Stretches the meaning from what, exactly? This seems to be an anal-retentive focus on some imaginary boundary. The word "love" irritates you in some way that the word "compassion" does not. If you do not wish to concede that compassion is a facet of love, fair enough, but can we agree they are in the same general vicinity?Diebert wrote:A start for many folks is to understand how "good" things still happen, like sacrifice or compassion, without "love" being ever part of it. They actually function way better without it, unless one stretches the meaning of love to encompass all.
Twelve feet, or roughly four meters.Well, you said there was "more to the story". Perhaps you prefer to leave it up in the air? How much more?
What is it you require, then? That I trot out personal experiences in their particulars so you can proceed to misunderstand them deliberately as well? All right. You go first."Experiencing it" as you suggested so far, remains very inclusive (comprehensive) unless you come up with more descriptions, which will probably take form of some "constative", at best.
Reasoning need not be reductionist. And I submit to you that the experience which you say reductionism does not negate (I agree, BTW) is no less comprehensivist that the "experiencing it" you are accusing me of suggesting. Do you see what I mean when I say I feel you are accusing me of something underhanded? You seem to object; to what, precisely, I cannot seem to put a finger on.The things is, when one enters the realm of reasoning, reductionist as it can seem, it doesn't negate experience and the opinions formed through it. It actually builds on top of them but is in itself not just another opinion or experience. A true quality is added.
I don't recall saying anything about excess. How could I consider it excessive as far as reduction goes if I view it as fairly common?Actually you were criticizing what was in your view a fairly common reductionistic view of "Love". Did you find it excessive as reductionism goes or excessive when it comes to "Love"?
But one only has to get it right in one's own eyes, so where is the harm in exhorting someone not to give up? Look, Diebert, I am not going to get into any kind of lengthy back-and-forth with you about what love is. Because it obviously has negative connotations for you, otherwise you would not be splitting hairs by using other terms such as reciprocity in its pace. If it has a dark side (which it does) then must it also have a bright side. And it is such a human thing, that to shrink from it in fear is inhuman at best. I am trying to come up with a suitable analogy. Yes, everything you eat turns to shit; do you therefore stop eating? Or maybe less prosaically, one would not refrain from walking down a street because it had a shady side - one would simply stay on the sunny side whenever possible.My response to your criticism was more in the line of trying to find out what you think is the 'story of love' or how one would 'get it right' at some point, in your value system. And you have these values otherwise there's no way of getting it "right" in your or anyone's eyes.