| Platonic Love Love is quite an interesting notion. It connects people in myriad environments and spans the globe. It is claimed to be responsible for the various couplings that result in progeny and further the human race. It is thought to possess the power to conquer all and to bring peace. Of course, most of these notions are fallacies. Verily, love concatenates the multitude into the single entity known as society, but often results in violence, though not always physical, toward other societies or individuals within their own. Hence, it cannot produce the peace which is desired, nor can it conquer all for it cannot quell the destructive instinct. You see, there are varying opinions on the strengths of love and its types, some of which are viable and others much less so. And so I posit that one of these types of love, the one conceived by Plato, does, in fact, exist. Firstly, we must ascribe an apposite description to what we generally call love. Well, a suitable area to begin is undoubtedly the derivation of this so-called emotion. Love as we know it essentially originated from an urge to procreate i.e. a form of sexual gratification which just happened to be good for the survival of a species. Gratification of these impulses caused an attachment to the subject’s “plaything” resulting in a bond of sorts between the two (both physically and metaphorically). Later, the offspring resulting from the copulation were reared by the mother who was predisposed to care for them. Also, the male was inclined to defend his mate and his children (because they were tied to his mate) from various predators. These wholly instinctual manifestations of territorialism were perceived to be love. Therefore, love, which in actuality was an instinct toward sexual pleasure, was expanded to encompass the attachment to one’s direct descendants. Another step must be taken before Platonic Love can be proven to exist, that is, we must examine the expansion of love’s meaning to ensnare the vast expanse of variations we now know. It is obvious that the point at which love began to include more than its true meaning can be easily ascertained by a careful inspection of history. This point was, in fact, a pivotal era in the history of man, the introduction of the social contract (no, I do not mean when Rousseau explained this notion through The Social Contract, the social contract’s advent was much earlier than that). This pact offered protection to the early earth denizens in return for a little freedom. As part of the requirement deep connections had to be made between multitudes of individuals, thus immense fraternity (in the French Revolution’s sense of the word) resulted among them, which we now know as friendship. Since brothers (or any other siblings for that matter) loved each other (because they shared genes), it was thought logical to associate love with friendship. Hence, the all encompassing love was introduced. Now, the time has come to verify the existence of Platonic Love. However, a small step must be taken in preparation for the solution, the definition of Platonic Love. Platonic Love is an attraction to an individual, not necessarily of the opposite sex, in which sexual desire is absent, replaced with the abstract affection for that individual’s essence. There are in fact various aspects of one’s essence that draws this “pure” love. Of course, it must be made clear that this “type” of love is love solely in name, for lack of another term to describe this sort of connection. Well now, how would one go about proving such a thing? Undeniably, one could scour the annals of history for various examples such as Dante Alighieri’s infatuation with the infantile Beatrice, but I think a more obtuse method would prove more useful. First, let us devise a hypothetical individual to be the object of this affection. Let us say, for no particular reason, that this individual is a female of about seventeen years and of slightly sub-average comeliness and personality. She also possesses no particularly defining characteristics, e.g. a large bust, etc., that would make her physically attractive to individuals with particular perversions. Now, I assume we agree that she is not very sexually attractive to a vast majority of individuals, and that these said individuals would not think of copulating with her. Let us also ascribe to her a certain trait that is representative of her essence such as innocence (or naiveté). I suppose, now, that we are in agreement that some the individuals not attracted sexually to her are now strangely drawn to her; maybe even you are drawn to her now. And contrary to sexual attraction, this odd attraction produces no impetus to copulate but produces an urge to preserve her essence. Yes, her essence is like a delicate flower (to use a trite analogy) which one does not wish to defile. Undoubtedly, you doubt the universality of this idea, but I implore you, “Try this.” Change the young girl to a middle-aged man. Now tell me, is there not a similar attraction to an innocent middle-aged man as there was for an innocent young lass? I assume that if you think thoroughly you will see that there is. Of course, if you are still doubtful you could supplant the individual’s physical makeup once more or even change the aspect that characterizes the essence, but I am certain it will return the same response. Consequently, through the use of obtuse logic (if it can be called logic), Platonic Love is shown to be a verity. The love of the essence, Platonic Love, does indeed exist and is one of the many “types” of love to be considered extant. Also, with a love whose origin is not sexual gratification it is legitimate to ponder a higher form of unification among individuals than with traditional love. |