THE MYTH OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Stuart K. Hayashi
Wouldn't it be grand if we could live in world where people loved one another in spite of all differences? Wouldn't everything be better if one could be loved without any regards to his appearance, thoughts, words, actions, or accomplishments? Shouldn't love have absolutely no strings attached to it? If we're talking about fairy tales, the answer is a good-hearted Yes. It's too bad that you and I, however, have to bear the terrible misfortune of living in practical reality. Unconditional love--in the purest meaning of the term--simply cannot exist in this world, and the closest people have ever come to achieving it can be descibed as mentally unhealthy . . . at best.
Before the faults of the "unconditional love" dogma are examined, it is important to look at the various reasons why it is preached in the first place. The more innocent reason why one may be drawn to such an ideal is because of the unreasonable conditions that some people often try to impose on those seeking their love. This sort of behavior is commonly exhibited throughout high school, in which many students believe that whoever they are going out with "must be good-looking", "should be in the same clicque as me", "should wear a certain brand of clothing", or do something else that really doesn't matter much. Clearly, these are all examples of insignificant, shallow conditions which dating partners try to foist on one another. This sometimes even occurs later in life, in which one says that her future partner "has to be rich." Of course, the typical knee-jerk response among "mature" adults and college students (making a futile attempt to sound wise) is that this is the purest exponent of conditional love, and that conditional love should therefore be condemned. The problem is that this particular mind-set fails to distinguish the reasonable conditions from the unreasonable conditions. In reality, all love is conditional--at least love that's mentally healthy and productive.
You may be thinking, "I know I don't set any conditions on my family or sweetheart." Such thinking is understandable, so let's put it to the test. Don't you agree that you love your father, but that you wouldn't love him if he beat you with his fists every day?! If so, then you've already set a condition on him--you won't love him if he beats you every single day. A condition on love can be as simple and easy-to-follow as that. And isn't that a reasonable condition to set? Also, don't you think that your lover should 1) return your affection, 2) treat you like a decent human being, and 3) refrain from living off your earnings while doing none of his/her own share of anything for years on end?! If that's the case, you've already set three conditions on him or her right there. Believing in conditional love doesn't necessarily make someone shallow or fickle; it's necessary in any healthy relationship between family members and lovers. Can you imagine situations in which people don't set such reasonable, easy-to-comply-with conditions? There are some examples.
In spite of all the atrocities committed by Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy, their parents still love them very much. It doesn't matter to Mr. and Mrs. Dahmer that their son's body count is in the double-digit range, that he preserved severed heads in his refridgerator, or that he ate body parts. This makes it very obvious that these parents did not set the condition, "I won't love my son anymore if he murders a lot of people." That would make this an example of unconditional love. On the part of the parents, this is understandable, but should we be applauding them?! Is this the type of "love" that should be encouraged? Let's hope nobody thinks so.
A far more destructive example of "unconditional lovers" is battered wives. These women are verbally, pscyhologically, and physically abused by their husbands, yet refuse to leave, even though many of them have the competence and the money to live without them. So why do these women stay? A part of it has to do with including their lousy husbands into their own sense of identity, which means that the husband is a permanent part of herself, so that she loves him unconditionally in a way as perverse as this. We hate to see women treated so horribly, so we tell them to leave these rats. But if a woman thought, for a second, that her husband shouldn't try to make her feel worthless, live off of her work while he does nothing at all, or beat her to a pulp, then she's already set three conditions on him. And shouldn't these conditions be set?! We have seen what happens when they aren't.
So, when we really think about things, most healthy relationships are based on very simple conditions, while there have been examples of unconditional love which have been only of detriment to society. Yet one wonders, "Aren't there also examples of a perfectly healthy, unconditional love between two or more people?" If so, I have never observed it in my life, and all of the alleged examples of it fall flat.
One example I was given was that a father could love his son even though they were of different religions. Let's look at this "argument" more closely. What we know is that this father would prefer his son to be of the same religion as him, only it is not to be. Still, the father loves his son anyway. The person applying the argument confuses conditions of the ideal with conditions of love. If the father thinks that his son should be of the same religion as himself, that's his condition of what the ideal son would be like. However, that his son be the same religion as himself can only be a condition of love if he no longer loves his son just because they are not of the same religion. A father may say, "I won't love my son if he's of a different faith," but, if he loves his son anyway, even though he's of a different creed, then he only said he set that condition, but didn't really.
When arguing with a so-called intellectual via email, back in the early winter months of 1999, over whether "unconditional love" had any validity whatsoever, I brought up the subject of Robert S. McNamara and his estranged son. McNamara served as the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 under the administrations of Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. When Johnson had to choose whether or not to pull the United States out of the Vietnam War, McNamara advised him to continue fighting, even though he later admitted that he only told him to do that, because he was afraid some higher officials would fire him for doing so. So, because of his own cowardice, he helped to send thousands of more soldiers to unnecessary deaths. This so disgusted McNamara's son, that he disowned his own father and never spoke to him again. Clearly, the son set this condition on his father: "If you send thousands of men to their deaths, simply because you're too afraid of being fired, I won't love you anymore." I agree with McNamara's son wholeheartedly. If my father were that rotten, I would hate him too. So I asked this "intellectual" if he thought that McNamara's son was wrong to hate his terrible father. I expected the reply to be irrational, but it turned out to be insulting as well. This "intellectual" copped out; he didn't bother to answer whether the son was right or not. He said only that if McNamara's son stopped loving his father, he must never have loved him to begin with. He then told me that, because "true love" can only be without condition, anyone who sets any that condition on his parents, simply does not love them. On those terms, I've never loved anyone--and neither has most of the people who ever lived.
So that he wouldn't offend me any more than he already had, this alleged intellectual tried to soothe me with the idea that unconditional love isn't necessarily right or wrong; it's only the true form of love, while conditional love is false. But, if unconditional love is true love, and conditional love is fake love, doesn't that still give the impression that unconditional love is good while conditional love is bad?! After all, who would be content "knowing" that his or her love for a person was merely false?! That means that most people's subconscious view of love is not necessarily bad; it's only false. Gee. Doesn't that make you feel better? =OS
If this "intellectual" is right, then surely everyone else must be wrong. Of course, it's not the number of people disagreeing with him (at least on a subconscious level) that make him wrong, but his premises. One must wonder what it is which makes him right and most others wrong. Of course, science can neither prove nor disprove his conclusion, so his basis is probably philosophical. Those who read his writings on the subject are to believe that he must have some sort of spiritual insight which makes him wiser than most. So what is his divine source? Does God or some spirit speak to him? He admits no such thing to me. Does he love every member of his immediate family more than most people? I would have to say no, but I cannot go into detail here, since that would be telling the public about his private life without his consent. Has he explained it through reason? No. Even though he profusely gushes about "uncondtional" love on his web page, he doesn't seriously play devil's advocate and then explain what makes him right, and the arguments he gave me have already been dismantled on this very page. So what's the real source of his divine revelation? More than likely 2000-year-old bromides that he decided to recite in order to sound wise. But then, that's only one possible explanation. But then, I'm no expert either, so what makes me more of an expert than him? Well, it's not much, but, first of all, I try to ask myself what makes something right, wrong, or indeterminable and then play devil's advocate on various sides in order to determine what is right, while he accepted this old creed without any doubts and then tried to re-package it as something new. Secondly, at least I actually can talk to all of the members of my immediate family, including my siblings. I speak of these two points with reservations, since the discussion of this issue shouldn't be on a personal level when talking about opponents. Still, had I not addressed these points, I would be asked "What makes you more right than he?" Those are two of my reasons for believing myself to be closer to the truth. Of course, the "intellectual" could say "Well, you're annoying and girls like me more than they like you!" but I don't think those two points are of as much relevance as the ones I addressed.
There are a number of reasons why people preach to others that they must love unconditionally. It sounds like a pleasant dream, so some immediately agree with it, without thinking about the more reasonable conditions they set upon others, or the reasonable conditions others set on them which they gladly perform. Others just say it because people know that it was said by a number of philosophers for centuries, so saying it makes one appear sagely. In the worst case scenario, a man extols uncondtional love because he simply doesn't want any condtions set on himself, he expects others to love him in spite of any rotten thing he does. All of the more "mature" people I have known to have profess unconditional love were those who knew they weren't working hard enough at an aspect of their personality, and knew that it was repulsive enough to chase loved ones away. Rather than correct this flaw, they would have others accomodate them. This is why, young ladies (and even young men), you would do well to be wary of the person who professes unconditional love--he wants you to love him without any standards. I have been mooched off of by such people, and many people close to me have been their victims as well. Please, for your own sake, don't be taken in by them.
"Unconditional love" is a concept for the fairy tales; not reality. For those of us living in the real world, it is time that we accept that all true, healthy, clean love is conditional--within the bounds of reason. Just as we cannot have true love under unrealistic conditions, we cannot have it without conditions either. You shouldn't say that you can't love your significant other if he or she doesn't buy you gifts every week. But you should say that you can't love your significant other if she or he verbally and physically abuses you and treats you like a slave and a trophy. The ideal we should be striving for is not unconditional love; it's conditional love with a firm touch of reason and reality in mind.
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The above essay is Copyright © 1999 Stuart K. Hayashi, and may not be reproduced by any means, without his written consent. All Rights Reserved.