"Love" is Hyperreal Newspeak
Hyperreality refers to how our fantasies produce our realities, rather than the other way around. I used it as does Jean Baudrillard.
Newspreak is used as it is in Orwell's 1984.
When a society values something more, they tend to have more words for it. The oft quoted example is "Eskimo's have 3000 words for snow". Having so many words for it allows you to be very precise: it is exactly that kind of snow. All sorts of factors, like the outside temperature, the snow's temperature, the snow's color, thickness, whether it is compressed, etc, etc, become easy to communicate and reason about.
This effect is also significant in, for example, the identification of Birds. Some languages will have words to describe every attribute of a bird. By having a word for a characteristic, we can reason about it selectively, and clearly. And vice versa.
It should then be obvious that the word "love" is not very specific at all! You can "love" anything - from people to animals to books and even actions. It is so broad a concept - it seems almost to refer to any positive feeling towards a concept.
We can distinguish some forms of love quite readily:
- "Parental Love" - the "love" of one's child
- "Romantic love" - being sweet and dreamy about a relationship with a person (or do you think it means something else?)
- "Sexual love" - akin to Lust, but specific to a person, and normally combined with "Romantic love" (do you think this even counts?)
- "Love of [object/activity]" - used synonymously "I like [object/activity] very much". Note that it is sometimes used on people as well, although that is extremely confusing
- "Brotherly Love"- the "love" of one's brethren
- "Love of Country" - synonymous to patriotism
So, it's clear love is a vague concept, don't you agree?
Let's analyse the synonyms from Thesaurus to find patterns of what it might mean:
| Meaning-type | Similar words |
|---|---|
| Commitment | Devotion / Allegiance / Attachment / Fidelity / Involvement |
| Affection | Amity / Fondness / Like |
| Appreciation | Adulation / Tenderness / Cherishing / Delight / Relish / Worship |
| Partiality | Weakness (for) / mad (for) / soft spot (for) / inclination |
| Infatuation | Enchantment / Flame / Crush |
| Longing | Yearning / Fervor / Hankering / Idolatry |
| Sexuality | Lust / Passion |
The intensities vary wildly. Parential love is characterised by it's great commitment and affection, and lack of longing and sexuality. "Puppy love" is practically synonymous with infatuation, a process we know is strongly mediated by hormones like for example Oxytocin (the "cuddling hormone").
But there is many more categories of love! Take for example "courtly love" - a knight will take on difficult assignments, causing him a deal of suffering, in order to show his love for a noble lady. There is no need for her to reciprocate, it is in fact more "noble" if she does but tie a handkerchief around his arm. This platonic (lust-free) form of partiality, infatuation and commitment, was considered beautiful in the middle ages, but has fallen almost entirely out of fashion.
As we lack more specific words, nobody knows what love is. Yet, the words "I love you" can be the most significant in your entire life.
(I love you for reading this far!)