Don't mind me, just being radical.
Lola Montez used cleavege, and she ruled!

I hate love.
Discuss.

wonderful topic. care to provide some sort of basis on which to start a topicial discussion, or are you taking the piss out of someone.

Not really.

I want to glorify war and bloodlust and piss on 'luv'.
Perhaps you can give me a definition of what love is.

Have you ever been in love, my dear?
Tell me what that's like.

Well, just to contribute my view to this discussion/subject:

I do not care about love, not that I resent it, I just do not have a real concept of love. Whatever the reason, I have not felt those things that are commonly attributed to love, or identified as said emotion. So I cannot answer what it is like to be in love, nor can I understand the use of love.
Of course, you might say that love is not about usefulness, it is something metaphysical and so on. But really, I could not care less. If you want to go on and love, do so, but I will go on thinking that it is a ridiculous concept that has no use and entails an emotional and mental weakness and/or derangement.

For a definition, I would say that love is an imaginary concept, but I do not see the real purpose. It might be a form of protection for the weak.


War brings out the best and the worst in humans, so it can be quite useful. Without struggle humans degenerate, at least I think so. War is an interracial struggle that can serve as a form of natural selection, alas I would not acredit this to a modern war, with all the technology that gives power to the weak.

Love, from a technical standpoint, is frankly pointless. to put it finely.
The thin divding line between romance and love itself renders the concept meaningless in most situations, and, for you my dear:

love ( P ) Pronunciation Key (lv)
n.
A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

Sexual passion.
Sexual intercourse.
A love affair.
An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.

A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
Love Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
often Love Christianity. Charity.
Sports. A zero score in tennis.

i assume you were not referencing the tennis score bit.

Emotional weakness? yes, thats the sort of point.
An intense emotional attachment
attachment = sentimental value i.e. weakness for that particular emotion / stimulator of emotion. dont take the word 'weakness' the wrong way with this.
Mental weakness.... necessary for the definition, see emotional weakness.

imaginary concept
that doesnt mean its wrong nor meaningless becuase of.
however, your argument is true.

War brings out the best and the worst in humans, so it can be quite useful. Without struggle humans degenerate, at least I think so. War is an interracial struggle that can serve as a form of natural selection, alas I would not acredit this to a modern war, with all the technology that gives power to the weak.

Moral degeneration, and Physical values are also degraded. never lost, nor destroyed, but tarnished no doubt. during war, many things are tarnished but the presence of evil brings out the good. perhaps its just the contrast though.....

Well, I do not really think in the terms "good" and "evil", rather in "weak" and "strong". And those are definitely seperated in war. (not in regard to the exception I made above)

Also, many things are destroyed in a war, "bad" and "good" things alike (depends on the scale of the war) and new things arise. It is a kind of evolution.

...imaginary concept...
that doesnt mean its wrong nor meaningless becuase of.
however, your argument is true.

I know that it does not render the concept of love wrong nor meaningless, but it shows that love obviously lacks a definite basis.

meh, i need sleep. continue sunday. away saturday. sleep.

I think love, being an emotion...and hence subjective that it can mean whatever any person would like it to be. It is true that being an emotion it is not rational. But then again, I believe all emotions to be this way including anger/hate, fear, sadness et. al.

Whether or not a person "needs" love...well that is a silly notion as well. In the same way that someone says I NEED a cigarette...well you don't, you just want one. Although a lot of people associate love to mean in love...as they are in love with someone or an idea.. yeah ok but usually I term that infatuation especially if it is all a person can think about... or obsession--- you know those high school girls that go all ga ga over some boy in class. The whole "I found my soulmate" crap is just that.

I do believe you can feel love for someone without being completly senseless. It is just not this huge fairy feeling. The arguement that it is weak or makes one weak would depend on how it is employed, in my opinion. If it is a factor that controls you, yes it is a weakness. Just the same as if your anger, sadness or fear controlled you.

Love does not have to mean you blindly follow someone or feel like the world will end without them or them in it. That is just silly...what I would think is an under developed emotional reaction.

The thing I wonder...is since it is what it is why do people try to figure it out? Is it so they can try to feel it or try to not feel it? They aren't sure if they have felt it? I don't think anyone can even begin to describe a deep feeling to someone else and have that other person understand it completely.

I have love in my life...though I don't go on about it usually and public displays of affection make me want to vomit. In actuality I love everything and why not? It sure doesn't take as much energy as hating everything does. :p

Its fucking sad how so many of you think love is weakness, a disease. Quite amusing to see the lot of you sit behind screens and wax on about how one your primary emotions is a weakness, a comfort for the weak.

Love isn't a blotch on humanity....it is the driving force of humanity. No not the dreamy, rosey, images of couples hand in hand walking on beach but LOVE....the fuel, the passion, the curiosity, the madness, the evil, the character building force which drive men to their deaths or to great power.

Love in it's most primal form is unyielding desire. It takes precedence even over anger and fear when at it's best.....how is that not the most empowering and beautiful thing known to man?? To rid one's self of petulent fears and contempt because the desire for that someone or something gives you more discipline and confidence than you ever imagined. Passion, jealously, discord, war, blood all shed in the name of love and you claim it to be a weakness. I find it to be the opposite, love is more stronger and harrowing in it's cause then we'd like it to be.

My main problem with love, and upon reading the other love thread I find the others also seem to share this, is that how love is percieved by society or more rather the punching bag of all societies: The Western society. Taking a primal, raw, emotion and turning it into a sickening display of public effection (which doesn't bother me too much) and confused, whiny idiots who seem to want to tell you about their discontent with love.

Like religion, the problem with love is it's followers....They just muck up the whole experience for you and the only thing worse than that is prudent people denying themselves the pure unadulterated joy the emotion love can bring simply because everyone around you has turned the concept into a joke.

Marquis de Sade constantly defying authority for his writing was love. Vlad impaling his own people, living people in the name of god was love....wandering love? yes, but love.....and none of them ever came across a hallmark card.

I suppose that depends on how you define love. For the sake of communication I will use the common definition, as found in the Cambridge Dictionary. It resembles the one Unsound already gave, but it cannot hurt to post it:


Love (Like Someone)

verb:
-to have strong feelings of affection for another adult and be romantically and sexually attracted to them, or to feel great affection for a friend or person in your family

noun:
-strong feelings of attraction towards, and affection for, another adult, or great affection for a friend or family member
-a person that you love and feel attracted to

Love (Like Something)

verb:
-To like something very much:
She loves animals.
I absolutely love chocolate.
He really loves his job.
-would love used, often in requests, to say that you would very much like something

noun:
-strong liking for
-something that you like very much



This is the basic definition of love. I will built the rest of my argument on this.

So, love is the strongest emotion and more of an advantage rather than a weakness? I would say that fear is the strongest emotion, and the most basic one. It is an essential part of our being and I think that it can very well overwhelm love and hate.
Love and hate probably are connected in some way, since they are two extremes. Love means to like something very much, hate is to dislike something very much. Boths emotions are subjective and are very similar in how they are applied. As a result I do not see such a great distinction between them. Also, I would say that both are equal in their strengh, but they are built on fear.
-You like things that are good for you, which means that they give you comfort.
-You hate things which are bad for you, which means that you fear those things in a way.

->Result: I think that fear, being the basic emotion, was developed into two distinct emotions. Perhaps an indication for human evolution/degenration. But it seems to be an illusional concept, since fear is seen as a weakness in most societies, love and hate might have developed to obscure the existence of fear, making humans look better in their own eyes and those of others.

From this, I obviously draw the conclusion that fear is the most important and strongest emotion, and it is the cause for most human developments, ideas, concepts and so on. Also, love, just like hate, is not a definite thing, each human being morphs it into the shape he/she finds most fitting, making it enormously subjective. It seems possible that both concepts are just an illusion, or a self-delusion created to enable a human to conform with our perverted social structures. So, if you want to cling to bastardized fear, do so, I do not care.

EDIT:
I nearly forgot the subject "weakness".

Love and hate can weaken a person because it can infringe on the subjects mental state. Some people have cultivated their love to an extend where it threatens to overrule rational thought or in some serious cases even fear. This normally results in an unnatural behaviour that can be very contraproductive to personal health. Furthermore, since love can be perverted quite easily (because it is very amorhpous) it can cause a great deal of distress and misery. The same is true for hate.
And I do not think that this is an kind of strenght.

I think only fear is really existent and also useful. To not live in constant fear you simply have to vanquish the source of fear, or die in the attempt. That is the very basis of society.

Not really.

I want to glorify war and bloodlust and piss on 'luv'.
Perhaps you can give me a definition of what love is.

Have you ever been in love, my dear?
Tell me what that's like.

Sweetie, love is -- and this is all the definition there is.

"Love" is a relational concept and does not exist as an object. There is no such thing as "my love" or "his love" -- there can be only "our love" or "their love".

It is esp. when it comes to emotions that the classical method of defining with a definiens~definiendum structure fails. But this is not because the concept that is being tried to define would be faulty; it is because the method used in trying to define it is inadequate. Those clinging on to rational definitions will never find a satisfactory rational definition of "love".

Here it must be noted that the things that steer our lives, our values and preferences, also don't have satisfactory rational definitions; they are simply there, as statements -- of the kind "I prefer apples over oranges".


Thus, love is one of those concepts that can be best grasped only with insight, from experience; and symbolized with art. However, even though this insight may be presented in an object, a picture or a statue or a mucisal piece, for example, this does not mean that this picture, statue or musical piece will either tell someone what love is, nor will they awake love in someone. What they can do though, is that they awake a longing, or offer a "recognition of a concept" for those who already know love.

What love is cannot be known ex ante.

I think love and hate are equally valuable. One for personal allies, one for personal foes.

Interesting take on it mesmorris. Although...I cannot hate. I've tried it many many times but cannot bring myself to it. To dislike someone/something very much, yes but cannot bring myself to hate. It seems to me...in the way that I perceive and/or feel love that hate may be the opposite of, but also that hate is something that simply takes too much emotion and/or energy and is usually not worth it. I mean really what do you get out of hate? A headache, clenched jaw...heartburn. I would imagine there are people in the world that find they feed off of hate so I suppose there is that. Personally, I have never had much use for it.

Personally, my hate is temporary. I get annoyed, am annoyed and get over it. I think evolutionarily however, hate served our predecessors well to defend their tribe(s).

Not being able to hate is definately a far greater weakness than not being able to love.
Truth be told I feel I am kind of weak in that regard. I'm not easily angered, I'm extremely tolerant, and this is definately a weakness. Luckily I make up for it with the ability to inflict pain on those I'm indifferent to without remorse.
I like to think this would compensate if I were a wild animal, I wouldn't be mad at the rival tribe for stealing quarry from my territory, but I would take them up on the excuse they offered me to brutally murder them and eat their children.
I'm not sure if that would really make up for it though. A hate reflex would be usefull. Being able to attack on a dime, being angered so much at a specific point in time that you can't control yourself. I don't get that. Nothing bothers me that much.
Like someone stole a tv, stereo and dvd player from my mother recently, I kicked his ass, but it felt like a chore. I had to do it because it was expected, it was expected I'd be furious and out for blood, but I really just wasn't that pissed off. My cousins who helped me do it(by their own request) were seriously angry that he had the audacity to rob their aunt, my mother, and to me he was just another lame guy like any other.
I'm too rational, I knew he was a drug addict loser who wasn't thinking straight and I'm just like "yeah it happens". Lowlifes rob people, I'm not outraged by the concept of that reality hitting close to home. Why wouldn't it? Why shouldn't it?
I enjoyed hurting him, as I would have had he been an innocent homeless man begging for mercy, but my heart wasn't in it. I want that rage.

I'm too rational to feel love as the mindless feel it too. You guys have your little discussions over whether love is just chemical or something more blah blah blah- there remains a sense of mystery.
But every second of every day I carry around the knowledge that love definately isn't magical. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I know its the little scoopy snack we get for forming the foundation of an offspring producing machine.
I can feel the emotions, but I simultaneously recognise whats actually happening in the biological sense.
Kind of sucks the fun out of it to say the least. I'll never feel love as heavily as I did as a 14 year old, that was crazy and engulfed every second of my life, every thought that popped into my head would be euphoric dreaming of a certain girl, yet this kind of puppy love is mocked by those who mindlessly experience adult love.
I'll never know why they mock because I'm too aware of the animal I am and my conscious mind is seperate from that, constantly analysing it.
If I ever had a wife I'd just have to laugh at myself for stumbling into the little trap nature set up for me. It wouldn't matter if the wife was perfect and life was excellent- the trap undoubtedly does feel good to be stuck in, that's kind of beside the point. It's still submitting to your role as a utensil, it's still undignifying, degrading and so on if you are aware of whats going on.
I envy the animals, including the homo sapien variety, for being able to fully experience nature's rewards in the ignorant, swept away-way she intended for them to be experienced.

It's what starry-eyed lovers whisper as they gaze at a Paris sunset, what 10-year-olds shout to their mothers as they sprint toward the already departing morning bus, and what teenage girls scream and squeal at their favorite Backstreet Boy. It's supposed to be the deepest level of emotional connection between people, yet society has transformed it into a pop-icon phrase to be screened onto glittery fuchsia tank tops and written inside Hallmark cards with pastel kittens and butterflies dancing on the cover. The phrase, of course, is "I love you."

But what could be wrong with overusing such a positive phrase? It seems there is so much hate in the world that "I love you" would be a breath of fresh air. The more a phrase is used, however, the less meaningful it becomes. When a person really means it, the phrase is so overused that the extraordinary meaning is lost.

Should the words used to describe my relationship with my grandmother be the same I use to address my French fries? I think not. And what about the lovey- dovey teenagers who cry out "I love you" during every class break while adoringly staring into each other's eyes, yet never understand the meaning of the words they say?

The phrase "I love you" should be left only for those who fully comprehend and appreciate it, not for those with a two-week infatuation.

But how can we change the way this message is used, and the superficial meaning it has received? It's not about allowing our hormones to speak for us or using the words carelessly. It's about using the expression only when we have a truly special bond with someone. These words should only be used with someone whom we cherish and who can acknowledge the amazing union we have together. Otherwise, the meaning will be lost forever.



http://www.teenink.com/Past/2001/November/CollegeEssays/ILoveYou.html

I see that a lot of u have tried convincing yourself that love is useless. By doing that, u are going against evolution theory and we all know what happens when u try and do that right?! Why would such a powerful emotion like love evolve if it were useless?

Animals have evolved and became extinct because they have evolved in the wrong direction or because they could not adapt to changes...


DrLou
I can understand why you did not really get angry at the guy who robbed your mother, I think the same would have happened with me. But I would say that he did not steal something important, so there was no real threat to life or health of the robbed one. As a result, I could not evaluate this person as important enough to really hate.
At least that's the way I see it.

Animals have evolved and became extinct because they have evolved in the wrong direction or because they could not adapt to changes...

Are you hereby implying that those who do not adapt to the idea that "love is for the weak" will eventually become extinct, because the majority (those like you) believes in the idea that "love is for the weak"?

Also, there is no such thing as a "wrong" or "right" direction (except when it comes to certain extremes). Only after a certain process has been accomplished and finished, can it be determined whether an agent's actions were wrong or right. We cannot in advance say, with complete surety, what is right and what is wrong for a certain situation.

Of course, there is the mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecies: If people like you go on proclaiming that love is for the weak and weak is bad, love will indeed become stigmatized as something bad and thus shunned. This way, later on when looking back, those who did love will certainly seem to have made the wrong decisions in pursuing love, and it will seem as if you were right.

No, I do not mean it that way, it was intended to be an answer to this sentence:

Why would such a powerful emotion like love evolve if it were useless?

Animals have evolved and became extinct because they have evolved in the wrong direction or because they could not adapt to changes...

Haha, oh my God. I need to be around scientists again....quickly!
There is no such thing as evolution in the wrong direction. At least not in this argument. Evolution happens and ALWAYS leads to adaptations. Mutations can be advantageous or disadvantageous but evolution is always advantageous.

Now, the result of evolution might not be. If the environment changes then the result is disadvantageous, but the process was still advantageous.

If "Love" evolved it had to have been adaptive. I still believe it is!

Well, I was kinda aiming at the results... and how old would you say love is? 5000 years? 10000 years, that's not so long.

EDIT:
And sorry that I am not a scientist in the field of biology.