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Essay On Love And Love

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What is love, what is power, and what relationship do they have to one another? Power is the dominion of a person over another, agreeable to one and labourious to the other. Love is the deliberate and congenial submission of people to each other, the binding of two persons belonging together. Thus, it would appear power and love are mutually exclusive. A bond of love is only attained through reciprocity, requiring both parties be autonomous. Even when a person of eminence falls in love with a person of low station, love itself eradicates the power difference. In comparison, a bond of power relies on the control of one by another, where the one exercising power affects through control what lovers pursue through reciprocity. Notwithstanding this difference between power and love, love is not …show more content…

Each submits to the other freely, appreciating they belong with each other. Each is devotee and devoted, what one is, senses, and desires, the other is, senses, and desires, as well. Love is the greatest accomplishment of humanity. However, pure love eludes almost everyone. What distinguishes pure love from that commonly experienced by humanity is power, love relationships begin with one trying to subdue, or be subdued, by the other, often it goes no further. Socrates fittingly described this relationship in Phaedrus: “As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves.”
What makes love relationships comparable to power relationships, where one dominates the other, in Hans Morgenthau’s words “is the inevitable frustration of love.” That is the bond will not last, the two do not truly become one. “It is the paradox of love that it seeks the reunion of two individuals while leaving their individualities intact. A and B want to be one, yet they must want to preserve each other’s individuality for the sake of their love for each other. So it is their very love that stands in the way of their love’s

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