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Gerardo Castillo Ceballos, Professor Emeritus of the School of Education and Psychology

The origin of the current crisis of love

Tue, 25 Oct 2016 09:49:00 +0000 Published in The Confidential

Lately many people talk too much about the economic crisis, especially those less affected by it. This insistence sample that they are polarized in the security and material well-being that money provides. Aristotle said that "security is to be found in the nomos, in the concord of free men who seek the good life; in no way does it consist in wealth".

From the consumerist mentality of today's man, it is difficult to understand the position of the Greek philosophers: to put the "good life" (virtuous) before the "good life" (gentrification). However, a contemporary philosopher, Alejandro Llano, has also put his finger on the sore point: "the more consumerism, the less protagonism".

 There is a second unnoticed crisis that affects us more deeply than that of subject economic: the anthropological crisis, linked to a moral crisis, of love and of the person. We live in an increasingly impersonal and utilitarian society, which generates loveless intelligences and love illiterates.

Groucho Marx affirmed that "the bad thing about love is that many confuse it with gastritis and when they are cured of their indisposition, they find that they have married". The illiterate of love have also had defenders of the stature of William Shakespeare: "In love one is happier with ignorance than with knowledge".

 Julián Marías pointed out that utilitarianism is invading the most intimate and valuable redoubts of life: the relationship between teachers and disciples, friendship and love. This invasion is worrying, since friendship and love require a selfless, generous and effusive attitude, which is incompatible with the utilitarian mentality.

Utilitarianism in married life generates shared selfishness: the relationship is almost reduced to a reciprocal use of the man and the woman.

The current crisis of love stems from the "sexual liberation or sexual revolution" movement that emerged at the end of the 20th century, although it is still in force today. This movement opposes the traditional codes of sexual morality, favoring all subject sexual relations outside marriage. It has grown due to the current diffusion and generalized use of all subject contraceptives, thus separating sexuality from reproduction.

Another antecedent is Freud's doctrine, for whom all human behavior would be driven by the instincts, which are oriented to pleasure. Instinct would be authentic, natural and sincere, and should therefore always be satisfied without delay. This liberation of the instincts would produce health, harmony, calm and psychological maturity, while any repression or restraint would be contrary to nature, and would therefore cause disorder, tension and disease.

A message to Freud and to those Freudians who have not read it:

  • Natural is not instinctive. Natural is what nature demands for its total development and perfection;

  • Human sexual behavior does not depend only on biology, since, even considered in itself, man possesses a peculiar biology that is integrated into the person;

  •  The indiscriminate exercise of sexuality does not calm any anxiety, but, on the contrary, awakens a growing anxiety that never ends;

  • Inhibition or restraint of the will is not repression, since it can be as voluntary and free to will a thing as not to will it. Unlike the animal, man prefers;

  • Sex ceases to be something trivial and accessory only when it is placed in the framework of human love, in the context of feelings and will.

J.B. Torelló explains that the self-mastery of instincts is an act of inner freedom proper to the human species. He adds that continence for love produces freedom of spirit.

A third antecedent of the liberation movements is the bourgeois liberal ideology, which starts from the error that "man is freedom". What is correct is to affirm that "man has freedom" - as a means to achieve other things; freedom to do good, to serve, etc. When freedom is understood as an end in itself it is reduced to mere independence. From this erroneous point of view, the moral rule is considered a repression from which it is necessary to free oneself.

The current crisis of love has also been greatly contributed to by consumer sexuality, a clear symptom of the fact that we live in a society that has become eroticized. It is therefore urgent to integrate sexuality into the interpersonal meeting . To overcome the culture of excitement and desire we need an ethic of sexuality followed by a sentimental Education promoted mainly in the family environment.