Re: Love Comes Back For More

Now that we seem to agree to love is good thing, I'll pass onto the issue of "European literature." First of all, if culture IS the thing that provided the starting point for what we associate with love (and I think the concept is itself sketchy), it has to come from somewhere. Writers of European literature didn't just pull ideas out of nowhere and say "hmm, I think I'll randomly decide that hugging is going to be a sign of affection." In fact, I have learned from English class that European literature was extremely unoriginal. A Clockwork Orange is an example of how humans are FORCED to act AGAINST their natural born instincts. Using Clockwork Orange as an example really refutes your argument more than supports because the entire idea behind Clockwork Orange is that it's a society where you forced to go against your natural born instincts. Yes, it is possible to "bring someone up" to abhor touching or hugging, but that very "bringing up" IS in itself FORCING someone else to abhor something that he or she shouldn't abhor naturally. As humans, we instinctly crave to be touched, to be hugged. You said so yourself that love is a survival mechanism. Because it is a survival mechanism, we are innately born with it. I'll back the example of a baby crying and wanting to be cuddled. When an infant is crying, the best way to get it to stop crying is to have the parent cuddle it (I've already said this in my first post). This is NOT because a baby has been brought up to associate hugging with love, it is because INSTINCTIVELY, when a baby is upset, he or she needs to be held, to be cuddled to feel reassured. If you strike a child every time he or she tries to reach out to you to be hugged or cuddled, THEN it would be an example of you curbing its natural born instincts and the child will therefore grow up abhorring touch. But that's because you interfered with its natural development.

The term "culture provides" is a misnomer, much like the term "society says." Society doesn't actually say anything. Culture doesn't provide anything. People living in a society, that follow certain cultures provide things. And there are reasons why people who write European litature, people who shape culture, and people who function within society develop ideas of certain symbols of love. Almost all these symbols can be traced back, in some fundamental way or another, to some kind of human instinct or human correlation. Hugging for example, stems from the human instinct to want to be touched. See what I mean? All traditions or cliches stem back to something that is at least partly innate to the human psyche.