On Love (and Desire)
This is a response piece I did for my class last quarter, on Tracey Moffatt's video, "Love".
Playing on the cliche phrase of "Love and hate are two sides of the same coin", Tracey Moffatt's video piece, Love, shows various Hollywood movie scenes mashed up together to form a commentary on the constructed roles of heterosexual cinema couples.
One can easily see the rigid gender roles, cliched emotions and reactions in the video piece, but perhaps the more interesting conversation does not lie within the realm of how love is prescribed and depicted by Hollywood, but rather questioning of whether or not love is depicted at all in the sequence, that what is depicted is desire rather than love. (That is eros rather than agape).
By presenting this idea we are place upon ourselves the burden of defining what is love and what is desire? Love can be defined in many ways, the Greeks had different words for different types of love, eros for the passionate love, full of desire and longing; philia, which Aristotle defined as the love one has for their family, friends, and community; and agape, used in Ancient Greek times as the love stemming from affection, such as a love for one's wife. In the famous love chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, the form of love that is described is agape.(1) In this chapter love is described in various ways, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Cor 13:4-7). Love is not based upon the idea of desire through attraction, be it physical or otherwise. In fact, love is not equated to any form of desire, it is seemingly free of ego, it is there for the other rather than the self. Thus, in the Hollywood depiction of couples, the love between the man and the woman is intertwined with the taint of desire, the love called eros. This is perhaps what allows the downfall of the relationship, turning the scenes of love quickly to scenes of hate and violence.
Then, what can one say about the subject of love, of eros? Philosophers from the ancient to modern times have tried to tackle the idea of love, explaining love, defining love, etc. Philosopher Jacques Derrida offered this commentary on love:
"Love is a question of who and what. Is love the love of someone or the love of some thing?
Suppose I love someone, do I love someone for the absolute singularity of who they are? i.e. I love you because you are you. Or do I love your qualities, your beauty, your intelligence?
Does one love someone, or does one love something about someone? The difference between the who and the what at the heart of love, seperates the heart. It is often said that love is the movement of the heart. Does my heart move because I love someone who is an absolute singularity, or because I love the way that someone is?
Often love begins with a type of seduction. One is attracted because the other is like this or like that. Inversely, love is disappointed and dies when one comes to realize the other person doesn't merit our love. The other person isn't like this or that. So at the death of love, it appears that one stops loving another not because of who they are but because they are such and such [a person].
That is to say, the history of love, the heart of love, is divided between the who and the what. The question of Being is divided into what is it 'to Be'? What is 'Being'? The question of 'Being' is itself always already divided between who and what. Is 'Being' someone or some thing? I speak of it abstractly, but I think that whoever starts to love, is in love, or stops loving, is caught between this division of the who and the what. One wants to be true to someone - singularly, irreplaceably - and one perceives that this someone isn't x or y. They didn't have the qualities, properties, the images, that I thought I'd loved. So fidelity is threatened by the difference between the who and the what."(2)
Taking Derrida's response on love, one can come to the conclusion that the love in the violent and less ideal couples were based not on loving the other as a singularity, but rather a something within the other. Thus, when the realization of the other not being the thing that the subject desires or loves, he or she is confronted with the split of the person (who) and the desired trait/thing/object/fantasy (what). This in turn forces the subject to confront this split, does one continue to love the person regardless, or does one continue to love only the qualities, to continue the desire for fantasy that the other can no longer embody? In further explanation of the latter decision, the subject may feel betrayed or wronged by the other for misleading or concealing their lack of the desired object; which may in turn lead to violence and hatred toward the other. Perhaps this is why depictions of violence and tenderness were shown together in the video piece titled Love, a commentary on the superficial desire of Hollywood's romances being sold as love to the cinema audiences, and a show of how desire fails to be a glue to hold a loving relationship between two people.
1. The New Testament was originally written in Greek.
2. http://blog.davidteoh.com/archives/2005/09/derrida_on_love.html (transcribed from the documentary Derrida)
Playing on the cliche phrase of "Love and hate are two sides of the same coin", Tracey Moffatt's video piece, Love, shows various Hollywood movie scenes mashed up together to form a commentary on the constructed roles of heterosexual cinema couples.
One can easily see the rigid gender roles, cliched emotions and reactions in the video piece, but perhaps the more interesting conversation does not lie within the realm of how love is prescribed and depicted by Hollywood, but rather questioning of whether or not love is depicted at all in the sequence, that what is depicted is desire rather than love. (That is eros rather than agape).
By presenting this idea we are place upon ourselves the burden of defining what is love and what is desire? Love can be defined in many ways, the Greeks had different words for different types of love, eros for the passionate love, full of desire and longing; philia, which Aristotle defined as the love one has for their family, friends, and community; and agape, used in Ancient Greek times as the love stemming from affection, such as a love for one's wife. In the famous love chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, the form of love that is described is agape.(1) In this chapter love is described in various ways, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Cor 13:4-7). Love is not based upon the idea of desire through attraction, be it physical or otherwise. In fact, love is not equated to any form of desire, it is seemingly free of ego, it is there for the other rather than the self. Thus, in the Hollywood depiction of couples, the love between the man and the woman is intertwined with the taint of desire, the love called eros. This is perhaps what allows the downfall of the relationship, turning the scenes of love quickly to scenes of hate and violence.
Then, what can one say about the subject of love, of eros? Philosophers from the ancient to modern times have tried to tackle the idea of love, explaining love, defining love, etc. Philosopher Jacques Derrida offered this commentary on love:
"Love is a question of who and what. Is love the love of someone or the love of some thing?
Suppose I love someone, do I love someone for the absolute singularity of who they are? i.e. I love you because you are you. Or do I love your qualities, your beauty, your intelligence?
Does one love someone, or does one love something about someone? The difference between the who and the what at the heart of love, seperates the heart. It is often said that love is the movement of the heart. Does my heart move because I love someone who is an absolute singularity, or because I love the way that someone is?
Often love begins with a type of seduction. One is attracted because the other is like this or like that. Inversely, love is disappointed and dies when one comes to realize the other person doesn't merit our love. The other person isn't like this or that. So at the death of love, it appears that one stops loving another not because of who they are but because they are such and such [a person].
That is to say, the history of love, the heart of love, is divided between the who and the what. The question of Being is divided into what is it 'to Be'? What is 'Being'? The question of 'Being' is itself always already divided between who and what. Is 'Being' someone or some thing? I speak of it abstractly, but I think that whoever starts to love, is in love, or stops loving, is caught between this division of the who and the what. One wants to be true to someone - singularly, irreplaceably - and one perceives that this someone isn't x or y. They didn't have the qualities, properties, the images, that I thought I'd loved. So fidelity is threatened by the difference between the who and the what."(2)
Taking Derrida's response on love, one can come to the conclusion that the love in the violent and less ideal couples were based not on loving the other as a singularity, but rather a something within the other. Thus, when the realization of the other not being the thing that the subject desires or loves, he or she is confronted with the split of the person (who) and the desired trait/thing/object/fantasy (what). This in turn forces the subject to confront this split, does one continue to love the person regardless, or does one continue to love only the qualities, to continue the desire for fantasy that the other can no longer embody? In further explanation of the latter decision, the subject may feel betrayed or wronged by the other for misleading or concealing their lack of the desired object; which may in turn lead to violence and hatred toward the other. Perhaps this is why depictions of violence and tenderness were shown together in the video piece titled Love, a commentary on the superficial desire of Hollywood's romances being sold as love to the cinema audiences, and a show of how desire fails to be a glue to hold a loving relationship between two people.
1. The New Testament was originally written in Greek.
2. http://blog.davidteoh.com/archives/2005/09/derrida_on_love.html (transcribed from the documentary Derrida)