Since I couldn't do a text impression of Zizek with a link (sorry whatever mod deleted the post), he has an interesting view on love. At least romantic love.

In loving someone, do you imagine that they satisfy some preexisting romantic ideal? You give roses and go on dates and then you break up after the rainbows go away 2-3 months in. That's superficial, a person should not be loved for their satisfaction or instantiation of a personal or ideological romantic ideal, they should be loved for their stupidities and weaknesses. They should still be loved when you piss them the hell off and fail as a partner - and they reprimand you for it. Love, as a category of thought is aligned with the particular and the singular, what is unique in the person, not with the universal and repeatable.

Click here for a link giving a pithy exposition of his views on it.

The best thing I've read on love is 'In Praise of Love' by Alain Badiou, which essentially advocates the above as well, but also attempts to locate love metaphysically too.

I like Kierkegaard's Works of Love.

Wouldn’t Spinoza be helpful here? Our human love is finite and is an expression or mode over God’s infinite love. I think uses of love in the example of food is just a linguistic confusion. Love is only of people. There may be some psychological examples where people love inanimate things as if they were people. A better example would be loving a teddy bear (or a car that you name and rain to) rather than a “Love” of nachos. I don’t ever talk to my nachos.

When I look at my dogs, who are said to love me for what I am, and when I listen to all these lyrics on the radio about unhappy love, it strikes me that the object of love must have the potential to leave you. My dogs are depending on me for their safety, it would be a catastrophe for them if I left them. When I hear a singer cry out his despair over the beloved who has left him it sounds as if the baby, crying, when being abandoned by his mother, finally has put words into his despair.

Is that love of a little higher degree than that of nachos, cellphones etc.

Or, to put it this way, the love a mother feels for her new born baby, is it the same kind of love as the baby feel for the mother. Isn't the mothers love for the child more “metaphysical” than the child's more earthbound, dependency.

You know, actually we have no love - that is a terrible thing to realize. Actually we have no love; we have sentiment; we have emotionality, sensuality, sexuality; we have remembrances of something which we have thought as love. But actually, brutally, we have no love. Because to have love means no violence, no fear, no competition, no ambition. If you had love you would never say, ''This is my family'' - you may have a family and give them the best you can; but it would not be ''your family'' which is opposed to the world. If you love, if there is love, there is peace. If you loved, you would educate your child not to be a nationalist, not to have only a technical job and look after his own petty little affairs; you would have no nationality. There would be no divisions of religion, if you loved. But as these things actually exist - not theoretically, but brutally - in this ugly world, it shows that you have no love. Even the love of a mother for her child is not love. If the mother really loved her child, do you think the world would be like this? She would see that he had the right food, the right education, that he was sensitive, that he appreciated beauty, that he was not ambitious, greedy, envious. So the mother, however much she may think she loves her child, does not love the child.

So we have not that love. Now love cannot be cultivated, obviously; it is like cultivating humility - it is only the vain man, the man of arrogance, who can cultivate humility; that is a cloak to hide his vanity. As humility cannot be cultivated, so love cannot be cultivated. But you must have it. If you don't have it, you cannot have virtue, you cannot be orderly, you cannot live with passion - you may live with lust, which we all know. So if you have no love, you have no virtue; and without virtue there is disorder.

Source.

I think that love ought to consist of many virtues, such as trust, respect, kindness, and gentleness towards a person in order to count as true love. Therefore, loving a food is not really love, but rather mere enjoyment for the moment, and so forth. The same could be counted in a friendship also if one friend only finds satisfaction for a short time, but is disrespectful or even mistrusting of the other friend, then a true love in friendship does not exist and only temporary enjoyment of each other exists. — Lone Wolf

I think I cannot say, from here, what love is. Perhaps it is love to say, brutally, to a friend, you are walking over a cliff. But perhaps if I say it, and even if it is true, it is not love. And even if it were true, and even it were an act of love, my friend might see it as an indulgence or a manipulation or arrogance.

Friends can be like that when they're walking over cliffs.

It's how my dog and I feel about one another.

In loving someone, do you imagine that they satisfy some preexisting romantic ideal? You give roses and go on dates and then you break up after the rainbows go away 2-3 months in. That's superficial, a person should not be loved for their satisfaction or instantiation of a personal or ideological romantic ideal, they should be loved for their stupidities and weaknesses. — fdrake

Actually, I haven't really pondered much on romantic love, to be honest. It seems such a waste of time to me. But perhaps your statement can be applied to the love a parent has for a child, or from one friend to another; like a true love in friendship is acceptance of the dumb things our friend does?

Our human love is finite and is an expression or mode over God’s infinite love. — MysticMonist

Yes, I think you are right here; but what is it? What are the elements of love?

I think uses of love in the example of food is just a linguistic confusion. Love is only of people. — MysticMonist

Yeah, it is annoying when people actually think a love of food is love; they misuse the word.

it strikes me that the object of love must have the potential to leave you. — Nessuno

Wouldn't that be the trusting side of love?

So if you have no love, you have no virtue; and without virtue there is disorder.

Hmm, that seems to contradict what was said earlier in that statement. Clearly, there is some degree of order, so there is some virtue, which could mean there is some love. I think whatever love is, it has been corrupted, which is why we see a broken world.

And even if it were true, and even it were an act of love, my friend might see it as an indulgence or a manipulation or arrogance. — unenlightened

Wouldn't that mean that your friend was not loving if he did not respect and consider your view? Therefore, love was not completed?

But what exactly do you feel? Trust? Security? Hope? Kindness? Is love just a fleeting emotion? Do you love your dog even when you feel angry at him/her for chewing on your brand new expensive shoes?

You list a few things that love may consist of, but could you define love by itself?

To me love is to will the good of another. This is the classically Christian definition, if you're familiar with it. "True love", then, would really only be had by God, seeing as we humans can't attain love, truth, honesty, and so on in their fullest forms. So, I guess I believe in truer love, not true love :o :)

could you define love by itself? — Buxtebuddha

That's just the problem. It seems to be an entire system of virtues, so in a sense, it doesn't exist by itself; but rather is a mere collection of virtues.

To me love is to will the good of another. This is the classically Christian definition, if you're familiar with it. "True love", then, would really only be had by God, seeing as we humans can't attain love, truth, honesty, and so on in their fullest forms. — Buxtebuddha

I think I agree here lol. This seems logical. But now what exactly does good will consist of?

A combination of lust and trust? Maybe? Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly certainly faked it well.

The feelings are various. you can nominate as many words to describe them, but love seems to cover it. I'd argue that such a feeling is part of what it means to be a mammal.

It seems to be an entire system of virtues, so in a sense, it doesn't exist by itself; but rather is a mere collection of virtues. — Lone Wolf

This is cart before the horse. "IT" is not a collection of virtues, but the concepts of those virtues are imposed on those feelings to hope to describe it.
It is what precedes all concepts. This is why it is so hard to explain.

So if you have no love, you have no virtue; and without virtue there is disorder.

Hmm, that seems to contradict what was said earlier in that statement. Clearly, there is some degree of order, so there is some virtue, which could mean there is some love. I think whatever love is, it has been corrupted, which is why we see a broken world. — Lone Wolf

Well the way I understand it, is that there can be partial order without love. As there is partial order in a fascist regime, but the order is really a systematic disorder. Or consider 'social work', where well meaning folk intervene in domestic situations to bring order and improvement, but when children are taken into the care of such institutions, the outlook for them is very bleak, and it is because there is no love, only sentiment.

But mainly what i think he is saying is that love is needed at the beginning; it cannot be something that is attained from, or by the state of lovelessness, and it cannot be something one has a bit of. This is where I differ from @Buxtebuddha, I think.

Not so sure about the mammal part, as I have had many, many animals over the few short years I've lived, and not noticed love (at least not what is said to be experienced from human to human) from the animal's part. Only satisfaction in their want for leadership and having needs met. They'd leave you if someone else provided such in most circumstances.

Well the way I understand it, is that there can be partial order without love. As there is partial order in a fascist regime, but the order is really a systematic disorder. Or consider 'social work', where well meaning folk intervene in domestic situations to bring order and improvement, but when children are taken into the care of such institutions, the outlook for them is very bleak, and it is because there is no love, only sentiment. — unenlightened

Hmm, but not all children in those types of institutions are treated without love, nor is the situation always bleak. I've seen different. Not sure about the fascist regime, but I do not believe all inhabitants under such circumstances experience no sense of order even if it is only internally, such as through a religious belief.

I can see your point of needing love in the beginning, that makes sense.

and not noticed love (at least not what is said to be experienced from human to human) from the animal's part. — Lone Wolf

Then you are not paying attention. Love is the glue that has given mammals a major advantage and is the feeling that encourages a mother to give her substance over to others. These are most often her own offspring but can even include young of species that can predate the mother.
If you have never seen a troop of elephants risking their own lives to save a calf, or many other cats of mammal bravery then open your eyes.
Examples are numerous.
Love exhorts co-operation and fellow feeling, and is common to all mammals, from rats to cats to bats.

They'd leave you if someone else provided such in most circumstances. — Lone Wolf

Love is not possession. Such is foolishness of our peri-christian world of chattel/marriage.

I have seen mother animals abandon their own offspring many times, and having to watch the babies die slow painful deaths while none of my efforts are effective. All I saw was that the mother never had the hormone experience that causes her to want to care for her offspring after birth. For animals, it is just a hormone experience necessary for survival. Instinct, not love. They don't choose to do the things they do, they just do them.

Love is not possession. Such is foolishness of our peri-christian world of chattel/marriage. — charleton

Well, it's not being alone either. And I don't know what a Christian view has to do with anything, some other religions don't counteract it. So why is it foolish?

So I've heard humans torture and murder their fellows, even christians.
But we are not exhausted by love or hate, but have those aspects in us. Reptiles don't have much, but it's likely that the feeling emerges from an evolutionary need to protect the young, as that is on the cutting edge of natural selection. I do not see humans are different in kind, but different in degree.
Can you explain this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCmtiYtiW6Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTHsyIQI2L0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr8B0yb9y8Y

If you think love is only hormones in animals, why not humans too?

That's just the problem. It seems to be an entire system of virtues, so in a sense, it doesn't exist by itself; but rather is a mere collection of virtues. — Lone Wolf

I think I agree here lol. This seems logical. But now what exactly does good will consist of? — Lone Wolf

While I don't entirely agree with Aquinas here (mostly because I'm not a believing Christian), his first reply in the following link I find to be an insightful distinction between will and appetite - take a look if you'd like:

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1020.htm

Contrary to some of the views in this thread, I don't think love is a feeling or a sentiment. The mother, say, who experiences (feels) attachment, desire, happiness, pleasure - all these are goods. They aren't all "loves", so to speak, but are emanations from love. In other words, to experience attachment, happiness, and so on, one must first be willed them - to be loved. Virtues, then, like honesty, compassion, you name it - these also are goods which ought to follow if one is loved.

True love, though? I still think that it's an empty phrase, mostly.

So I've heard humans torture and murder their fellows, even christians. — charleton

Not real Christians, as it is prohibited in Scripture. But yes, humans are very capable of being ruthless. And the point is?

Can you explain this? — charleton

Yep. Simple instinct. Nothing special that I can see. I've also seen animals in the wild and domestic purposely trying to kill the young.

If you think love is only hormones in animals, why not humans too? — charleton

Because humans think and make choices.

Virtues, then, like honesty, compassion, you name it - these also are goods which ought to follow if one is loved. — Buxtebuddha

Hmm, that could be too. So then the virtues might really be only "symptoms" of love. :P Then the only way to describe what love really is must be to describe the "symptoms". So maybe love is actually unknowable. Thank you for the link!

Hmm, that could be too. So then the virtues might really be only "symptoms" of love. :P Then the only way to describe what love really is must be to describe the "symptoms". So maybe love is actually unknowable. Thank you for the link! — Lone Wolf

I think so, too. In the Christian sense, we can't ever understand it otherwise we'd be God. Metaphor's the best way understand love, though, in my opinion.

All of those things can be considered love, if one thinks of love as approachability. The opposite of aversion. Just superficially, a smiling, waving person, hygienic, well dress, friendly, warm, engaging, all of those things make you wish to approach. Approachability can also be seen in the broader sense as well, that something can be approached, with insurance that it will deliver on something. With a person, as a true love, they would be maximally approachable not because of just the qualities they have, but those, just their skills, or what services they could and couldn't deliver on, but also their services. It's the fact that their motivation, rather than being selfish, or for money or whatever else, they do it because of the extremely high sense of value they put on the individual, so that their welfare, and being approachable to them becomes the higher in significance, in relation to the value they hold to the individual.

Not true love, choosing the wrong one, even abusive family is all about convincing, or realizing that some people that people think are approachable for things that favor their welfare, flourishing or actually hold them with very high value at all, don't actually, and the ones you thought were the dangerous, unapproachables were the good ones all along. .

This view not only accounts for all the forms, but allows me to map it onto actionable forms. This allows me to ask, just how approachable am I? Ohh... but... ohh...

Not real Christians, as it is prohibited in Scripture — Lone Wolf

No True Scotsman FALLACY.

Obviously you're not going to answer my other questions. :-} Please tell me where in the Christian Scripture that murdering and torturing are encouraged.

I liked that video Bitter Crank. That was amazing.

True love is ... peace ...equilibrium ... stillness of the mind. Only then can you see anything for what it truly is.

Ten years ago, I was sitting on my couch in my little studio apartment, with this girl, watching a movie. And I felt totally at peace. I felt safe and protected. I turned toward her and told her I loved her (only person I've ever said that to).

Christian "scripture" has bugger all to do with what Christians do; never has, never will.
How many Christians would follow THIS advice from Matthew?
5:40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
None!