Jan
12
Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of a person to the virtues, values, and worth of the other person.
The question itself explains the fact that love is selfish. We find certain satisfaction, pleasure, and emotional coherency while reading a book or watching a movie, that is why we love it. We cannot love all books though. We love those books that possess the values we are looking for. We seek for the worth and values its content holds.
Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of a person to the virtues, values, and worth of the other person. We value the person, his character, his ideals, his thinking, and we love him, appreciate him for the pleasure we gain in being with him. It comes out to be a proper selfish response. Can we love a person whom we cannot enjoy, in whom we see nothing that can be praised and appreciated?
What book we admire most? That which provides maximum pleasure and satisfaction while reading it. Similarly, that person gains our affection, our admiration most that provides maximum pleasure, emotional satisfaction and moral up gradation in being with him. We seek pleasure in the person we love. Our love, appreciation, affection becomes the price we pay for the person to be with him.
We cannot love any person without discriminating him. We do not love all equally, and the person’s abilities, his virtues, his credibility becomes the scale we discriminate upon. We cannot love a genius and a fool equally, we cannot love a crook and a honest person equally, we can not love a thief, a rapist, a murderer and a self-reliant virtuous man equally. We do discriminate person from person. Not all are equal for us. How difficult it is, even to imagine loving all equally, without any discrimination?
Thus, discrimination comes to us naturally. We like a book, we like another book much more, and some books becomes our all-time favorite. We respect all human in general, we respect some of them whom we personally experience with, more than others, and we start despising some people whom we find out that they do not deserve any respect or trust, and then we even look for the best possible mate for us, we seek the right man/woman for us.
Thus, love is the emotional response of our own self-esteem, our own worth that we seek in other person, our own comfort that we find in being with someone.
Can love be blind?
One falls in love with the personification of the values that formed a person’s character, which are reflected in his most important goals or not-so-noticeable gestures, which create the style of his soul—the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, matchless perception. We select the person, and we chose him. Our own sense of life and existence makes it possible for us to choose our friends, our love-mate, our partners.
If love is blind, if love can be just selfless, something, which we cannot discriminate for, which, we can squander along with all equally, than why doesn’t such love stay? As soon as we come to realize that the person we mistakenly fell in love with, is wrong, undeserving, corrupt or mischievous, we start feeling repulsion.
We may make mistakes in choosing the right friends, lover, mates; we commit various mistakes in emotional recognition because the sense of existence, the sense of our own most loved values is not a cognitive guide. Yet, we keep evaluating the person. We keep rationalizing, we use mind to find out if the sudden sort of love we feel for a person is right or not right, if the person deserves it or he does not.
Thus, we do measure the love, we discriminate and we rationalize.
Discriminations can be of various kinds. Discriminating is not wrong, discriminating on irrational basis is certainly wrong. For example, if we discriminate people for their caste, colour or ethnicity or gender, obviously, it is wrong it is irrational. Yet if we discriminate people on the grounds of their characteristic values, their abilities, their decency and attitude, and judge them according to their responses and temperament, it is justified. An employer wishes to employ the most efficient worker irrespective of the workers caste, creed or ethnicity. His aim remains to use resources in most profitable way and for that, he discriminates the applications for the job on his chosen grounds.
Love is a psychological process. We experience the psychological effect of a person, thing or event or activity or a condition, and then we adjudge it and retain the distinguishing characteristic, which helps us in evaluating the object or person or event. We judge its positive values as the source of pleasure and our judgement decides the intensity of our love.
The intensity of love varies according to the hierarchy of evaluation we prefer. As one can evaluate her love for ice-cream, or for reading, or for parties, or for freedom, or for the person they marries. Love, thus includes a vast range of values and hence the intensities. It includes the lower levels of love (“liking”) to higher levels (“affection”) to further higher level (“romantic love”).
If one wants to measure the intensity of love for a particular thing, person, object, or event, he uses the references of hierarchy of his liking, his values he experiences. A man may love a girl, yet he may consider the sexual pleasure he gets from her of higher value than the girl’s own value to him. Another man may love same girl, but may give her up for the fear of the disapproval of his love by others (the girl herself, or his family, or friends). Thus, he rates that fear higher than the value of girl for him, and he chooses to give up the girl. Another man may risk his life for saving the same girl in a difficult situation because he loves her, because all his other values will loose any worth without her. The girl can surely adjudge and measure the intensity of love in these examples.
Love is value aided, but unlike other values, it is not static quantity. It is unlimited response to be earned. Love for one friend is not a threat to love for other or family members. Yet, love is to be earned. Without values, love cannot exist. One can not love her father if he is alcoholic, paedophile, and wife-beater.
Even we can rate our love, our liking for various objects or events. If in a particular situation we have choices to read a book, go to party, write blog, or watch a movie, we rate all things and events, and we engage doing that, which we judge will provide us maximum pleasure, worth and satisfaction.
Thus, love is selfish, and it is measurable, the scales of measurement may differ from person to person depending on his personal values. Hence, a person can surely love a book as he loves children, values and intensities may differ.
Never ever say again that love is blind, mystique and immeasurable.
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1 views35 Responses to “Can you measure love?”
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Dsylexic Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:39 pmare you trying to argue that selfless love is nonexistent?. the one where the lover doesnt expect anything from the beloved?..
you must be a cynic
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:47 pmyou must be a cynic
Why not you check the meaning of cynic once again?
about non-existence of selfless love, yes it does not exist.
Can there exist a love where the lover DOES NOT expect anything from the person he loves?
YES certainly. But it is not selfless love, it is as selfish as any other love.
What he gets is the pleasure of loving. How can you ignore that?
If he won’t get that pleasure that satisfaction, than what would be the difference in loving or not loving?
Chirag Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:03 pmToo Much of Mrs Rand?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:09 pmToo Much of Mrs Rand?
That can be your perception, but how does it matter? it is never about Rand or Epicurus or Aristotle or Chanakya, it is always about REASON. Love is not irrational, it may be misplaced in some cases, but certainly not irrational. The person in love can surely be irrational though.
Dsylexic Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:41 pmderiving pleasure out of loving something/one makes it a selfish act?. so be it. with that definition, every animal/human action is ‘selfish’. you are merely playing with semantics then. we might as well call it selfless and get on with it.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:51 pmderiving pleasure out of loving something/one makes it a selfish act?. so be it. with that definition, every animal/human action is ‘selfish’.
Yes it does. it does makes it a selfish act. Selflessness is simply not possible. Selfless means devoid of self, devoid of existence.
And to be Selfish is the virtue, rational selfishness is the achievement.
You may say it is just semantics, but it is far deep than that. It is the positive progressive productive way. it is anti-cynicism.
on the other hand “Selfless love” and its notions are cynicism which turns extremely pessimist in essence. because basically
no one can be selfless.
Nita Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 10:42 pmI was sure I had commented on this post, but my comment seems to be missing. Do you think it went into your spam folder?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 10:45 pmSorry Nita, but I didn’t get any comment from you here.
And I just checked it is not in the spam folder too.
May be some other misplacing I guess but I didn’t get it yet.
Destination Infinity Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 10:56 pm//no one can be selfless//
I should appreciate the article, in the first place - the topic was well explored. But how about the army? I mean, the fighting types. If they go to a war knowing well that everything that matters to them can be lost in a second, still they are selfish?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 11:09 pmWhy only army men? Any person’s love towards his virtues, his voluntarily chosen duties, his self-chosen responsibilities is selfish.
If the army man’s love towards his duties, his work is not selfish, if he find no worth in doing his job properly with responsibility, if he feels no good, no satisfaction, no bravery in fighting for the people/border whose gaurd-ship he has taken by his own consent, why will he do it?
For an army man, to fulfill his duties even at the risk of his life becomes his love, a selfish love. To fulfill it becomes his main rational selfish virtue.
There was a movie of Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha and Shashi kapoor “Kaala Pathar” in which Amitabh used to be a merchant navy officer, in a certain moment of weakness, he forgets his duty and saves his life, leaving the ship to be drowned.
He further reveals that by grading his love for his duty lesser than his love for life, he lost all worth in his own eyes. To regain his self-esteem (selfishness) he goes to coal mine serving there, risking his life in saving people in danger. it was all selfish.
Selfish means Knowledge of self, knowledge of one’s chosen ethics, virtues, rights and duties, and fulfilling them achieving them rationally productively.
By the way, in the previous comment, the emboldened “no one can be selfless” indicated a previous article on this blog — http://www.reasonforliberty.com/philosophy/isnt-everyone-selfish.html
Vikram Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 6:06 am<! — @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } — >
Nicely written Gargi. We usually expect the person we love romantically to only love us, romantic love is indeed selfish. But there are other kinds of love.
I wonder if you have read the book, 1984. It has a scene in which the author imagines a scene in which a mother carrying a child facing a situation in which they are both definitely going to die, still covers the child as if to offer herself and protect him. The implication is that a mother’s love is not rational. And indeed, from what I have seen in my life, mother’s love for her children is not rational.
You may argue that a mother protects her children because she expects them to help her in old age, but in such a situation she would not risk her life to protect one of her children, because she could just survive and her other children could take care of her. But this is not empirically observed, even in the animal kingdom. The bond between mother and child is usually very strong, it is as if they are one person.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 6:43 amWhy will I argue something wrong?
Mother-children love is the MOST SELFISH love ever possible and hence it is most appreciable.
A mother directly gets her price, her satisfaction while caring, feeding, and infact giving birth to the child.
Her intensity of love is so high that she almost feels herself attached with the child physically. She grades her love for the child above any other value including her life, or her love for her husband many a times.
Yet, she has to take certain voluntary decision. In some cases, when she knows that the child won’t be a proper normal child and if she gave birth, the child will suffer whole life, she may choose to abort the child too. That is why abortion is not inhuman in certain cases.
First of all you must remember that to be a mother is not a thing of mystique fate. it is a voluntary decision a woman takes when she want to be a mother. She instantly gets her maximum worth, satisfaction and sense of self-esteem, self-importance in being a mother, a creator of life.
it is a great experience for which she can very easily accept any pain any suffering. Her pleasure of being a mother on behalf of biological neurological pleasure and psychological self-esteem pleasure is immense and extremely intensified.
You won’t believe, but the fact that almost every girl at certain age of life starts feeling the NEED to be a mother is a truth. it is always in her hands either to accept that necessity or to deny it. If she accepts it, it becomes her love, her responsibility, her most cared value.
If you want to say that mother is selfless, than you are most cynic person ever possible. If a mother gets nothing, no pleasure in giving birth, no value in being the caretaker and fostrer of a newly born incapable child, why will she even be a mother?
The woman who is unable to understand the selfish worth and pleasure of being a mother often denies to be a mother, or becomes a careless, irresponsible mother. She never realizes herself and her self-values as a mother. There are women who even kills their children for no valid reason, but just for pleasure of killing babies, there always remains LILITH of the world. and their pleasure in killing the newly born is irrational. Those women are irrational. Not that woman and her love who for fulfilling her responsibility, her duty as being a mother to protect her child even at risk of her life.
To be a mother is VOLUNTARY decision. if some woman loves her child because she thinks, the child will
serve her in old age, than it is most irrational thing ever possible. No woman thinks of her oldage. She thinks of her pleasure to be a mother. That is why we say “Poot Kapoot sune bahut hain Mata suni na Kumataa”
In mother-child relation, Mother’s decision is always VOLUNTARY hence free-decision. But the child’s birth is involuntary decision for the child. The child is never OBLIGATED to serve his/her parents in old age.
The parents earns that right, to be taken care of at old age or bad times by the child NOT because they gave birth, but because of their good response as being parents.
Every love, every action a human takes is SELFISH, the sense of self involved in it can be irrational. The right thing is to be rational selfish. Selflessness is impossible.
Vikram Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 7:24 am<! — @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } — >
Gargi, the thing is that you consider the very notion of having a self-worth as selfish. I think that being selfish has more to do with how you measure your self-worth, not whether you think you have any self-worth.
If you measure your self-worth by how much your actions help others you are not selfish.
If you measure your self-worth by how much your actions help only yourself you are selfish.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 7:43 amVikram,
The problem is you have NO IDEA about what is self-worth.
No person can have any self-worth if he is looking the value of his actions in others eyes. if he do so, he is a slave, how can he have any self-esteem?
It is not possible nor rational to look for worth of your action in others eyes.
A solider do not fight with enemies thinking the countrymen will call him great. He fight for his OWN cause and HIS own value judgment of the action of saving boundaries. He does not look what countrymen will think about him. He thinks his own values about the subject. He is selfish. He thinks for his self-chosen duty and performs it.
An Honest person is NOT honest because other people think honesty is good virtue. He is Honest because HE HIMSELF THINKS HONESTY is a virtue which will provide him greatness and satisfaction and pleasure in his own eyes and sense of existence.
A mother does not think what her child will feel if she cares good for her.
She cares for her child because she gets the pleasure of caring directly, she gets the worth of being the Life-Creator.
Its totally selfish. She doesn’t bother herself in thinking whether the child will consider her a good person or bad, a good mother or bad. She just enjoys the essence of being a mother. its selfish she becomes mother for her OWN SELF.
About being mother… Cycle of Absolutes http://www.reasonforliberty.com/reason/the-cycle-of-absolute.html
Vikram Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 7:51 amI repeat, If you measure your self-worth by how much your actions help only yourself you are selfish. A person may thus be selfish him/herself even though someone else values his actions. Eg. A singer often measures her self-worth in how well she thinks she has sung, she may infact sing only about herself, for herself, but that may not stop others from enjoying her song.
Nita Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 9:10 amI think I know what happened. After I wrote that rather long comment, I pressed the subscribe button instead! So I got subscribed to this post, but my comment must have not got posted! Anyway, it was too long for me write here again! Next time!
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 10:29 amLet me explain the issue of “Measuring Love” in calm way
There is a a singer — -
a> She loves singing, for her the value of pleasure she gets in singing is most important, she enjoys singing and she keeps trying to get better and better singer. Her love is selfish. For her, the popularity she gains is of lesser importance than her love for singing. That does not mean she does not love being popular singer. However, the intensities of the two loves differ.
b> She loves popularity, and for that, she sings. She loves singing but for her, being a popular singer is more important. She keeps a study of how to entertain audience maximum rather than how to improve her singing. She gains popularity. It is her selfish love. In this case, her love for popularity is more intense than her love for singing.
The live example is Amir Khan, for him acting is more important than popularity, hence he keeps trying to get best of his talent. He seldom goes for popularity; rather his love for acting is more intense. That provides him inspiration to do better and better.
On the other hand, Shahrukh Khan is Popular actor, he also loves acting, but the intensity of his love for acting is less than his intensity of love to be popular. He is popular actor. That explains why most of his movies gets instant popularity although they severely lacks intent.
There always remains certain actors whose intensity of love for acting is above any thing else. As for example, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Aparna Sen, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri etc.. They work for their intensity of love towards acting. Its most important value for them. They seldom goes for popularity. Though sometimes, to fulfil the monetary needs, they changes their track towards commercial cinema too, as Smita patil worked in Namak Halal, Shabana worked in Amar Akbar Anthony etc.
The exceptional case is Amitabh. It is hardly difficult for one to check if his love for popularity is more, or love for acting is more. He maintains a coherent balance between his love for acting and love of popularity. Sometimes his intensity of love for acting goes higher, other times his intensity of love for popularity goes higher.
In all of such cases, you will find that none of them works only for love of money. That does not mean they do not love money, but their intensity of love for money is pretty less in comparative measure of their intensities for acting or popularity. Yet, you can find many artists who act just for their love for money. Acting and popularity means very less for them. You may put the actors of pornographic movies in this category. But it is not necessary that they work for love of money. You can find many porn actors just working for their love for sex and exhibitionism. Their intensity of love for money is pretty less than their intensity of love for exhibitionism and sex. After All how can we forget our beloved Paris Hilton?
P.S:: I was getting ready for my office hence my answer for the comments were a little haphazard and rash!
Chirag Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 12:48 pmWhat is the REASON for Love is Love?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 7:09 pmReason for love is your ability to discriminate, to judge and to value.
If you love somebody, it means you admire them, appreciate them and feel a certain respect and coalescence with them. When you love some person, it means you have judged the virtues, the values in that person which are important for you.
Loving is accepting the personification of the values which you admire and seek for.
Can you love a criminal? Yes you can, if that criminal possess certain characteristic or aspects which signifies the values you are seeking for, and if those values personified with that criminal are of much more worth for you than the fact that he/she is criminal.
You cannot love a person in whom you find nothing which can be appreciate or admired for. Also, you may simply despise a person irrespective of all qualities he posses which are important for you, just because of some distinct value which makes you despise that person.
It simply does not matter if the person you love, loves you in return or not.
You admire Bipasha basu, she is NOT going to be on your bed tonight. yet you love her, you may never get a chance to see/talk her face to face, yet you love her. She is not returning any love than why?
You do not love a person because you get love in return. You love a person because you find those qualities personified by that person which are important for you.
You admire Bipasha (if you do, or anybody whom you admire) because she possess your desired qualities in a girl/woman.
Love is always about the valuation and discrimination, it is as selfish as any activity of human.
That is all. Topic closed.
Destination Infinity Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 8:40 pmThe topic may be closed. But the comments are not :-) Because, we have a mysterious (Obvious, in your words) sense of selfishness in commenting even after the topic being closed :-)
Anyways, I read the article you have linked to on the topic -everyone is selfish. Agreed, but what are the implications? Selfishness is a virtue according to you, and maybe the only virtue you may respect. And you are justifying it by equating every action ever done by human beings to selfishness. Even if we agree to that point, you are yet to disclose one important aspect - So what? When you say that every action even inadvertantly done by human beings is due to selfishness and nothing else, you sound more critical of the virtue of selfishness than being proud of it! Seeing that you are trying to propogate the virtue, this is a bit of contradiction.
“There is this thing in religion and politics - By convincing others, we try to convince ourselves”
Destination Infinity
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 8:54 pmI am not propagating anything. I just express myself here.
Yet you are proving my point in every essence of it. There is no mystery in selfishness, it is a fact of life. Without being selfish, life cannot sustain.
Although I can agree that some are unable to understand what life is, and they term it mystery. Coincidentally, many fails to understand quantum mechanics too, and they call it mysterious too.
it is your problem if you cannot explain even a single instance of your life when you were not selfish(except when you are unconscious or you are dead). Still you if you wanna claim that your love is NOT selfish or not-so-selfish love, than keep loving not-selfishly and try to understand what do you really mean to say when you say you love but its not selfish love? that you love someone, but it is not you who gains anything from loving a person? No gain no satisfaction, no feeling of pleasure, no feeling of worth. Yet you love them irrespective of the fact that they propagates nothing which is valuable for you. You love them irrespective of the fact that they provide you no satisfaction, no pleasure, no feeling of goodness no calmness.
I simply cannot love like that I value I love my sense of existence (selfishness) much more than anything else.
When I say i love someone, I mean that that person is valuable for me, that I admire him, that he is precious for me, that he exhibits the ideals the virtues I seek in a man, that I feel i am enlightened by happiness and pleasure when I am with him. And I know when I say that, I mean that, because My love is precious for me, it is not selfless, it is not waste, it exists!
rachita Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 5:18 amis it possible that you fall for somebody’s physical appearance first but later you find that you too also think alike though not exactly but in the sense that one person’s views about objectivism starts influencing the other one ; in this case is it proper to have a sexual relationship when one partner who is an hard core objectivist is not sure about the objective future of the other partner who is just a starter,though he may turn towards objectivism later but for now he is just a good looking guy who is reading about objectivism…
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 2:41 pmDear Rachita, I guess you are confused about Objectivism. Objectivism means to be objective, to be clear, to do or act objectiviely, confidently, and reasonably. That is, if some girl falls for a good looking guy, and she falls for him only for his looks or the sexual pleasure he may provide, she should know HER intentions clearly and should not confuse her emotionally. There’s nothing wrong in sexual pleasure. Yet, sexual pleasure is the most dignified expression of love. So, obviously one looks for the best person providing enough worth for one’s own values and morals to coalesce with sexually.
That is, if a girl goes for sexual pleasure with a man who is good looking, but he may be a most debauched prankster, criminal mystique masquerader, than she must be confirmed than she herself won’t start acting illegal, criminal immoral, unreasonable alongwith him. Her values are the most expensive asset she have.
But why are we discussing this?
Why not consider this, a Judge has to decide a criminal case of rape. The accused rapist is his own son, and the accuser is the daughter of his rival, his enemy.
What should the judge do? Should he help the girl gaining justice? Or should he help his son to ditch justice and be freed inspite of being the criminal?
a> if the judge gives proper justice, it means he is selfish enough towards his ethics, morals and justice to give up is love for his own son.
b> If the judge falls for love of his son, and denounces law, helps his son to get rid of charges, it means he is selfish, and he values his love for his son more than His duty, his ethics and morals and justice.
In both cases, the judge is selfish, and in both cases judge evaluates his love for different sets. An Objectivist is the first one, because he goes for reason he promotes the objectivity of rights and justice.
In second case, the judge is subjective. he changes his morals and ethics and right of justice with situation., if in palce of his son, some other person have been accused, the judge might have given right justice morally.
rachita Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 4:23 pmmy still did not get my answer……
Ok let’s leave apart looks for a moment because they can’nt form a lasting value,take this:
An objective person comes in contact with a stranger (who happened to be drop-dead gorgeous,I am mentioning it here again because this may be the very first cause of attraction) and the objective partner had no inkling of what the stranger holds as his values except that they both shared a common sense-of-life,untill they go on a date and discuss their views about life .After talking to him for sometime the objective partner feels that the stranger saw only the dark side of life till now and decides to introduce him to objectivism once before taking back the benefit-of -doubt he had showered on the stranger till now.Time passes by,the stranger really starts getting interested in objectivist writings and also starts showing positive changes.He values his objectivist partner a lot and does’nt want to leave him.While all this is happening, they start getting physically close and the objective partner really enjoys the physical intimacy with the stranger(which he never could enjoy with any other person,also the objective partner had a history of child abuse and the stranger helped him come out of it very beautifully).Everything is working fine but somewhere inside the bottom of the heart the objectivist partner still has a doubt about making out with the stranger,but the stranger feels either they should take their physical intimacy to the level of intersourse or they should not get physically intimate at all.However both of the partners are not sure if they will stay together with each other for a life time.Now in this case what should the
objective partner be doing?As the objective partner feels sex is the celebration of values which the stranger is still on the process of inculcating and the objective partner does’nt want make out with anybody without making sure that the person values objectivism the same way he does.
A long story indeed,but this scenario has really been hitting my head for long now so I thought I should share it with people around the world because I believe discussing things always widens your thinking horizons and sometimes makes you loook at things through an entirely new angle……
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 4:42 pmBasically you are talking of Hank Readern. you are talking about a man trapped in relation with a woman who despises him for his values, for his existence and want him to get rid of his own values.
For a time being, the couple may enjoy the sexual satisfaction, it will fade away.
Then the couple may keep bearing the burden of the relation in a tight situation causing various difficult moments for each other. They may try to make their relation better, if both of them succeeds a proper way to adjust with each other, they may live together, otherwise even living together will become difficult for them.
Whenever the man will get the right person to admire and appreciate, he will appreciate and feel his emotional love and needs be fulfilled by that other person. its not necessary he may ever come in relation with that other person, but he will admire him more than the girl with whom he is forcibly attached and not by will.
Anyways, I am sure I answered this question already in the original post.
Please have a look at it again, it says —
The man may try to provide an environment where the girl may reach her own existence. Objectivism cannot be taught or indoctrinated. People need to use their own mind by their own self. No one can force someone to use mind and rationalize things and activities, at least not an Objectivist can force anyone. Liberty means non-aggression, non-indoctrination. He may argue, he may discuss and debate on various issues putting up various reason. But it depends on how much he values the girl. Is she worth investing time? If she worth it, he will invest his time on her, otherwise, he will either accept her as an obligation unworthy, or he will leave her.
One more thing, if the person is getting involved with a girl just because of his unreasonable sexual compulsions, than it signifies that his ability to act reasonably was weak. And thus, the suffering of an unwanted relation for him becomes his punishment.
if sexual compulsions are so strong over reason, than what will stop him from raping the girl if she is not ready for sex?
So basically the person you are talking os can never be Objectivist if he is falling for just sexual compulsions.
yes he may change and become a rationalist an objectivist later on. In your story, none is objectivist, neither girl nor man.
rachita Says:
January 17th, 2009 at 2:43 amhmm…. seems to be some communication gap. What all you wrote here was not new to me, in the sense that these are “facts” and i agree to all of these already, neways when I find that “one fact” that answers it all I will paste in my blog. I would like to send you the link then,do read it. Neways keep blogging you are doing a good job.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 17th, 2009 at 10:22 amYou are welcome, and definitely I would like to read your views. Keep visiting in here:)
gaurav Says:
January 17th, 2009 at 6:49 pmI really feel most of the people in this world has become too much conditioned to lead a self-deprecating life, Most of the people in this world can’t agree to this fact that they are selfish because that may lead to downgrading of their worth in someone Else’s eyes,There can be only one way in which one can lead his life,i.e,by being selfish,any other way means that he did whatever not for himself,i.e.,he is not liable for any benefits that he/she may be getting, i hope all you altruist agree with me, and so next time a mother covering her baby’s face must feel sinful if she drives pleasure in doing something for her children.O.K. world.
And yes nice article, And Reading it i felt even I love you in purely selfish way, lol!
G W Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 6:22 pmLove is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
dictionary definition: Selfless - “putting other people’s needs first”
Abhijeet Says:
September 11th, 2009 at 3:41 pmi think love is selfish.
Madan Says:
September 20th, 2009 at 2:31 amHow a love can be a selfish? A lovers can be but not a love. If a male and female, who are not selfish loves each other , then how can we say that the love between them is selfish. If mother theresa loves somebody means how that great soul becomes selfish.
The love itself is a non selfish. It is the ray of hope for one who lost hope in life. It is the happiness, It is everything. We the new generation are behind the money, dignity, status, wealth and behind all which are dead and don’t give not even a little bit satisfaction.
In love we will get everything,
If you say love as a poison, and
I say we need it to make the anti venom.
If you say love as a selfish, and
I say we need it to make the whole world live with peace. If you say its all waste of time, and
I say we need it to show why we need the time.
If you say believe a snake but not a love, and
I say We need it to take a love as option to die
rather than to die with the snake bite.
Love is a god, whether it is the first love or last love , love everybody, atleast love somebody, make your heart less weight, and you light weight.
She did teach me the love lesson, who is ten years younger than me in age, but 1000 years elder than me in love. I am first standard still, but she is Ph.d even though she failed her exam in a school.
Any how I love myself, I love her, I love everyone, I love my country, I love the whole universe. As a Human, it is my responsibility to love.
ILoveU
Madan Says:
September 20th, 2009 at 2:38 amಪ್ರೀತಿಯೆಂದರೆ ಬಿರುಗಾಳಿಯಲ್ಲ,
ಅದು ತಂಪ ಸೂಸುವ ತಂಗಾಳಿ
ಪ್ರೀತಿಯೆಂದರೆ ಜ್ವಾಲಾಮುಖಿಯಲ್ಲ,
ಬೆಳಕ ನೀಡುವ ಅಂತರ್ ಜ್ಯೋತಿ
ಪ್ರೀತಿಯೆಂದರೆ ಗಿಜಿಗುಡುವ ಜನಜಂಗುಳಿಯಲ್ಲ,
ಶಾಂತಿ ಸಾರುವ ಬೆಟ್ಟದ ತಪ್ಪಲು
ಪ್ರೀತಿಯೆಂದರೆ ಸುಖದ ಅಮಲು,
ಹೂವಿನಾ ಗಮಲು, ಕಾರಣ ನಗಲು
ಪ್ರೀತಿಯೆಂದರೆ ಎಲ್ಲವೂ,
ಎಲ್ಲದೊರಳೊಗಿನ ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯೆ
Unpretentious Diva Says:
September 20th, 2009 at 11:34 am@ Madan
Love can be selfish only and nothing else. It is a selfish feeling. You love someone because you feel he/she is of worth of personal importance for you, and that importance is selfishness.
voip nigeria Says:
April 26th, 2010 at 10:20 pmCan I use some excerpts of this information for my reports, I will provide a link back to you, let me know please
Unpretentious Diva Says:
April 28th, 2010 at 6:35 amYes you can use any part of this article