What do we mean by love and friendship and why do they matter?

Alicia: 1What do we mean by “love”?

Seo Young: I think we all know what we mean by love: romantic feelings, friendship, brotherhood, sisterhood.

Alicia: Yes, but the different languages have different words for love. In English, there is only one word, but the ancient Greeks had many words for love. We will concentrate on four.

Seo Young: Four words? What are they?

Alicia: They are Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity (or Gift-love).

Seo Young: Why is that important for us to know?

Alicia: Well, it is important because, although we all know what we mean by love to a lesser or greater degree, when we discuss controversial subjects involving humans relating to each other, we disagree because we do not realise that we are sometimes referring to different aspects of love to mean the same thing.

Seo Young: Yes, I love chocolate, I love my brother, my parents, my friends and dancing.

Alicia: Sometimes the different types of love can be confused even to the point of leading to emotional, ethical and psychological problems (and hence distinguishing the different types of love is of relevance to a debate on what is the truth about any situation).

Seo Young: Woah! Hold on! It sounds like you need a degree in psychology and emotional therapy before you can even begin to get to grips with what seems at a first a simple problem.

Alicia: Let me start by asking what you think of this quote: « Many a man desires unfailing love, but a faithful friend who can find? »

Seo Young: I think it means that everybody wants to be loved and desires that his or her friends remain faithful.

Alicia: To be loved is undoubtably the first and most important need of all human beings.

Seo Young: But how and by whom?

Alicia: That brings us to CS Lewis’ definition of the four loves: 

Seo Young: Which are again?

Alicia: The first is storgé which is “affection especially of parents to offspring” and“offspring to parents” (pronounced with a g as in good”).

Seo Young: Like I said, this would be “My parents love me, and I love my parents”.

Alicia: Yes, “Affection” also involves friendship between any two people or even between an owner and his pet dog!

Seo Young: Here is the quote on page 36 of the The Four Loves: “The truly wide taste in humanity will similarly find something to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity whom one has to meet every day. In my experience, it is affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who happen to be here”.

Alicia: And he continues by asking the question: “Are people made for us? “made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed”…………….

Sources:

1 Extracts from A. Adedapo “Metaphysical conversations: Practical Thinking skills for the 21st Century” pp240  Unpublished works 2020. © Adeyemi ADEDAPO 2020

2 CS Lewis pte Ltd 1960 “The Four loves” Harper Collins Publishers pp30, 36, 58,59

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