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Humanities Section => Philosophy & Rhetoric General Discussion => Topic started by: zarus tathra on May 15, 2014, 12:59:32 AM

Title: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: zarus tathra on May 15, 2014, 12:59:32 AM
In the end of the book/movie 1984, Winston defiantly tells O'Brien, his interrogator, that "love will conquer hatred," which seems to imply that love hurts the Party and hatred supports the party. O'Brien even tells him that "hatred is as necessary as love, or perhaps more necessary," as if hatred were the basis of their system. Right afterwards, O'Brien tells Winston that the ultimate goal is to get him to love the party and Big Brother, something of a contradiction to the preceding conversation.

This illustrates something that should be very obvious to anyone who isn't a hippie, which is that "the system," and really, any system, relies on love much more than it does hatred, that any hatred that it attempts to instill is calculated to increase love of the system. That is why it does not matter which country Oceania is at war with; what matters is that the people love the system.

Generalizing this basic idea, it seems that anyone proposing to instill "universal love" is also trying to pave the way for Orwellian government, and vice versa. Stalin, Napoleon, Hitler, all these men talked of universal this and universal that. And of course, Christianity played no small part in inspiring the West's will to conquer. Not even the Dali Llama is immune; his book "The Compassionate Life" talks about how his ideal is for a "benevolent" world government that controls all access to weaponry.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: AllPurposeAtheist on May 15, 2014, 05:49:21 AM
Dude, you probably ought to go outside a bit more and mingle with people.
I don't buy into universal love anymore than universal hatred. 1984 was pushing the boundaries quite a bit of the 'what if' world.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: Jason78 on May 15, 2014, 06:32:19 AM
Failure to love the Party is a failure of the Party.   And in the end Winston was conditioned to love the Party.  So much so that he'd betray his lover and himself. 
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: stromboli on May 15, 2014, 10:09:30 AM
We had universal love back in the 60's with the Hippie movement. Lasted until they got out of college. Now they are old men and women with Defense Department contracts.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: Solitary on May 15, 2014, 10:38:20 AM
Failure to love the Party is a failure of the Party.   And in the end Winston was conditioned to love the Party.  So much so that he'd betray his lover and himself. 

:syda: Sounds like organized religion to me.  :axe: Solitary
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: PickelledEggs on May 15, 2014, 02:55:24 PM
Quote from: zarus tathra on May 15, 2014, 12:59:32 AM
This illustrates something that should be very obvious to anyone who isn't a hippie, which is that "the system," and really, any system, relies on love much more than it does hatred, that any hatred that it attempts to instill is calculated to increase love of the system. That is why it does not matter which country Oceania is at war with; what matters is that the people love the system.

Love and hate has nothing to do with "the system". "the system" relies on fear, control, and cooperation.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: SilentFutility on May 15, 2014, 06:03:09 PM
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on May 15, 2014, 05:49:21 AM
Dude, you probably ought to go outside a bit more and mingle with people.
I don't buy into universal love anymore than universal hatred. 1984 was pushing the boundaries quite a bit of the 'what if' world.
Over 15k posts on an internet forum and accusing someone with just over 1k posts of spending too much time inside.
I've amassed quite a post count myself but I'm not going around finger pointing and implying people are saddos for posting here.

1984 was supposed to push those boundaries and is full of symbolism and metaphors which translate to potential events in the future rather than being a 100% accurate depiction of them.
Animal farm mimicked events in the Russian Revolution but that doesn't mean George Orwell thought the Russian Revolution was orchestrated by talking pigs...

Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: Shol'va on May 15, 2014, 06:21:08 PM
"Universal" as a concept to me seems to imply a sort of absolute, in the sense that it is applicable across the board without exception.
People posess the capacity for love, hatred, or both, but not all people posess them both. As such, I would be inclined to say that "universal love" does not exist.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: stromboli on May 15, 2014, 08:24:00 PM
I thought the hippie reference was apt because that was one of their themes, everybody love everybody else. If you have a utopian society where everyone is fed, no one disagrees on any ideology, and all there is to do is mingle and have sex, maybe. The closest I can come to that is the Eloi in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine" and they were the victims of the Morlocks. It is a utopian idea but a practical impossibility.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: Shiranu on May 15, 2014, 08:50:38 PM
I just realized my post didn't post... that's obnoxious...

QuoteThis illustrates something that should be very obvious to anyone who isn't a hippie, which is that "the system," and really, any system, relies on love much more than it does hatred...

Completely disagreed, especially depending on what system we are talking about, but okay.

Quote...that any hatred that it attempts to instill is calculated to increase love of the system.

Aaaaand then you completely contradict yourself.

Love in that sense is no more "love" than the wife has for the husband who abuses her and their children. To use extremes (as 1984 does), do you honestly believe the "love" North Koreans have for their dear leader, their fanatical worship of him, is anything similar to the love that say Scandinavians have for the benefits their government provides them? Or if we to make a more accurate opposite, a country whom's government say's nothing about what people should or shouldn't think, nor promotes it's goods or it's bads, and yet it's people still loved it because of the benefits and fairness the government provided and treated them with.

You use the worst examples of "universal" yet ignore all the instances where it works, and infact that many of the great benefits of modern society are dependent on universality. I cant help but wonder if you are pushing some agenda :).
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: SGOS on May 15, 2014, 10:45:30 PM
Quote from: stromboli on May 15, 2014, 10:09:30 AM
We had universal love back in the 60's with the Hippie movement. Lasted until they got out of college. Now they are old men and women with Defense Department contracts.
I loved the 60's.  I still look back at those years with a great fondness.  I thought the world was finally headed in the right direction, although some of the hippies were kind of pretentiously competing with the others to be more back to nature than thou or cooler than thou.  While we made comments about the plastic society that existed around us, the hippie movement had a certain plasticity of its own, and I was quite sure many of the hard core members of the movement would eventually sell out.  It wasn't like many were actually rejecting the foulness of a corrupted society.  It was more like they were taking a 10 year vacation from it.  You know, before they got into defense contracts and corporate take overs.

However, I think some lasting and positive social change did come out of those years, and even while some of the hippies eventually condemned the movement for all the drugs, sex, and rock and roll, I still think the loosening of sexual attitudes was a very good thing.  I don't have much good to say about the drugs.  I'm neutral about that part of it.  But I never could understand why anyone would get their nose out of joint by the rock and roll, which had been a part of society 10 years before the coming of the flower children.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: the_antithesis on May 17, 2014, 11:30:14 AM
Universal love is nonsensical, anyway. It's like saying everyone is special is the same as saying no one is.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: zarus tathra on May 24, 2014, 07:28:18 AM
Point is, if more people outright hated the system, then the system would cease to exist, while if the only thing people did was "love" each other, then the system would probably still exist for the most part.

All those posts full of petty, effeminate sarcasm, and none of you seem to have grasped my basic point.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: Shiranu on May 24, 2014, 08:38:14 AM
Quote from: zarus tathra on May 24, 2014, 07:28:18 AM
Point is, if more people outright hated the system, then the system would cease to exist, while if the only thing people did was "love" each other, then the system would probably still exist for the most part.

All those posts full of petty, effeminate sarcasm, and none of you seem to have grasped my basic point.

Didn't miss it, nor do I quite understand how effeminate is an insult, but so what? The system falls, the system lives. Do you really think no one has ever thought to themselves, "If everyone REALLY hated a system, it wouldn't last"? That is a concept I think most people have down by 3rd grade.

Ultimately you said something everyone knows (a system can only thrive on "love" or forced "love", and will fail if it's hated enough)... wow, colour me amazed!
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: the_antithesis on May 24, 2014, 12:44:52 PM
Quote from: zarus tathra on May 24, 2014, 07:28:18 AM
none of you seem to have grasped my basic point.

That's because we do not care what you have to say.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: Art Axmann on June 02, 2014, 10:43:11 PM
Quote from: zarus tathra on May 15, 2014, 12:59:32 AM
In the end of the book/movie 1984, Winston defiantly tells O'Brien, his interrogator, that "love will conquer hatred," which seems to imply that love hurts the Party and hatred supports the party. O'Brien even tells him that "hatred is as necessary as love, or perhaps more necessary," as if hatred were the basis of their system. Right afterwards, O'Brien tells Winston that the ultimate goal is to get him to love the party and Big Brother, something of a contradiction to the preceding conversation.

This illustrates something that should be very obvious to anyone who isn't a hippie, which is that "the system," and really, any system, relies on love much more than it does hatred, that any hatred that it attempts to instill is calculated to increase love of the system. That is why it does not matter which country Oceania is at war with; what matters is that the people love the system.

Generalizing this basic idea, it seems that anyone proposing to instill "universal love" is also trying to pave the way for Orwellian government, and vice versa. Stalin, Napoleon, Hitler, all these men talked of universal this and universal that. And of course, Christianity played no small part in inspiring the West's will to conquer. Not even the Dali Llama is immune; his book "The Compassionate Life" talks about how his ideal is for a "benevolent" world government that controls all access to weaponry.

Lock five people in a room with two small bags of groceries for two weeks and then let's see how far your universal love goes.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: Dreamer on June 03, 2014, 12:02:53 AM
The issue is with the expansive meaning of the word love. It refers to rather distinct meanings depending on who uses our and what context.

But yeah generally people don't do things because they want to be grateful or not increase love. People do their best and whatever that are doing they do because they think it will serve them well.
Title: Re: My thoughts on "universal love"
Post by: EldonG on June 05, 2014, 09:47:54 AM
For what it's worth, I consider myself a hippie...and the system in no way thrives on love.  Love is an emotion...a temporary feeling.  So is hate.  Niether one causes any society to operate or not in any sense of the word...it's rhetoric.

Empathy, and caring for your fellow man, and the world we share is the basic hippie ethos...something I very much believe in...and that doesn't support a corrupt system.