Читать книгу The Forgotten Art of Love - Armin A. Zadeh - Страница 9

2. Why Do We Love?

Let us now go deeper into the subject and explore the essence of love. What is the nature of loving? Why are humans so preoccupied with love? What makes us love a particular person? These questions have been asked throughout human existence. Religious thinkers, secular philosophers, artists, and scientists have answered them in different ways.

Contemplations about love and its significance can be found as early as three thousand years ago in the teachings of Zarathustra, the ancient Iranian prophet. Considered by many to be the first philosopher, Zarathustra taught that by doing good to others, we align ourselves with the divine force and move closer to being one with the creator.¹ He captured essential themes of love that have been reiterated by many prominent thinkers since.

Even ancient contemplations of love differentiate between the forms I have already discussed: a physically driven desire for human contact, close to what we would categorize as lust, described in Hinduism and Buddhism as kama; a less intense form of caring that we would call compassion, known in Buddhism as karuna; and the highest, most noble, and elevated form of love, which is unconditional and selfless — described in Hinduism as prema and in Buddhism as metta, with equivalents in other religious texts.

Similar distinctions can be found in the best-known comprehensive discussion on the nature of love, in Plato’s Symposium, from approximately 380 BCE.² Plato discusses different analyses of love by assuming the identities of contemporary intellectuals. In the discussion, the character Pausanias describes two kinds of love: a heavenly love — a deep love associated with the intellect that is long-lasting and committed — and a common love, driven by physical attraction and lust. Thinkers more than two thousand years ago recognized the complexity of love, its multifaceted nature, and the difference between short-term infatuation and lasting love. Plato makes a clear distinction between affection based on sexual desire, fleeting passion, and a deep, enduring concern for another person (true love).

In the same text, Plato’s teacher, Socrates, portrays love as the force striving for divinity, arguing that our fear of death and our yearning for immortality are expressed in our physical and intellectual desire for procreation. Platonic love is a term commonly used today to refer to nonsexual love, but it is more accurately defined as the yearning for the unattainable, ideal beauty in the world that may be reflected in somebody or something. The recognition of this beauty or purity in a person moves us closer to divinity. In Plato’s conception, we feel love not for the individual but rather for the inherent beauty in that person, a beauty that transcends individual existence. Thus, a person who loves one person in fact loves the beauty in any person — a very astute and important observation. Plato went beyond descriptions of a selfless, caring attitude toward others and attempted to understand its underlying cause.

For many centuries, Plato’s concepts of love, which his students, particularly Aristotle, expanded on, profoundly influenced views of love. Indeed, the ancient Greek terms are still being used for describing different kinds of love, as in C. S. Lewis’s 1960 book The Four Loves.³ Philia refers to brotherly love, or loving friendship. Storge is generally understood as the somewhat more intense bonds between parents and children or exceptionally close friends. Eros refers to the passionate and romantic feelings, closest to falling in love. Finally, agape refers to the highest form of love, a transcending, unconditional love, particularly the love between humans and God. This rich Greek vocabulary suggests that much of the confusion over the meaning of love arises from the fact that in English we have only one word to describe a wide range of emotional states and concepts.

The emergence of Islam in the seventh century CE gave rise to the concept of ishq, or divine love. In the Sufi-tradition of Islam, love is essential to lead humans back to our destiny of grace.

The Middle Ages in Europe engendered the tradition of courtly love that prized chivalry and nobility over erotic desires. This form of love, too, was believed to elevate the lover and the beloved to a higher level of being. While the concept of courtly love was influenced by religion, it was a secular concept, contrasting with the views of thinkers of that period such as Thomas Aquinas, who based his reasoning about love solely on Christian dogma. Given that courtly love centered on chivalry and male valor, it also neglected the role of women in mutually loving relationships.

In the seventeenth century, Baruch Spinoza proposed a concept of love that is linked more to nature than to the conventional concept of God.⁴ Spinoza saw God not as a person but as an all-encompassing entity, one that includes nature. To him, love was one of the natural phenomena, “passions,” which humans pursued because of their associated rewards, in this case joy. Spinoza’s views are among the earliest recognitions of love as a physiological drive. At a time when discussions on love and God were dominated by biblical views, Spinoza’s rational analyses of love and God earned him much criticism from the major established religions.

The nineteenth century saw a definite turn to biology and science for explaining love. Arthur Schopenhauer was the first prominent thinker to emphasize the biological aspect of love and its significance for human existence.⁵ Before Charles Darwin formulated his theories of evolution, Schopenhauer was already asserting that love is a powerful biological force essential to the success and survival of the human species. With his “will to live” paradigm, Schopenhauer identified love as a basic instinct with the purpose of facilitating reproduction. These concepts introduced biology as an important underlying mechanism for humans’ feelings and expression of love.

Charles Darwin is best known for formulating the scientific theory of evolution. In this context, his paradigm of the “survival of the fittest” has often been interpreted to mean the “survival of the strongest and most powerful.” In recent years, scientists have taken a closer look at Darwin’s later work, which deals specifically with human evolution. In his book The Descent of Man, Darwin argued that morality and conscience are the most important factors in human evolution.⁶ He concluded that empathy and other social instincts are rooted in biology, generating the basis of morality. Love and morality provide a survival advantage for our species by fostering and strengthening bonds between humans, leading to better protection of their offspring. Darwin acknowledged that he overstated the effect of the egotistic human drive in his earlier work, whereas in fact both selfish and altruistic instincts are in play in the process of evolution.

The twentieth century witnessed the fusion of evolutionary concepts of love with an emphasis on psychology, early childhood development, and sexuality, particularly among Sigmund Freud and his followers.⁷ Freud saw love predominantly as an expression of the sexual drive, a view that was consistent with the paradigm of reproduction as the underlying force in love. Psychology dominated the thinking on love for decades to come, exploring the motivations for love and romantic relationships.

In the 1950s, Erich Fromm drew a categorical distinction between falling in love and actual love (see chapter 1). He viewed love as a deliberate construct of the mind, one that requires effort and focus: that is, an art. He theorized that love is a response to humans’ innermost fear, that of loneliness. By facilitating union between people, love provides the remedy to our anxiety about human separation and awareness of our mortality. Fromm’s theory of love is based on both psychological theory and religion.

In his 1973 book Colours of Love, John A. Lee expands on categories of love formulated by the ancient Greeks: eros (passionate love), ludus (game-playing love), storge (friendship), pragma (practical love), mania (possessive, dependent love), and agape (altruistic love).⁸ The psychologist Robert Sternberg proposed a “triangle theory of love,” consisting of intimacy, passion, and commitment.⁹ Lee and Sternberg, however, describe patterns and components of relationships but not love itself. Love may be an important element in relationships, but other factors influence the dynamics of interpersonal bonds.

All these discussions of love through the centuries agree on some basic points. We refer to love in a number of ways: as an intense longing for another person that is associated with a highly euphoric state and a strong drive for connection and intimacy; as a passionate desire for physical closeness and sexual activity; and as a selfless concern for the contentment of others that may vary in intensity, ranging from benevolence toward neighbors and friends to, in its highest form, a feeling of mystical or spiritual union, that is, love of God or the divine. Over time, we have come to give more weight to the biological and psychological explanations of love than to religious theories.

Today, we can also bring the tools of neuroscience and endocrinology to bear on questions about how we perceive and experience love. Given the extreme complexity of the human brain and nervous system, we are only now starting to understand how our emotions, thoughts, and perceptions are directly related to the integrity, performance, and coordination of our nervous system. With modern brain imaging techniques, many thought processes can be located in specific areas in the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques can now identify areas of the brain that are associated with different emotional states.¹⁰ For example, we know which brain areas control fear, anxiety, and sadness, and we can modulate these responses using pharmaceuticals.

In recent decades, biomedical scientists have begun studying emotions that we commonly associate with romantic relationships, such as attraction, passion, and attachment. We know that an array of hormones influence mating and partnership behavior.¹¹ Studies demonstrate that different brain areas are active during early phases in a romantic partnership, such as the falling-in-love phase, than in long-term relationships.¹² Furthermore, these studies have found that distinct areas of the brain are active when people experience feelings of lust and attachment, indicating that these are different phenomena.¹³

It is now generally accepted that human behavior is largely motivated by basic instincts or drives. When we feel hungry, we are motivated to find food. When we are tired, we want to sleep. These brain imaging and hormone studies support the idea that sexual arousal, attachment, and love are distinct human drives.

Human drives evolved through natural selection over millions of years and serve the same purpose for all life: fostering the survival of the individual and the species. The evolutionary advantage of the human sex drive is easy to understand: it directly supports reproduction by allowing the combination of two people’s DNA to create progeny. The intense, obsessive focus on somebody with whom we fall in love promotes mating, as well as partnership for the most vulnerable period of the offspring’s life. Our egotistic impulses also make sense from an evolutionary perspective, as they promote our own well-being in order to allow procreation and to protect our children. By the same token, pronounced egotism, manifested in a strong drive for status and power, is still prevalent today because in the past it extended an advantage to individuals of high standing in a community, who could provide more resources and protection to their offspring. Consistent with Darwin’s theories, recent research on evolutionary history has revealed that the association of social status and reproductive success weakened with human development and socialization.¹⁴ At the same time, empathy and love have become more powerful forces for human expansion.¹⁵

Is love as I define it here — the urge and continuous effort for another person’s happiness and well-being — also an evolutionary drive? A strong argument can be made that it is. Human brain imaging studies suggest that love is associated with numerous brain activities and tightly woven into our neural reward system.¹⁶ Loving somebody activates brain areas that stimulate the production of hormones eliciting pleasant sensations and contentment. Love facilitates commitment in partnerships and provides a supporting structure for procreation. Love for our children is critical in nurturing them to reproductive age and providing them with the knowledge necessary for survival. Not surprisingly, love for our children is deeply rooted in us and is often described as the easiest, most naturally occurring love.

In addition, love fosters relationships and communities within our species and has likely been instrumental in the proliferation of the human race.¹⁷ By forming large groups, humans have been able to defend themselves against predators and hostile environmental conditions, locate and secure food sources, and support one another in times of illness or injury. Within these groups, love has been instrumental to peaceful cohabitation and a comforting force for people enduring sickness, wars, and other hardships. At the same time, peaceful cohabitation has allowed different populations to exchange knowledge, which has led to advancements in crafts, sciences, and medicine.

Instincts and drives ultimately serve the purpose of promoting the species’ survival. Some do so by supporting the individual, such as hunger, thirst, and aggression; others, such as the sex drive, work directly to foster population growth without promoting the individual’s survival. In contrast, love supports the human species’ survival by directly serving both the population and the individual. People with loving characteristics find it easier to build relationships and social alliances that provide protection for themselves and their progeny. Living in loving relationships is associated with better health and survival.¹⁸

The impulse for love seems to stand in opposition to other evolutionary human drives, such as aggression, egotism, and pursuit of power, which are directed toward self-preservation. In other words, love, despite conveying some benefits to the individual, appears to be largely aimed at directly preserving the species. The drive of love competes with and may even supersede the instinct of self-preservation. Consider a person whose family is caught in a burning house. The person is well aware of the risk of perishing in the flames, but many, if not most, of us would still try to enter the house to rescue our loved ones. We all know stories of people drowning or freezing to death while trying to save other people. From an evolutionary point of view, the fact that love trumps survival in these incidents is intuitive, because the drive for preserving the species (represented by fellow humans in danger) should be stronger than the survival impulse of the individual, if both are at risk. When people risk their lives to save others, we consider them heroes, not fools. Our intuitive admiration for self-sacrificing people may indicate that certain structures in our brain are wired to reward such acts, ultimately prioritizing the species over the individual.

From the standpoint of evolutionary biology, then, we might conclude that love is merely one of many human impulses geared to preserve the human species. This view is supported by evidence from research in other primates that show behavior similar to that of humans in loving relationships.¹⁹ But why does love feel so important to us? Why is it among the first things anybody wishes for? Why does it even trump our desire for power, which provides a strong, proven evolutionary advantage?

The answer, again, may be quite sobering and mundane: the impulse for love is associated with more lasting and more pleasant feedback from the reward centers in the brain than other impulses are. A burst of aggression and the associated surges of adrenaline may cause brief feelings of empowerment and strength, but after these fleeting sensations subside, we typically feel empty and even remorseful. Many common activities, such as eating and sex, are associated with the blood hormones that induce euphoric feelings, but their effect is transient also. We tend to engage in these activities repeatedly to gain recurrent satisfaction, but they will never provide sustained contentment. On the contrary, allowing our self-serving impulses to prevail may cause dissatisfaction because they preoccupy our mind until they are satisfied. Particularly in Buddhism, desire is identified as the root cause of human suffering and dissatisfaction. Even the fulfillment that derives from powerful social status does not grant lasting satisfaction, as it typically comes with a desire for even greater standing and fear of loss of status. Conversely, allowing love to prevail and to steer our actions is associated with feelings of deep, sustained contentment and satisfaction, the sensations connected with lasting happiness.

Through natural selection, our brain has developed a system for rewarding certain impulses that support the individual’s survival. These typically result in short-term pleasure and gratification. It appears, however, that the satisfaction from controlling self-serving instincts and responding to our drive to love supersedes that of all other impulses — not necessarily providing maximum euphoria but leading to lasting contentment. Once again, this outcome is logical from an evolutionary perspective, as love promotes both the survival of the individual and that of the species.

An impulse that preserves the individual is important, but it is overtaken by a drive that is even more critical for the survival of the species. Thus, the drive to love receives the greatest reward from our brain. Rewarding the process of rejecting self-serving impulses (rather than allowing them to prevail for short-term satisfaction) results in sensations of contentment.

In practice, both self-serving and altruistic impulses are instrumental in fostering the species’ survival. The key concept of life is balance. An individual who ignores instincts for self-preservation is likely to perish prematurely; on the other hand, someone who behaves unlovingly risks social isolation (and lack of protection). Given the reward system of our brain, we are most closely aligned with our biology — receiving reinforcement for our behavior through sensations of contentment — if we focus our thoughts and actions on love while conceding to other impulses only as far as is necessary to sustain ourselves. Philosophical and spiritual conceptions of love as the vehicle that helps us achieve our destiny or natural state of grace follow analogous reasoning.

I have discussed why we love and why love is important to humans. But why do we love some people and not others? Fromm proposed that anybody can love anybody, as long as a person dedicates sufficient effort to loving. Most of us, however, do not love everybody equally. It is obvious why we love our children: there is a strong biological bond from the day they were born or even before. This love is effortless and powerful, typically lasting as long as we live. Understanding why we can love a stranger, a person we have never met before, is less intuitive. Physical attraction often triggers an initial interest in an individual, but it serves only as an opportunity for developing love.

Love at first sight is a misnomer, because while we may become infatuated with a new acquaintance (I avoid the phrase falling in love here to avoid the confusion with love, which is discussed in chapter 1) based on superficial information, such as physical appearance, we really don’t know the person. We essentially fall in love with our perception of this person (usually based on our own hopes and desires), which may or may not be confirmed by longer acquaintance. To truly love somebody, on the other hand, typically requires us to get to know a person. It is not accidental that many successful romantic relationships arise in situations where individuals spend a lot of time together: at work, in social clubs, and so on. Through knowledge of a person we may identify the true beauty of that person, something valuable that we want to preserve, protect, and nurture.

Many great thinkers have described the recognition of the transcendent nature of love. Plato surmised that loving a person — in the true, ideal sense — connects us with supreme beauty. Like many after him (including Fromm), Plato believed that only a few — after realizing the superficial nature of physical attraction and after freeing ourselves from the constraints of self-centered thoughts — are capable of reaching this highest state of love. The ideal lover, according to Plato, has gained deep insights into the human existence through knowledge and contemplation, which enable the lover to perceive an absolute, eternal beauty in the beloved. The nature of this eternal beauty remains open to interpretation.

Going back to biology, love may entail the recognition of goodness in a person. This goodness or beauty, which may be demonstrated by habits such as kindness, thoughtfulness, and compassion toward others, is a reflection of the goodness in humanity. As these characteristics are favorable for maintaining the species, this makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view. Unconscious or conscious recognition of these characteristics in a person may trigger the genetically determined response of what we perceive as love: a strong feeling of affection and the desire to care for this person. Neuroscientists believe the perception of beauty stems from the physical proximity of the brain areas responsible for processing concepts of love and beauty.²⁰ The recognition of this goodness also affects how the unique characteristics of a person, such as personality and appearance, are viewed. We love the individual person with his or her idiosyncrasies, even though true love itself may be universal.

A broader interpretation of the ideal lover’s recognition of beauty in the beloved — and likely closer to Plato’s idea — is that it brings awareness of the wonder of life itself and, with that, awe for its creator. In loving, the lover perceives the uniqueness of the beloved and, by extension, the uniqueness of all life. We perceive uniqueness as closely related to preciousness and beauty, and, intuitively, we feel the urge to protect what we perceive as treasured. It also becomes intuitive why philosophers and spiritual leaders argue that ideal love extends to all life. Fromm believed that a person who does not hold love for all people is not capable of loving any person. The connection between ideal love and spirituality is also easy to understand in this context. If we indeed recognize the beauty in one person as a reflection of the beauty of all life, we are only a short step from applying concepts found in religion, such as the precept to love everybody. Like spiritual and religious practices, the practice of ideal love requires discipline, devotion, and focus, which explains why it is not commonly achieved.

The recognition of beauty is linked to the perception of rarity or uniqueness, but in order to perceive and value someone’s distinctive qualities, we generally need to appreciate that person’s nature. This explains why we may find it easy to dislike people on the basis of a superficial acquaintance but grow to appreciate them when we spend time together. Fusing our appreciation for somebody’s goodness and uniqueness likely increases our perception of beauty in that person.

Ideal love depends on the ability of the lover to perceive the beauty in another person. One person may recognize beauty and uniqueness in somebody, while another may not. Again, it is easier to recognize the unique goodness in people when we know them well. This may be one reason why parental love is so strong. As parents, we typically know our children better than anybody else does, and we see goodness in them while others may not. Remarkably, we can focus on this goodness even if our children have obvious character flaws or when they misbehave. Mothers of murderers may still love their children, regardless of their crimes.

Conversely, a person ceases to love if he or she becomes unable to discern any sign of goodness or beauty in somebody. This, too, is a matter of perception — or, rather, of our inability to recognize goodness. Spiritual figures such as the Buddha and Jesus recognized the goodness in all people, which, to them, never ceased to exist. To such masters of love, whether they are religious or secular in their views, the very existence of a person is sufficient to warrant love: they see and value the individuality, the uniqueness, in each person. Thus, their love is eternal for all individuals, even those with many flaws. Very few of us are capable of this ideal form of love: we are distracted by people’s faults and imperfections. As a result, we tend to restrict our love to only a small number of people — which touches the roots of a fundamental human problem.

Since recognizing goodness and unique beauty in a person depends on our perceptive abilities, individuals come to different conclusions as to who is worthy of love. Typically, someone who displays hostility and aggression will not be perceived as lovable unless a person sees beyond these attributes and recognizes other qualities. Because discerning hostility appeals to the strong impulse of self-preservation, it can be a difficult habit to overcome. To love our enemies, as Jesus taught, may elevate us to a transcendent state entirely free of doubts and struggles, but it is a practice that is difficult to sustain in contemporary society. Ironically, extremely selfless people tend to be marginalized in Western societies because they often resist conforming to society’s norms and pressures. Unless we are willing to live a shorter (albeit potentially happier) life or are willing to tolerate marginalization, we will not feel love toward people who seem to be trying to harm us.

The challenge for most of us is finding the balance between extending love to others and identifying individuals who would take advantage of our love. Ideally, we extend our love as far as we can while still being able to successfully navigate our lives. Success, of course, is subject to wide interpretation, and to some it may simply mean not dying prematurely. Limiting our love may help with a career in a power-driven society, but it is also likely to prevent us from experiencing true, lasting contentment. Spending too much time in the pursuit of material wealth is known to be linked to lower levels of happiness.²¹

Although we readily recognize a focus on money or power as selfish, it is possible to see loving as selfish, too. Those who reject the idea of selfless love like to point out that there are obvious rewards for focusing on love. Indeed, the constellation of motives for loving is interesting. Devoting ourselves to the art of loving with the intent of advancing our own happiness is arguably self-serving. However, as soon as we engage in loving — in its true sense, without seeking reciprocity — we are behaving selflessly. If we don’t behave selflessly, we are not truly loving. Therefore, while our initial intention to love may be motivated by the pursuit of our own happiness, the act of loving, by definition, has to be a selfless act. It is a (positive) Catch-22. Even if people initially engage in loving for their own benefit, they benefit only if they act in a truly loving manner (and then — ironically — pay no attention to the rewards). Thus the argument of “psychological egoism” is insufficient to explain or describe ideal love.

Despite the prevalence of the idea of mutual romantic love, reciprocity can never be a condition of love itself. The loving person loves the beauty and goodness in people without asking or needing to be loved in return. Reciprocity is important for relationships, but not for the existence of love as an independent phenomenon. Love does, however, benefit both the lover and those who are loved.

In practice, these contemplations are of only semantic relevance. When we love, we don’t have the option of being selfish. We don’t love in order to attain happiness: instead, we attain happiness as the result of freeing ourselves from jealousy, greed, and selfishness. We love because we recognize goodness and beauty in an individual, and, through that person, the goodness and beauty in all of humanity — and indeed in any life. We also love ourselves, not because we are powerful or smart but because we are part of the same goodness and beauty.

Can we speak of love when referring to our affection for animals or other living things? In English we use the word love liberally to express a range of emotions and attachments — but are these the same as our love for people? Following the definition of love in this book — the urge and continuous effort for the happiness and well-being of somebody or something — we can speak of loving our pets and other animals if we experience the desire and determination to see them joyful and healthy. It may be difficult to accept somebody’s affection for a dog as love when the human is merely providing food. On the other hand, somebody who spends hours a day with a dog — going beyond regular care to provide the mental and physical nourishment for the optimal development of a pet — shows persuasive signs of love. As in human relationships, we gain delight from experiencing the happiness and well-being of animals. Consistent with the general principle of love, we recognize goodness and uniqueness in them that we seek to nurture and protect. A similar case can be made for strong, dedicated affection for any life.