Problems Associated with the Idealization of Love Introduction

As Berardo and Owens point out, “sociologists agree that love is one of the most complex and elusive concepts to deal with from a scientific point of view” (1696). Yet, love is one of the driving forces in culture if not in all of history itself—if poets, artists, and cultural historians are to be any measure (Berardo and Owens). It is underlying current of interactions, of community life—even of fighting and of wars: its presence makes people come together, and its absence draws them apart or pits them at one another, sometimes in vicious and cruel ways. Love is practical and love is ideal and its dimensions and manifestations are as diversely imagined and seen as the history of the human race has been lived. However, with the idealization of love, the concept can often become situated in an unrealistic sphere that is hard or even impossible for people to understand, let alone put into practice. Love is not something that is meant to forever be out of one’s reach but rather something that one can exercise daily, even if only in small ways, in one’s own life. It is an attitude, a habit even, a manner of being that one expresses to others, to oneself and to God. Love that is idealized, however, can become blinding to the little realities that actually go into making love a possible and positive routine. Idealized love can cause people to actually lose sight of real love, which in practice is often far less romantic, far less picturesque, and far less poetic than idealized love. In the end, however, real love is the only kind of love that matters: the idealized sort is more of a device that can be used for any number of purposes related to the progenitor. This paper will show why idealized love is problematic as it distracts one from making real love (practical love) an everyday habit.

The Idealization of Love

The idealization of love can take many forms—it does not have to be thought of purely as an abstraction. That form exists, of course, and is represented both philosophically and poetically throughout time. However, sexual love can be idealized; emotional love can be idealized; platonic love can be idealized; spiritual love can be idealized. As Levine points out, there are at least “seven interlocking meanings of term love” (143) and each one helps to describe an aspect of love—whether it is spiritual, emotional, philanthropic, platonic, and so on. However, these terms or aspects of love can also be heightened or sensationalized beyond the bounds or reason. Love is not opposed to reason or out of touch with reason; it is not disconnected from reason nor is it always subject to reason. When some aspect of love is put on a pedestal as though it were something that exists all on its own and is not interconnected with the other aspects of love or with the reality of life in general, it has become idealized—and this idealization can be very dangerous because of the fact that it is divorced or disconnected from the reality of life. For example, in a relationship, love is a two-way street and demands mutuality—yet, as Lewis et al. note, “mutuality has tumbled into undeserved obscurity by the primacy our society places on the art of the deal” (208). The art of the deal might work in a business negotiation—but business has a totally different set of parameters than love: the aim of business is to make money—it is ultimately self-centered; the aim of love is other-centered: “the physiology of love is no barter” as Lewis et al. state—“love is simultaneous mutual regulation, wherein each person meets the needs of the other, because neither can provide for his own” (208). Lewis et al. place a utilitarian definition on this concept of love. Indeed, defining love is important, and that shall be discussed in the next section. For now, it is enough to realize...

For instance, a marriage that was entered into on the crest of idealized emotional love crashes into the rocks of everyday reality when the first fight breaks out and neither partner has a realistic view of the life of the emotions to understand how to react or bear the struggles with patience (a form of love), understanding (empathy—another form of love), or fortitude (courage in adversity—another form of love). Idealized sexual love also has its negative consequences when applied to real life: a person may be pursuing an idealized sex life that is simply impractical given the reality of every day human beings. The sex instinct is like every other human instinct or appetite and should be enjoyed in moderation—but when pursued exclusively in and of its own right, the effects can be detrimental to one’s health. In the end, the problem of idealized love is that it is simply unrealistic: “too many people spend their lives waiting to have what they expect is the pure feeling”—thinking that they cannot truly love unless that feeling is there (Levine 144). This is a mistake because this is an assumption based on an idealized concept of love. The reality is that love is a practice that proceeds from a principle—to love is action of the will. One wills love into being: one does not passively wait for it to happen or to find him. The expectation of a passive receiving of love, like getting a package in the mail, takes one’s will out of the equation. Love is dependent on the will.
The Habit of Love

The habit of love is that which is practiced every day, and just like any other habit it consists of routine thoughts and actions cultivated by a person so that over time they become like second nature. They do not have to be consciously—or so consciously—enacted that it requires a great force of will. The more one is in the habit of practicing something, the easier it is to do it over time. Love is an action that can become a habit. The problem that people encounter, however, is that they do not know what this idea of love is: they are under the impression that love is impractical (Sternberg), or that it is idealistic, or that it is romantic, or that it is a feeling (Levine), or a sexual impulse (Kluger), or a dream. They do not realize that love is actually a mindset that is demonstrated in action. Simon May points out that the basis of the concept of love in the Western world is found in the Hebrew Scriptures: “Before Plato and Aristotle—the other dominant sources of Western concepts of love—and well before Jesus, Hebrew Scripture provides, in two pithy sentences, ideas that have guided the course of love ever since” (14). Those two directives are: 1) the commandment to love God with one’s whole heart, soul, and might; and 2) the commandment to love one’s neighbor as one love’s one’s own self. However, with the advent of the modern world (roughly at about the time the Protestant Reformation got underway, which heralded the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism), the notion that love as dictated by the Hebrew Scriptures is all there really is to it or can even be conceived so simply and implemented routinely has all but vanished under a tidal wave of modern philosophy, rationalistic inquiry, and romantic exploration. A radical new concept of human nature developed during the birth of the modern…