This is a linkpost for https://deathisbad.substack.com/p/love-is-willingness-to-do-violence
I understand this point of view and have considered it, but I don't believe its quite right. For example, if i think about it only as my love and my revenge for my loved one, yes this makes sense, but i believe there is a bigger picture.
Lets change the scenario. Lets now say that I am the one that has been wronged and someone who loves me wants to avenge me do violence for me. Do I want them to? If I love them, many times, I would not want them to do violence and avenge me, because that would put them at risk and prolong their suffering. In violence terms I would think, "what if my loved one gets hurt?" "What if what happened to me happens to them?" "What if their life becomes worse because they did violence for me?". If this violence and/or revenge would not benefit me in a great way (and even if it did really), its not worth putting my loved ones through this even if they want to because of their love for me. In this situation, I would ask that if they really love me, they make the effort to not go for that violence and revenge and instead focus on keeping themselves safe. This would be hard for them and would be an even bigger act of love if they manage to do it.
So taking this into account, it's not that simple. Many times, true love is being willing to NOT do violence and let go, and what the person you loved would've wanted. Sure, many would not love and do neither, some would love and go for violence and revenge, but i believe many would also love and be even stronger and not go for violence and revenge.
I think in that story, the love was tied to violence and saved winkie from death because there was the added factor of power. The soldiers would be many and would have power to achieve the revenge without mayor negative consequences. Most people would end up worse of after a revenge. Unlike the soldiers, even if they, for example, killed the one who killed their loved one, their lives would be destroyed and may have to die themselves.
I agree that acting on this desire would often be sub-optimal, but I'm not advocating acting on it. I'm saying that it's there, and it's good to acknowledge, and honestly I think it's good that it's there even if it is sub-optimal in many parts of the modern world.
I don’t know. I just can’t see revenge being motivating to me. Even If someone killed my son, and I thought of violence out of revenge, I doubt that I would consider it long; it wouldn’t bring him back.
Love may be a willingness to go to extreme lengths for their benefit. I’m willing to endure violence, and defend with minimal violence. I’ve been in at least one situation l where I needed to defend a loved one. It’s the only fight I’ve experienced in my adult life.
A family member of mine was being abused and I stepped in and diverted his attention. He came at me, and I grappled with him. I defended myself, but I didn’t want to harm him; I wanted to keep her and myself out of harms way.
You could say, “Yes, but you’d think about it,” but in my experience it would be like the kind of thought like when driving in a two-way road, I might sometimes think, “I could just turn a little bit, and we’d all be dead.” I have no intention to actually do it.
Love may come with a willingness to defend someone’s life and wellbeing as oneself, but I think it is a category error to say that a willingness to do violence is a requirement of love.
Yes i understand this primal urge for violence and revenge that you say should be tied to love for it to be real love, i agree its valid. However, i believe its overlooking the complexity of it. For example, life experience and personality. Some people will just focus on doing what their loved one thats no longer with them would've wanted, others have trust in the laws and justice system, others are fully aware of how pointless it would all be.
I think your point stands in the sense that willing to do violonece and seek revenge is a big component of love, its expression and how powerful it is, i just disagree with your statement that love IS a willingness to do violence. I think it plays an important part in what love is, sure, but love is much more than that, and its way more complex.
I think we should be careful with the word "is". Here I think you mean "entails", which is not the same thing. I also don't think this is true for all people, but that's a separate point and I care less about making it.
Maybe people avoid looking at that because realizing they aren’t in love with their partner would be very inconvenient.
This definitely happened for me. I wasted so much time in relationships that were not valuable to me. Thanks for writing it so crisply.
Recognizing that you would hesitate to go on a vengeance rampage is a sign that you aren’t truly in love with the person you’re with. Maybe people avoid looking at that because realizing they aren’t in love with their partner would be very inconvenient.
I think this is typical minding. Yes, I'm sure some people really do love this way and aren't feeling love and hide from this fact. But this isn't the only kind of love. You're describing a kind of clinging love that demands to keep the other and would do anything to defend them. In this story, that clinging love is made out to be noble, but in a parallel story with slightly altered details, it could be turned into jealous rage.
Jealous rage is terrible. I disagree that it's a clinging love, which is what I would associate with jealous rage. This is a protective love.
In Rudyard Kipling’s “Wee Willie Winkie,” Winkie is a six-year-old British boy and the son of a Colonel posted in colonial India. His highest ideal to become an honorable man. He strives to be just, prudent, and loyal, in the ways a six-year-old believes these things can exist as true, real things. Not as means for some other end, but as ends in themselves. He lives with his whole heart, and he has a six-year-old’s lisp, and it’s easy to fall in love with him in just a couple thousand words.
By promising to keep a soldier’s engagement secret, he finds himself with a feeling of responsibility for that soldier’s betrothed. In the climax he sees her foibleing into danger, and rushes after her to help. By the time he catches up to her they are deep in enemy territory, and soon surrounded by one of the clans that are unhappy with the British presence. They’re about to be kidnapped and likely killed.
Winkie orders the raiders to bring word to the British outpost that they need help, and promises them they’ll be rewarded. The raiders laugh at first, until one of them recognizes the boy.
Canonically, Harry Potter was protected from the Killing Curse because his mother loved him so darn much. It’s a common fantasy trope, to the point of being a cliche. I read another protected-by-love and I roll my eyes. Usually.
Here, however, a helpless boy is protected by the power of the love of the local regiment of soldiers. The threat of them boiling over in murderous vengeance is a shield more effective than a dozen rifles and a cannon. The soldiers have created the real magic that these wish-fulfillment fantasy stories dream of. With their love. And the raiders know this, because they also understand love.
The power of love is that you don’t have to make any threat, it is inherent in the display of love. Those who are being deterred don’t need to judge how serious you are or what other political or practical considerations may sway you, they only need to be aware of the depth of your love. The Afghan raiders in Wee Willie Winkie don’t need to weigh the political situation of the British outpost and how retaliation will affect their strategic position in the wider area. They just need to know that the soldiers there absolutely adore Winkie and will rage like a thousand suns if he’s killed, all other consequences be damned. This is the shield that protects the boy.
In the modern world this is unacceptable. To say that I feel it’s good that these soldiers would raze an entire valley if their Winkie was killed is borderline psychopathic. But my heart feels this is good anyway. I don’t think you can have love without this drive to smash egregious violence into the bodies of anyone who would kill your loved one.1 I don’t think it’s good to pretend otherwise. Recognizing that you would hesitate to go on a vengeance rampage is a sign that you aren’t truly in love with the person you’re with. Maybe people avoid looking at that because realizing they aren’t in love with their partner would be very inconvenient.
In fact by strangling this desire in ourselves and burying it deep inside, we may be damaging our ability to feel true love at all. When your body isn’t allowed to feel this drive to do violence for the memory of your loved one, it doubts you love that person at all. Instead of love you get a warmed-over Liking. Maybe you even Like Like someone. But love? You can’t isolate the love from the willingness to do violence. They come as a pair.