vpshinra
DemonNick
Quote:
Well start with the topic line. Is love love anymore? It is my opinion that love, in current society, has lost the meaning it once held. Why, you may ask? Take a look around sometime, listen closely. Love is tossed around so casually, you'll hear people one week say "oh, I just met my new boyfriend/girlfriend, he/she's so sweet, I love them", in the not to far future, typically, you will see them moping "oh my bf/gf left me, I'm so hurt" but a week later its back to "oh, I just met my new boyfriend/girlfriend, he/she's so sweet, I love them". Wait? Hardly any time goes by and they're already out of love with the person before and in love with the new one? When did it become that easy?
The modern image of love was developed in the early 20th century. Before then it was mainly arranged courtships and numerous rules. That's also not love. That's relationships. Love is something more than that.
Hm. Actually, I beg to differ. The "modern" concept of love actually can be drawn back to the days of Ancient Greece and even further to epics such as Gilgamesh and the Ramayana. However, the idea of marriage for love is modern.
The best proof of text I can give you is Plato's "Symposium" in which love is discussed at length. Passionate love is very much described, as is "pure love" or the idea that a man and a woman (or a man and a man, or woman and woman, actually) were once one being, but split and became two and you eternally search for your counterpart (I cannot remember the name of the philosopher who brought this point up...)
In the Ramayana, Rama loves Sita so much that he's willing to do anything for her. After their years of hardship he says that he cannot be with her for fear that she has been despoiled or unfaithful, and she asks he build her a funeral pyre, but she doesn't burn because she has not been. They have a concept of "pure" love that is mingled with devotion and duty to one's spouse.
However, I repeat - while the concept is not modern, marriage FOR love is.
True, but you have to realize what he is trying to say. Teenagers these days are throwing around the word Love likes its the name of a car. They associate it with everything they do. Even jokingly they say "I love you." It's a phrase that shouldn't be portayed as so easily thrown in and thrown out.
The movie Closer is a prime example of how the real world views Love. You have those people who believe that they love someone, but in the real circumstances they don't. Then you have those people that are willing to hurt themselves just to express love for someone that they don't truly love.
You need to look at society now, which is what the first author tried to do, and realize that the term Love has been modernized to fit a "on-the-go-life style".
