The Failure of Western Love

Problems:
Plato takes us away from loving the particular, hence it is never the lover or the beloved that are good, since they merely participate in goodness.
The “Fall” and original sin undermines our reason and senses, causing our perception of the beloved to be infinitely doubtable.
The lover’s desires and reason are also irrevocably flawed in this world. Hence the lover can mistrust his own motives, misshaping his love until it is fashioned into a warped vessel.
Since we in the west believe in the corruption of the image of God, we are unable to see that the idolatry inherent in eros can be legitimized through the notion of each man as an icon of the divine.


Western love requires that one always look inward, constantly reevaluating, questioning perception, doubting what seems true, ripping apart motives until there is nothing left but dirty desires, pride, lust, and vanity. And in the case of the modern western man the requirement for truth becomes the filthy and the depraved, since it is what hurts that must be true. (a bit of the German work ethic is there: the harder the better) It’s not surprising that Sartra, the quintessential modern man, wrote about the death/impossibility of love.
Inward looking and questioning removes the power of love to elevate, and to lift the beloved and the lover to heights of goodness through the affirmation of the other. When I say I love you I proclaim, “It is good that you exist.”
Inward looking takes up the emotional space for looking beyond to the world and acting in it for its redemption. Tikun – the responsibility to participate in God’s redemption of the world. It is our task and our joy to “do justly and to love mercy” for by this the world is tangibly redeemed. Tikun becomes possible for those who can love and affirm goodness in others and in themselves. It is only then that they can trust themselves long enough to move their eyes toward the outside world.

The West does have the admirable concept of self-sacrificial love, loving others for God’s sake. But, by setting what some call agape up as the ideal for all love we loose eros. Self-sacrificing love is powerful in the community but between individuals it is despicable. Who wants to be loved not for themselves? To be true to “love” I don’t even want to give that expression its name. An expression is not love if it is not done for the sake of the other and in affirmation of the other. True, we can show that we love God by loving people who are His image, but that is precisely the point, we have to actually love the people. We have to encounter them and find within them something that we can affirm and love.