RoR: Forum

I used to swallow quotes like the one posted above whole. And I used to really work hard at implementing morality in my life as a sole basis for love.

Didn't work for me.

Not only did it get boring and make me boring, I learned a hard lesson in what happens when you repress your essential nature. The repressed part one day will come back with a vengeance.

I was once involved for almost a year with a Playboy bunny - and this was NOT my type of person. She didn't even have a high school diploma. But she did take me on a joyride through hell where I ended up not recognizing myself anymore. She had never heard of Ayn Rand and didn't even like the material I had her read. But I fell for her like a ton of bricks. At least I had the good sense to end it, but still that was one of the most painful things I have ever done. It was not simply a falling out of love because of differences in moral choices. The love was very real (both hers and mine). We just couldn't stop hurting each other.

So much for receiving the "greatest reward I could earn for the moral qualities I had achieved in my character and person." Morality was actually present, but it was not even a main part.

Anyone who has ever been the victim of a jealous rage knows that no amount of moralizing will calm the jealous party down. And whoever has felt the power of the emotional hijacking of jealousy in their own heart knows that love has spun out of control, not morality.

I think that the key to good romantic love is balance between the strength of feeling it, reason, physical attraction, willingness to accept shortcomings and differences, admiration and a bunch of other things - and even including moral qualities. Seeking such balance, to me, is the proper way to implement reason with love.

Michael

Post 21

Monday, February 21, 2005 - 9:02am

Hi Michael,

Having been through a tough romance myself, I think I can empathize with you. In fact, until I really learned to understand love and vlaue, I would have said things very similar to your post. That said, I diasgree that the statement by Rand is false. I think you need to look closer at your relationship with the "bunny." Please see my comments on parts of your post below

what happens when you repress your essential nature.

Why would you need to repress anything about your essential nature for love? What was it you felt you had to repress, and why was this necessary if hte relationship were love?

and this was NOT my type of person.

If she was not your type of person as you say, why did you "love" her. What was it that you loved? What virtue did she posses?

Anyone who has ever been the victim of a jealous rage knows that no amount of moralizing will calm the jealous party down. And whoever has felt the power of the emotional hijacking of jealousy in their own heart knows that love has spun out of control, not morality.

Jealousy is an emotional response to the evasion of the knowlege that you are not worthy of the value you are attempting to hold onto or a feeling of insecurity that stems from the thought that the same may be true. It is often confused with the emotion of anger when a betrayel is involved.

Anyway,

give it some thought, and perhaps you will come to the same conclusions I did about my own past relationship.

Regards,
Ethan

Post 22

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 2:42am

Ethan,

Thank you for your concern, but my bunny hopped off years ago. I'm also not in the bunny business anymore. (For a long time after our breakup, I would only date ugly women, but I eventually got over that.)

For the record, I didn't state that "Rand is false." I said that it didn't work for me, specifically basing love solely on morality I'll even throw in virtue right now for good measure. I suppose I should clear up a few things, though.

My whole posture is not to disprove Ayn Rand, but instead to discuss my experiences, thoughts and conclusions as a complement to her ideas, even when I disagree with something she wrote. Ever since I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time (somewhere around 1970), I have tried to apply her philosophy to my own life with varying degrees of success and failure. When something hasn't worked, I talk about it. I try to find something that does (which, in the case of healthy love, is balance).

The level of emotion you describe is more suited to the neocortex. What I am talking about goes much deeper into the brain complex, the pre-reason part where the base reptilian emotions - get food, flee, mate - start to flower into richer more complex feelings. Love at that level has nothing to do with morality. That only happens when an emotion gets to the neocortex, but by then many non-chosen biases have already already been set. And that is where sometimes all hell breaks loose. All this is part of species-oriented emotions, which I have seen mentioned or alluded to very little in the Objectivist literature.

Jealousy. Here I am sorry to say that I simply do not agree with your definition. Anyone who has had a dog or cat has seen them become jealous over another animal or attention given to another. I don't think that this comes from these animals evading anything. Human jealousy does not change this nature. It just gets more complicated and sometimes really dangerous. In Objectivist history, look at what Ms. Rand did with Nathanial. She even slapped him a couple of times. And that from the hardcore proponent of non-initiation of force!

Repression. What I repressed was my real feelings for years, trying to put them into a straight-jacket of Objectivist-type categories. When you repress anything you are going to get into real trouble one day (and might even get cancer to boot). In my case, something popped and I "took a walk on the wild side." Yes, I did actually love my bunny, too. But at that time I was damned if I could say why. The type of definitions you give are precisely what had been running and stopping up my real feelings for a long time when bunny hopped up.

Then boom.

For all practical purposes, Michael Objectivist was no more for quite a while.

On a personal note, if you are experiencing a deep uncomplicated love with another person that allows you to live with these more simple definitions about emotions, good for you. I mean it. Treasure this. You have my most heartfelt blessing.

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 2/22, 2:47am)

Post 23

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 6:31am