Kinds Of Love

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 22:18

This article was prompted by the controversy about what love is, which I have had to deal with quite often lately. And where each person affirms his understanding of love, sometimes radically different from the views of other participants in the discussion.

The question of love always remains ambiguous and often in search of answers to this question: “what is love?”, Disputes flare up. But, at the same time, each person knows that he loves and knows that he is loved, but each has his own criteria, different from the criteria of other people, that is, there are different types of love.

So what is love? This question has occupied humanity since ancient times. I propose to consider some types of love.

For example, in Ancient Greece, the following basic types of love were distinguished:

1. Eros. Enthusiastic, passionate love, based primarily on devotion and affection for a loved one, and then on sexual attraction. With such love, the lover sometimes begins to almost worship the beloved (oh). There is a desire to fully possess him. This is love - addiction. An idealization of a loved one occurs. But there always follows a period when "eyes open", and, accordingly, there is a disappointment in a loved one. This type of love is considered destructive for both partners. After the disappointment, love passes, and the search for a new partner begins.
2. Ludus. Love is sport, love is play and competition. This love is based on sexual attraction and is aimed exclusively at receiving pleasure, it is consumer love. In such a relationship, a person is determined to receive more than give something to his partner. Therefore, feelings are superficial, which means they cannot satisfy partners completely, they always lack something in a relationship, and then the search for other partners, other relationships begins. But in parallel, relationships can be maintained with their permanent partner. Short-lived, lasts until the first signs of boredom appear, the partner ceases to be an interesting object.
3. Storge. Love is tenderness, love is friendship. With this type of love, partners are friends at the same time. Their love is based on warm friendships and partnerships. This type of love often occurs after years of friendship or after many years of marriage.

4. Filia. Platonic love, so named because at one time this particular type of love was ascended by Plato as true love. This love is based on spiritual attraction, with such love there is a complete acceptance of the beloved, respect and understanding. This is love for parents, children, best friends, a muse. Plato believed that this is the only kind of love that is true love. This is unconditional love. Selfless love. Love in its purest form. This is love for love's sake.

In addition, the ancient Greeks identified three more types of love, which are a combination of the main types:

1. Mania or as the ancient Greeks called this kind of love: "madness from the gods." This type of love is a combination of eros and ludus. Love - mania was and is considered a punishment. This love is an obsession. She makes a man in love suffer. And she also brings suffering to the object of the lover's passion. The lover strives to be with his beloved all the time, tries to control him, experiences insane passion and jealousy. Also, the lover experiences mental pain, confusion, constant tension, insecurity, anxiety. He is completely dependent on the object of adoration. The beloved, after a period of such ardent love on the part of the lover, begins to avoid him and makes attempts to break off the relationship, disappear from his life, protect himself from the obsessed with love. This type of love is destructive, it brings destruction to both the lover and the beloved. This kind of love cannot last long, except in sadomasochistic relationships.
2. Agape. This type of love is a combination of eros and storge. This is sacrificial, selfless love. The lover is ready for self-sacrifice in the name of love. In such love, there is a complete dedication to loved ones, complete acceptance and respect of loved ones. This love combines mercy, tenderness, reliability, devotion, passion. In such love, partners develop together, become better, get rid of selfishness, strive to give more than take something in a relationship. But it should be noted that this kind of love can also be found in friends, but in this case, there will be no sexual attraction, everything else remains. Also, such love is spoken of in Christianity - sacrificial love for one's neighbor. Persist for life. But it is very rare.

3. Pragma. This type of love is a combination of ludus and storge. It is rational, rational love or love of convenience. Such love arises not from the heart, but from the mind, that is, it is born not from feelings, but from a consciously made decision to love a particular person. And this decision is based on the arguments of reason. For example, "he loves me," "he cares about me," "he is reliable," etc. This kind of love is self-serving. But it can last a lifetime, and a couple with this kind of love may well be happy. Also, pragma can develop over time into another kind of love.

And, of course, the question of love: what it is and what it is like, worried many philosophers. For example, V. S. Solovyov. defined love "as the attraction of one animate being to another in order to connect with him and mutual replenishment of life." And he identified three types of love:

1. Descending love. Love that gives more than receives. This type of love includes parental love for children, mainly maternal. This love comes down to the guardianship of the elders over the younger, to the protection of the weak by the strong. Thanks to this kind of love, at first a small community is organized, which "grows" into a fatherland and is gradually reorganized into a national-state life.
2. Rising love. Love that receives more than it gives. This kind of love represents the love of children for their parents. It also includes the attachment of animals to their patrons, especially the devotion of pets to humans. According to V. S. Solovyov, this same love extends to deceased ancestors. Further, it extends to more general and distant causes of being. For example, to the universal Providence, the one Heavenly Father, etc. And, accordingly, it is the root of religious thinking.
3. Sexual love. Love that gives and receives equally. This kind of love corresponds to the love of the spouses for each other. This love, according to VS Solovyov, "can achieve the form of a perfect completeness of vital reciprocity and through this become the highest symbol of the ideal relationship between the personal principle and the social whole." Also here Solovyov V. S. attributed a stable relationship between the parents of different species of animals.

Erich Fromm paid a lot of attention to the issue of love in his writings. About love itself, he said: “ Love - it does not have to be related to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character, which sets a person's attitude to the world in general, and not just to one "object" of love. If a person loves only one person and is indifferent to the rest of his neighbors, his love is not love, but a symbiotic union. Most people believe that love depends on an object, not on one's own ability to love. They are even convinced that since they do not love anyone other than the "beloved" person, this proves the power of their love. This is where the misconception, which was already mentioned above, manifests itself - the installation on an object. This is similar to the state of a person who wants to paint, but instead of learning to paint, he insists that he just has to find a decent nature: when this happens, he will paint beautifully, and it will happen by itself. But if I really love some person, I love all people, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to someone "I love you", I should be able to say "I love everything in you", "I love the whole world thanks to you, I love myself in you." …

He notes two opposite forms of love: constructive and destructive.

Creative love enhances the feeling of fullness of life. And it means care, interest, emotional response. It can be directed both to a person and to an object or idea.

Destructive love is expressed in the desire to deprive the beloved of freedom, the desire to possess him and his life. And, in fact, it is a destructive force. Destroys both the lover and the beloved.

Besides, E. Fromm emphasizedthat there is an adolescent, immature feeling of love and a mature, wise feeling of love. Immature love is based on the principle: "I love because I am loved." And mature love is guided by the principle: "They love me because I love." A person with an immature sense of love says, "I love you because I need you." And a person with a mature sense of love asserts: "I need you because I love you." According to E. Fromm, if a person develops, then his feeling of love develops, becoming more mature, and, as a result, passing into the art of love.

In addition, he identified 5 types of love:

1. Brotherly love. This type of love is based on the feeling of oneness with other people. This is love between equals. Relationships are built on equal terms.
2. Maternal or parental love. This type of love is based on the desire to help a weaker, helpless being. But it should be noted that it manifests itself not only in the mother or father to the child, but can also manifest itself in one adult in relation to another adult, who is subjectively perceived as weaker, helpless.
3. Self-love. According to E. Fromm, self-love is an important condition for the manifestation of love for another person. He believed that a person who does not love himself is incapable of loving at all.
4. Love for God. E. Fromm emphasizes that this type of love is the main one of all types of love. He believes that Love for God is not something personal, like a connecting thread of the human soul with God. This is the backbone of the basics.
5. Erotic love. These are the feelings of two adults for each other. E. Fromm believed that such love requires complete fusion, unity with his chosen one. The nature of this love is exceptional, therefore this type of love can coexist in harmony with other types of love, but it can also be an independent feeling.

Psychologists, in turn, distinguish the following types of love, each of which consists of polar manifestations of love:

Correct love and crooked love. These are two opposite types of love: in right love, first of all, a person cares about whom he loves, respects his choice, selfless self-giving occurs. And in a curve of love, a person, first of all, takes care of himself and demands and expects a lot from his beloved. Jealous of him, experiencing anxiety. He cannot let go of a partner if he is separated: he suffers for him, tries to return, keep, cannot come to terms with a break in relations.

I want love and I give love. I want love is characterized by the desire to receive love, care, attention. I give love inherent in desire: to love, to care, to create a warm and comfortable atmosphere for a loved one. And from all this, the lover experiences joy. These two types of love are also opposites, but which normally should complement each other, if this does not happen, then both types of love are "not healthy". The variant of love "I want" without "give" becomes just a whim, a demand, a manifestation of egocentrism, and is a common attachment. The option “give” without “want” leads to a complete rejection of one's own needs and desires to please the partner, for the sake of fulfilling his whims. As a result, such a person loses respect from his partner, he is treated as an ordinary means that satisfies his needs and nothing more.

Healthy love and sick love. If love is healthy, then a person experiences the joy of his love, perceives everything for the most part positively. He considers himself a happy person - he loves. If love is sick, then the person almost all the time experiences negative emotions, experiences, he is in constant suffering. This person has a need for suffering and he himself finds a reason from which he could suffer, hence "sees everything in a black light." Such love is also called neurotic.

Love-giving and love-deal. Relationships are at the heart of a yubvi-deal, where the principle is followed: "I give you something, and you give me something." And of course, everything is taken into account by partners, who gave what to whom or did not, especially when parting, when partners begin to reproach that they gave this and that, etc. With this kind of love, partners give each other what something to be sure to also get something in return. Love-giving, in contrast to love-transaction, is disinterested. Here partners give each other everything in their power free of charge, with love. They experience the joy that they can give something to their beloved, make him happy, see his joy. But unfortunately, in its pure form, such love is rare. But it should be noted that a love-transaction can become constructive if giving is present to some extent in the relationship, that is, the one who takes is also able to give. That relationship built on such love can be durable.

Love as a reaction and love as a solution. Love-reaction is an involuntary emotional and behavioral response of a person to another person, in his opinion or action, etc. This type of love is not subject to human will and is an uncontrolled, spontaneous process. Such love can arise both unexpectedly and just as unexpectedly disappear. Unlike reaction love, decision love is conscious love that arises as a result of a person's conscious choice to love. He takes responsibility and responsibility for the relationship. This love is expressed not only in feelings, words, but also in actions and deeds.

As you can see, there are different classifications of types of love, in some ways they are similar, in some ways different. What kind of love a person is lucky enough to experience depends on his self-esteem, personality maturity, self-realization, life values, family scenario.

Therefore, speaking about love, each person relies on his own experience and his ideas about love, which were primarily formed in the family, where parents and other significant people acted as examples of how they love, how they should or should not build relationships. But since in youth there is still no experience of its own, then the love that arises is usually immature and is "built" according to the principle of love, which the parents had or, on the contrary, its complete opposite. But as you gain life experience, the "quality" of love changes, it becomes more mature, and, accordingly, completely different types of love may arise.

And what is love for you?

Natalia Defua