ultimately, however, this is no Kierkegaardian sacrifice but a Wertherian romanticism; it will only lead a downward path to hurt and despite.
We further must consider what it would mean for Love to conquer our differences in relationship: A conqueror is rarely benevolent. The word itself is not a word of peace nor love, nor is it pleasantly connotated- neither was it in Virgil's day, a war-like time of Roman pride. (Keep in mind, Virgil was commissioned to write an epic history for Rome. Key words: WRITE HISTORY) It was in 47 BC that Julius Caesar used the words "Veni, vidi, vici" to describe his conquest of the Gauls- a campaign that can be equated with massacre and annexation of land for the purpose of ethnic cleansing and the expansion of an Empire.
If Love is about one person seizing control of another, ethnically cleansing them, and using them to expand their empire, it's been seriouslly overrated.
And that's the problem with both of these sophisms: They're just that; catch phrases that are just close enough to how it really is to seem right, to sound nice and wise, but to ultimately ring hollow. Love is something in the middle; or something that looks similar. Like we might say a blind man has a problem with his feet because we know no better ourselves, this diagnosis is unable to provide a solution.
I will include here a confession of my own that I am not especially eager to air publicly, because of my pride, but which I know that I must. I have partly out of pride, partly out of fear, spent most of my life living that Wertherian ideal; finding the most painful possible outcome and throwing myself into it out of a sense that it is noble to suffer, that it is better to lose love and write epic ballads about it than to have a happy, healthy relationship.
I've idolized the Brahms, the Mahler, the Phantoms of the Opera in this world; it hasn't been pretty. I've hurt a lot of people around me doing it, and I've hurt myself too. When you spend years orchestrating social failures for yourself, you start to forget how much of it you set up in the first place. I began to believe that I really was a failure, that I really wasn't loveable, and that I couldn't trust the people who said I was.
I'm free of that now in part because of recent experiences, in part because I've come to see what really is incredible about love. The experiences simply served to teach me that it is worthwhile to do hard things, not just things that feel hard. The Wertherian route is the easy path to take- you garner a lot of sympathy for a problem you don't really need to have in the first place. To actually make love work is a lot harder, and isn't as glamorous, but it is noble. And wonderful!
The problem with love being blind or conquering is that it means you can only love something that is as you like it. One way or another you're hiding from the truth of who someone else is, and loving an image you've created of them. It's false, it has no merit. If you believe someone is perfect, it's easy to love them! Why wouldn't you love a perfect being?
And if you have no choice, it has no merit. This is where Love becomes spectacular: You don't need to! We as humans have been loved by God not because we are perfect, but because we are flawed- not in spite of that fact, but because of it! Love is only possible where there is imperfection! If real love is more that just a feeling of warmth but rather a committment we make to another person regardless of feelings, an ideal we look up to and, if we understand it, would never violate, then it is certain that love must not be blind- for a blind person can see perfection no better than flaws- nor can it conquer- for to love a conquered person is to love oneself.
Love cannot conquer all things. It does not erase the past; it cannot change the present. Love will not alter persons or circumstances. It is no respecter of monies, of classes, nations, borders. Love is no feeling, no magic. Love is the ability of one entity to see another entity, in all their wretchedness and say- in full awareness- "This is beautiful".
Love cannot conquer all things- and that is what makes it beautiful: It doesn't need to.
Immer,
Benjamin
Dedicated to J__ M__ , 2/2009 Et nos cedamos amori
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