For those who may be confused, aside from the intended audience of this post, this is directed at a Youtube user called "TheRationalSkeptic." It's directed at his most recent video, as of this writing, called "Love is Evil"; you can view the video here. I posted some comments on his videos using my account called Mythosician06. As you can probably tell already, or if you have read the comments by now, I disagree with him. Wholeheartedly. Anyway, let's get to the point of this post. RS, the segment under the self-made separator is for you.
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Elaborated Response to “TheRationalSkeptic”
RE: Love is Evil
You’re not the first person to hold this opinion. But you’re not the first I have come to disagree with on the subject, either. As I’ve said to you before, this is a subjective topic and it varies so wildly from person to person. I’ll have to get into more detail on this later on.
My contention with your argument is because of what you admit within the first minute; that you have no experience with love. Problem is, and it could be to my demerit, that I don’t know what you think love is. This is an important thing to know. But I feel you’re generalizing love far too much with your video. All of what I said in this paragraph represents how I contend with your argument.
What your “love is evil” line of reasoning seems to rely on the most is the selfish element of love. I need to stress to you again: it differs from person to person. I can say that, as I felt what some would consider “love”, I was quite selfless rather than the antithesis of such. I think we can both agree that people can do, to be blunt about it, fucked up things while in love. I’m writing a short story on that premise, after all. But, as a saving grace, people can do magnificent, empowering things while in love as well.
I have a hard time ever agreeing with arguments based on generalizations. It’s why I have a slight issue with the science of psychology, namely in how it categorizes different mindsets and etcetera. From what I perceive, and some may disagree with me, you are using this faulty, often unreliable style of argument. And since the human mind, at the individual level, varies so vastly while maintaining the simplest premises of life (the drive to survive through some, often self-defined “power”), it is unjust to make such a subjective topic so general. There’s nothing of the sort.
Perhaps you’re looking at it philosophically? If so, what philosophy are you basing your “love is evil” argument on? Is it a religious concept of love that you’re deeming to be evil? Or is it a cultural one?
Perhaps, also, you’re looking at it from a more logical, and more objective standpoint; a scientific standpoint. Then where does the “evil” come in? Certainly, the biochemical aspect that produces the emotions revolving around “love”, which to me seems more like attraction than anything else, never concludes that love is malignant. And psychology, as far as I know, doesn’t uniformly make this argument as well. Sigmund Freud may have suggested that in one sense, love can be evil, but in another, it can be good; other psychologists differ from one to another since it is such a subjective topic to discuss.
Why can’t you accept that it is a subjective thing? I can’t stress that enough. It may seem like a talking point by now, but it’s vitally important when it comes to love. What you think of love, I might think of as mere sexual attraction. What I think of love, you may think of as a desire to be a loyal friend. I’ve been hurt, while feeling so strongly for another person, whom, as I told you in your video comments, I saw as my equal, she gave me meaning and as a result, I wanted to be all I could be for her. I still do not think love is evil, having felt it and being hurt while feeling it. And to think that you’d slap the word “evil” in there as if it has any reason to be; that’s where my question that I asked of you in the beginning comes in.
What do you think love is? What does it mean to you?
And why is love “evil” to you? Help me understand just what you think love is, and maybe with that I can understand your use of the word “evil.” The world is not black and white, remember; it is a spectrum of grey shades.
