From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jun 28 2003 - 19:22:48 BST
Hi Steve, all,
> Sam, I was a bit surprised that you would go along with putting personal
> romantic love above compassion which I see as Christian love. The Jesus
> depicted in the gospels never indulged in romantic love, for example. Was he
> missing out on the highest level of human love?
Sam says:
You've confused the language that I tried to set out in my post to Rick, ie levels 2 to 4 of love
were classed as eros - agape - amor (ie lust, compassion, personal love). I deliberately didn't use
the word 'romantic' for lots of reasons, but primarily because it raises lots of confusions. The
example of Jesus brings those confusions out clearly: I would dispute that Jesus never had a level 4
love, quite strongly (for the most direct argument against it, think of 'the disciple whom Jesus
loved' in John's gospel, but there are many others, eg Magdalen). That he didn't have a romantic
love is much more likely, but that's irrelevant to whether he had a *personal* love in the sense
we're talking about. I think we may disagree about what Christianity involves BTW. To my mind 'love
they neighbour as thyself' requires the sense of self.
<from another post>
I see a personality as a social pattern of value latched onto a biological
homo sapien through unconscious copying of behavior. As Pirsig clarified in
Lila's Child, a person who holds an idea is social while the idea itself is
intellectual. I think you want to put personalities on level 4 with your
Eudaimonia which I think is a mistake.
Sam says:
I'd rather not depend upon the word 'personality' too much, for reasons that I've mentioned to Rick.
I think that the 'autonomous individual', ie that which can respond to level 4 quality, is a
*character* built up of particular virtues, ie level 4 static latches. Character and personality are
similar but not identical. I don't agree with Pirsig on this (from what you say it means that an
idea is of more value than a person, which I think is totalitarian).
> I would also ask that you consider the following:
> Romantic love - lust = celebrity.
>
> The more I think about it, the more I think that when you remove sexuality
> from romantic love, what is left over is very much like the love we have for
> celebrities. This parallel of romantic love and celebrity lends support to
> personal romantic love as best describing a social level love and compassion
> as a non-personal 4th level love.
I think that's a very interesting line of thought. I'll ponder it some more.
Sam
"Phaedrus is fascinated too by the description of the motive of 'duty toward self' which is an
almost exact translation of the Sanskrit word 'dharma', sometimes described as the 'one' of the
Hindus. Can the 'dharma' of the Hindus and the 'virtue' of the Ancient Greeks be identical?" - The
Eudaimonic MoQ says yes. "Lightning hits!"
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