Lazy Luddite Log

14.2.12

Fewer Words More Talk

This blog entry had its genesis at both a party and while sitting on public transport. A party conversation some months ago provided the subject matter and my reminiscing on that conversation while sitting on the train recently produced what I think is a novel response to the problem of that conversation.

The topic was the old chestnut that we have too few words in English for love. An acquaintance I was chatting with declared this as a matter of regular frustration. There are many feelings and dispositions and decisions that are thrown into the cover-all term of love. This produces all sorts of confusions and - on matters personal - can result in much consternation and even conflict. I agreed that it would be nice if we had the however-many ancient Greek words for different kinds of love but I also suggested that there was another solution - defining our terms every time we need to.

It may take time and effort but conversations can be had in which all involved state how they define things. If something is as important as we say human relations are then we will invest in those conversations rather than allow confusion to develop. In fact I think this would be necessary even with more words.

Imagine we had ten words for love. Imagine a map of these loves arrayed in space. Now imagine that something you are feeling falls annoyingly into a space in the constellation of loves between three of the named coordinates. You have to talk anyway! Will this happen or do we suppose that ten words will cover every kind of positive-attachment-motivating scenario that everyone will experience ever? I suspect that talk is useful however many words we may devise.

And we do try and devise new words or re-use old ones. Consider the invention by a psychologist in the 1970s of the term limerence. Personally I think infatuation will do but one could argue that. Still we can and do have lots of words we can use alone or in combination like admiration, affection, attraction (a lot of them seem to be alliterative)

This I was pondering on the train and I admit I was nodding off. It had been a long working week and the slanting sunlight of a late summer afternoon was playing with me. I think what follows is a pretty cool concept but you may think otherwise. If discussion ensues then my half-baked notion may get fully cooked.

It can be good to have just one word for love because what all the loves have in common is the thing that is most worth focusing on. That one thing is that anyone we feel love for matters to us. The quality of our interactions with them become important to us. And we will care for what happens to them. Love provokes compassion. In saying this I am revisiting my Mammalian Morality concept.

If the bottom-line of close connection is caring for what impact we have on others then communication in everyday language will facilitate that. There is a practical problem however - talk can be difficult. We tend to hold back. Saying things can be scary and we cannot be sure that the response we provoke from autonomous persons will be what we hoped for.

I do think that saying stuff gets better with experience. Mind you - every time I jump into a pool I still get a momentary thrill but by the time I am over the water I cannot do anything but fall in. Opening your mouth and saying something can be a very similar experience.

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1 Comments:

  • I'm copying and pasting comments to this same post from LiveJournal (complete with messy formatting text). See below...

    (no subject) - mawaridi

    From: originaluddite
    Date: February 15th, 2012 08:30 pm (local)
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    There was an animated sequence on Sesame Street in my childhood in which two characters discuss love. One of them declares that he loves icecream. The other disputes this by saying that love is some super-dooper feeling or something and so on and so forth. The first character agrees and then proceeds to say he still loves icecream. You reminded me of that.

    And your examples show that there are more loves than even my umbrella of caring and mattering. Mind you what if the thing we love about icecream is what it represents or reminds us of? Sunny days of fun and freedom spent with loved-ones? I am of course stretching things to make them fit.

    I do get what you are saying that we all may use words differently and also experience the things they signify differently. We all live solely in our own skulls and so communication is a difficult task. And then we also use different tools to communicate. I am very wordy but am told it can be difficult to interpret my non-verbal signals.

    Finally I worry that my post is a bit lecturing from someone who thinks they communicate well. Demonstrably my history shows that my communication has had its shortcomings. I hope it is more taken as a prompting of discussion than as any sort of final word.

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    (no subject) - nouv_ella

    From: originaluddite
    Date: February 15th, 2012 08:18 pm (local)
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    I do think - in practical as well as philosophical conversations - that many conflicts arise in part from confusion and it is best to dispense with those in order to see if there is any substantive differences. Sometimes however there will be differences and _then_ the disputation can start!

    Also

    What is love
    Baby don't hurt me
    Don't hurt me
    No more
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    From: pezzae
    Date: February 16th, 2012 08:58 pm (local)
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    (As with everything these days, your post makes me think of B...)
    It's really interesting hearing a toddler's concept of 'love'. I was so happy I almost melted the first time she sleepily said to me 'B_ love mummy'. Now she regularly proclaims that she loves mummy, daddy, her grandparents, her grandparents' dogs, her carers at creche, her soft toys, the imaginary dragon we tell her stories about, the picture of a cat on one of her toys... her concept of 'love' is clearly related to mine, but not the same! She is very compassionate/empathetic though, and will cry if she sees someone get hurt (even in a book). So maybe she really does love everyone?
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    From: originaluddite
    Date: February 17th, 2012 11:13 am (local)
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    All the things you list are, in a sense, persons or the representations of persons. They all can certainly be invested with personality in the perceptions, so possibly the difference between your conception of love and hers is smaller than you think. Maybe Bridie has lots of mirror nuerons, I topic I am hoping to read about and use in an SF short story sometime.
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    By Blogger Dan, At 09 May, 2017  

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