12.06.04
Posted in culture at 10:52 am by
Too often, I think, humans are polar creatures. I don’t mean we walk around on all fours in really cold climates. I mean we tend to think about the world just as though it’s black and white, or some shade of gray. We like to think of things as being either this, or that, or somewhere on the road between those two points.
That would be fine in a one dimensional universe. However, sometimes it pays to realize that we don’t live in a one dimensional universe. I think that’s hard, but we should endeavor to do that–to imagine a multidimensional world.
Take love for example. In our one dimensional world, we see love as an endpoint on a scale. The opposite of love is hate, right? Since you can’t respond because you’re reading, let’s just say I’m right. So, we have a scale. Love is on one end and hate is on the other. Now we have a useful measure for ranking things we either love or hate. For example, on the love/hate scale I hate CREED, but I love my wife, somewhere in the middle (but closer to my wife) is U2.
That’s great in a one dimensional world. But what if, we don’t really live in a one dimensional world. What if we actually were living in a two dimensional world but didn’t know it. (If you’ve ever read Flatlanders, you’ll know where I got this example.) One day, a dude in a helicopter (of course the wise reader would have to recognize that this world was actually 3 dimensional…but bear with me) comes along and takes you for a ride. He brings you up into the air and you, for the first time, realize that your 1-dimensional world is bigger than you thought. In reality, love isn’t a ‘one-line’ horizontal scale. In reality, love is a target. On the edge of one of the quadrants of that target is hate, but another quadrant is bordered with all other sorts of badness.
We live in a world that is best perceived as being 3 spacial dimensions (I’d prefer not to get into a discussion of quantum phyics…so let’s just call it a 3 dimensional world.) Likely, the love target is spherical.
I think we’d do well to remember that. That there are lots of other concepts that are the oppositte of love. The most salient,to me right now I think, is fear. More on this tomorrow…thanks for reading!
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Posted in culture at 10:52 am by
Too often, I think, humans are polar creatures. I don’t mean we walk around on all fours in really cold climates. I mean we tend to think about the world just as though it’s black and white, or some shade of gray. We like to think of things as being either this, or that, or somewhere on the road between those two points.
That would be fine in a one dimensional universe. However, sometimes it pays to realize that we don’t live in a one dimensional universe. I think that’s hard, but we should endeavor to do that–to imagine a multidimensional world.
Take love for example. In our one dimensional world, we see love as an endpoint on a scale. The opposite of love is hate, right? Since you can’t respond because you’re reading, let’s just say I’m right. So, we have a scale. Love is on one end and hate is on the other. Now we have a useful measure for ranking things we either love or hate. For example, on the love/hate scale I hate CREED, but I love my wife, somewhere in the middle (but closer to my wife) is U2.
That’s great in a one dimensional world. But what if, we don’t really live in a one dimensional world. What if we actually were living in a two dimensional world but didn’t know it. (If you’ve ever read Flatlanders, you’ll know where I got this example.) One day, a dude in a helicopter (of course the wise reader would have to recognize that this world was actually 3 dimensional…but bear with me) comes along and takes you for a ride. He brings you up into the air and you, for the first time, realize that your 1-dimensional world is bigger than you thought. In reality, love isn’t a ‘one-line’ horizontal scale. In reality, love is a target. On the edge of one of the quadrants of that target is hate, but another quadrant is bordered with all other sorts of badness.
We live in a world that is best perceived as being 3 spacial dimensions (I’d prefer not to get into a discussion of quantum phyics…so let’s just call it a 3 dimensional world.) Likely, the love target is spherical.
I think we’d do well to remember that. That there are lots of other concepts that are the oppositte of love. The most salient,to me right now I think, is fear. More on this tomorrow…thanks for reading!
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Shannon said,
December 6, 2004 at 11:56 am
Another major opposite is total apathy. Like the Elie Wiesel quote says:
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
Christopher said,
December 6, 2004 at 12:27 pm
Brandon,
I agree with you, just as perfect Love casts out fear, I think perfect fear casts out love. First Nations peoples have a saying: “Fear is the way through which evil enters the human heart.” Fear causes us to turn inward, think only of our self and our survival or of our tribe and our survival, rather than imbibe in the One who Is so great that She passes us over even death–ultimate annihilation, so get over our self and our tribe–even the Christian one(s).
Also, I think Love is multi-dimensional affection, filios, eros, agape… All of these play a part in my own life; in human life these are bound up with one another…and I suspect strongly that they are also in the Life of G-d. Each of these in their own way takes us into that very Life.
I don’t think of hate as an opposite of love…when I hate someone or something, it’s usually because they are someone or something I have loved (perhaps more as I wish they would be than as they are) that has let me down.
Indifference as in non-attachment is a major goal of mystical traditions East and West, including those within Christianity such as the Desert Mothers and Fathers. Non-attachment allows us to simply be with others in a non-judging, open, flexible from of life. Indifference as in “don’t give a shit”, however, is a serious problem of our time.
jpe said,
December 6, 2004 at 8:03 pm
The problem with the love construct, as I see it, is that it’s just too devoid of content, and tends to be more like a floating signifier. Too many horrible things happen under the aegis of love for it to be a meaningful concept in many, many contexts.
Patriarch Verlch said,
May 6, 2006 at 5:27 pm
verlch.blogspot.com