I do believe that love is the best answer, in spite of my posts to the contrary. I just suspect that for far too many people, they’re living in a Foreigner song: “I wanna know what love is… I want you to show me!”
The problem with that is two-fold. First of all, love means that you must do something. Far too often people seem to think that love means, “get the government to pass a law to make them do something, or make them stop.” That’s not love. That’s coersion, which these same people are generally against when it’s a weapon pointed at them. Passing a law far too often means you’re giving up–you can’t seem to convince people to do what you want, so you’ll leave them no option. That’s not love, that’s revenge.
The other half of that is, as I’ve said before, when people invoke love as an answer it’s most often when they want someone else to show the love, to them. It’s the domineering partner approach: “If you really loved me, you’d do this.”
Do people truly understand how difficult it is to love a person into a different path? From what I can tell from most of the people prescribing this, they lack the patience for it. If loving someone into thinking differently were quick and simple I know many people who would not be agonizing over their kids’ rebellion.
Besides, love isn’t really love if it’s only offered in exchange for certain behavior. Remember Shakespeare? “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;”. Or, to quote a favorite Dale Carnegie quote of a friend of mine, “A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.”
Love can change hearts, and even do so quickly. But in many cases it’s more like erosion. It takes time, and you may not even notice the change. And I will admit that sometimes one simply does not have that kind of time. That’s why, unfortunately, there are times when violence and even war are the answer if the question is, for example, “how do I protect myself or my family against this person/group who is trying to do us physical harm?” Love can even work in those cases, but too often there simply isn’t time.
I’ll be among the first to admit that love is not easy. I know I’m not very good at it yet. But I’m pretty sure I’ll have an easier time convincing my neighbor to keep his dog from leaving deposits on my lawn if we’re on good terms because I’ve been taking the time to say hello, see how he’s doing, find out some things about him, and so on. I’ll have an easier time gaining his cooperation if I speak to him kindly and calmly, not screaming and yelling, demanding immediate action NOW!
I’ll have more influence over people I disagree with if I make sure the meme pics I post actually grant the other side some respect and a measure of credit (though granted, such pics may be hard to find…). Better yet, I could eschew the memes altogether and actually say what I think in a clear, concise, non-attacking manner. People tend to accept what we have to say when they know where we’re coming from and why we might think that way. It may not change their mind, but it may broaden it, even encourage them to consider your point of view in their calculations next time.
Love is not a zero-sum game, yet far too many people view life that way. So if love is truly the answer, we need to be looking for ways we can all win. While this can be accomplished with changes to law, it requires a great deal more effort than usually goes into laws these days. It requires moderation, a light hand and, yes, the preservation of areas of gray. If the devil is in the details, then love is in the gray area. Not always, of course, but love likely exists best in the gray areas, where it comes down to people to decide what is best between themselves rather than have the law decide for them with no acknowledgement of circumstance. Love is when someone says, “Well sure, it’s legal, but because I know it would bother or harm you/society, I’ll not do that. I’m willing to sacrifice some of what I think would make me happy to preserve/improve the common good.”
And sometimes it even means, “I don’t get my way on this at all. It’s not fair, but I still love the people I am around, and I’ll just accept this for now, keep loving them, and hopefully someday they’ll come to see things differently. They’ll at least be more open to change if they see that I do really care about them and am not doing this to harm them. Who knows? They may never change, but to perserve society we all have to give somewhere.”
I think that comes closer to the answer than most everything I see out there these days. Love is the answer? Okay, then let’s live it.
Excellent post! I especially liked this line: “Love can change hearts, and even do so quickly. But in many cases it’s more like erosion.”