The following is in part responding to C.S. Lewis' chapter on Eros in The Four Loves. If you are a random passerby, take a minute, and whether or not you read the short essay, feel free to comment, question, discuss, and/or debate.
The English language is debilitating. Although we have a complex alphabet, and tens of thousands of words (maybe even hundreds of thousands), and even still we are restricted to words that are already created. This limits our vocabulary. --On a short side note, why don't we just create a language where phonetic sounds mean specific things, that way one can actually piece words that haven't been created together?-- Anyways, in reference to Lewis' piece, the English word that I would like to have a squabble with is "love." This word has so many meanings, from enjoying the look of a picture, to what a baby feels for those who care for it to the actual act of making the baby itself! That miserable failure of language encourages people to turn to other languages in order to differentiate.
Often, that other language is Greek. When looking at the four different words for love in Greek, one will still find issues of them not being specific enough.
The first is storge- which can be defined as a simple affection for something, or something that is forced, for instance, loving a tyrant.
The second is philia- which can be defined as a friendly love, something between two people that share a mutual affection for one another in a simple way.
The third is eros- which can be defined as sensual love, or the love significant others share. This one however is especially debated, and as per the reading I will expound on, as it needs a more in depth description.
The fourth is agape- which can be described as the strongest sense of love people can share, or a love that is sacrificial in nature.
Even in the Greek language, which has, in this case, a four times more complex vocabulary, fails to completely separate each feeling. Within eros, there are two different types of affection. There is that of "love" (which can be seen as the word meaning strong feelings for a significant other), and "sensual" (which can be seen as the word meaning erotic feelings towards another). Lewis points out this flaw himself by explaining the issue between them choosing eros for love, and venus for sensual, this is breaking of language barriers precisely as I would like to have done. Eros is then redefined as the love between two people who would prefer nothing more than to share the world together, and venus is redefined as the erotic attraction to sex.
All I can say on this matter, is that Lewis' logic impressively prevails again. Making more defined versions of the most amazing emotional complex is alluring.
4 comments:
Ben, I agree that we are often limited by the our limited language. However, when you started talking about this I thought you were going to talk about our discussion about submission and how you thought it may be too strong of a word, or perhaps just misinterpreted. I feel like you too a very indifferent perspective on this essay which is very uncharacteristic of you, especially since I know you had a lot of opinions about Eros. However, I did think it was an interesting and very logically structured perspective.
I greatly enjoyed this post. I like when you said " Eros is then redefined as the love between two people who would prefer nothing more than to share the world together, and venus is redefined as the erotic attraction to sex." This definition of Eros is really underestimated and I think taken advantage of. There are so many people who think they are in love or in eros with someone because they are physically attracted to that person when really, like you said, that is venus. I think in this day and age we see a lot more venus happening then we do eros. One example is that of the divorse rate which says 1 out of 2 marriages end in divorce. We all need to get back to reading C.S. Lewis more because he has great knowledge about this.
Yes, I agree with you so much. I despise how limiting the English language is. The mere fact that the words we use to express the most powerful emotions we feel, can be used by someone to say "I love shoes" is rather embarrassing. It devalues the word, which is a frustrating thing since love is the greatest gift God has given us. It is through His love that we are here now, and we use the same term for simple things.
@Chris, devalue is exactly right. That's why we have so many words that actually mean NOTHING.
-really
-good
-very
etc.
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