What We Call Love

"Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity." --Roshi Shunryu Suzuki





The concept of love is far too grand for me to be specific about, it defies an accurate description because its ingredients are indefinable really. Poets, clerics, psychiatrists, drunks at a bar, prostitutes and their clients, murderers, children, common husbands and wives, pilots dropping bombs from 30,000 feet, warlords with armies made up of conscripted children, each will have their own inner ideas about love. Most probably these thoughts will be in flux, subject to change in the millisecond that their feelings become engaged.

The 20th Century was the bloodiest century in the history of mankind, hands down. I’ll take an educated guess that one hundred million people, mostly civilians, were killed in wars, pogroms and covert police actions during this time. Though in the earlier years of the decade the percentage of military deaths in war far surpassed civilian deaths, as the century progressed, more and more casualties of war were civilians. By the 1980’s civilians killed in war accounted for 85% of the total, and judging from the Balkans, Rwanda, Darfur, Iraq and Afghanistan, the percentage of civilians might be even higher. So, what does that mean? Our wars are carried out by professional military operations to kill civilians. Oh, but before I get sidetracked, don’t let me forget I began talking about love.

I bring up wars, but it could be domestic abuse, economic repression, racism, gender crimes, religious or political intolerance. It is the stuff our societies perform in the name of profound emotional caring (aka corrupt desire): love of country, love of God, love of our “way of life,” love and protection of our families. Churches are involved, governments certainly, educational institutions, et al. It seems we can’t stop ourselves from loving so magnanimously that we must harm or kill millions upon millions.

People who know me will shake their heads and hope that someone grabs the soap box from underneath my feet—I can’t say they aren’t entitled. Aren’t I just as much of a hypocrite and ethical dupe as the rest of my country, the rest of the world? Yup, I suppose so; but perhaps that gives me just as much reason to look into our penchant for violence and self-deception as anyone else.

I’m brought to these ideas of love by a quote a friend sent me the other day which is taken from Bishop Oscar Romero, the Catholic martyr who, while celebrating mass in a hospital chapel, was killed in 1980 by a death squad sharpshooter in El Salvador:

“Peace is not the product of terror or fear," he said. "Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent revolt of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.”

Now, any opinion in quotations seems to have some possibly unwarranted authority of truth attached to it, but in this case, I find Bishop Romero’s definition of peace to be on the money. So much so that I wonder if I lifted his quote and changed the word “love,” for “peace,” if it wouldn’t feel closer to a more correct appraisal of what we may be lacking. Let’s try it on: “Love is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Love is dynamism. Love is generosity . . .” Large concepts I suppose, but interesting nonetheless. It also seems to indubitably rule out killing, maiming or enslavement as a by-product. One of the largest conundrums I see emanating from “our intellect versus our action” is summed up in Jean Renoir’s famous line from RULES OF THE GAME: “…everyone has their reasons.” To me, uncritically defined love can be just as cryptic and vague. We can have 15th century nuns pressed into delusional visualizations of sex with Jesus as in Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS; or we can group the cruel, intoxicated Academic married couples playing out their ruthless games in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF under that same rubric of institutionalized love. I think we believe love is anything we want it to be. It’s as nebulous as our fascinations with God, and equally as dangerous. For myself, I know the old Amore to be great for high school love song lyrics, but fuck love. Let’s just be kind.

The YouTube clip beneath is pulled from a great and harrowing Kurdish film from Iran entitled TURTLES CAN FLY. Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, it speaks to the victims of war who are children. No matter who may claim military victory in any given area, those left orphaned, homeless, maimed and deeply traumatized are the losers left to pay the actual price. The film allows us into a scorched world of human detritus left by war. Refugee children eek out a living by collecting live land mines abandoned by retreating forces in the Iran/Iraq war and then selling them in a nearby town to rag-tag arms dealers. Presumably the mines will be sold to other fighters in the area and re-used continuing an ever dangerous threat to all. It's a great film and certainly incorporates love and the lack of love; kindness and its tragic void.






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