Romantic love is given inflated importance within capitalism. Dating apps generate revenue and surveil users. Public dates put money in the local economy. Couples instilled with ideologies of jealousy separate from their community into little manipulable units rather than band together. Nuclear families fuel the labor pool without accruing power as large families once did in ages past.
That’s not to say romantic love is useless. Romantic love taught me to love in general. But I think if we view a person we love only in romantic terms, it reduces them to a single dimension. And for a lot of people that’s the ability to sate lust.
I personally don’t see romantic love as love, per se. I see it as a possible expression of love among the many other possible expressions of love. After all, many of the things we call romance are able to be removed entirely from love. Some people even sell those experiences for cash.
What makes romantic and sexual feelings special is expressing them with someone one considers a friend or even family (in the sense of coming together to form family, not blood relatives). It’s an added layer on top of a platonic relationship. And in that line of thought, things like aromantic and asexual identities start to make more sense. They don’t need romance or sex to feel love, so why do alloromantic and allosexual people need those things to feel love? Do allo people not feel love for parents or siblings? What’s actually happening here is that allo people have expressions of love reserved for people who fit certain criteria within their communities. That doesn’t make the love of family or community any less valid or valuable, it just makes them different.
Based on my influence from certain authors and my lived experience: love is the will to exist within a community. It gives you the tools to grow, adapt, and be with people who also want to grow with you to adapt to the material conditions of the world.
Is it love to fuck a body? And then be devastated when the owner of that body decides to change its gender? I don’t think so.
Is it love to lock an adult child out of opportunities so that they remain psychologically youthful and dependent? I don’t think so.
Is it love to donate to a church out of guilt?
Is it love to fight an imperialist war for your country?
When we think of love in terms of things which capital uses to maintain itself, we end up feeling broken and alienated, even if we’re succeeding at times.
Rather, I think we can think of love as…
a friend who’s there for you even when you’re inconvenient.
a parent who helps a trans child be their best possible self.
a neighborhood that shares food and emergency supplies when disaster strikes, and a neighborhood that shares food and resources when there’s no disaster.
a surveilled food worker sneaking something out to a homeless person on-the-clock.
a lover who pieces together the broken self-esteem of their partner(s).
a worker striking because a friend was injured on the clock.
a socialist org that plants trees under whose shade it will never sit.
Love is the things that capital can’t touch. It’s the parts of living with others that oppose alienation. It’s being immersed in humanity without a price tag.
@Ideology@hexbear.net I remember your posts about love and I’d be interested in hearing any thoughts you have or reading any of your posts
Romantic love is given inflated importance within capitalism. Dating apps generate revenue and surveil users. Public dates put money in the local economy. Couples instilled with ideologies of jealousy separate from their community into little manipulable units rather than band together. Nuclear families fuel the labor pool without accruing power as large families once did in ages past.
That’s not to say romantic love is useless. Romantic love taught me to love in general. But I think if we view a person we love only in romantic terms, it reduces them to a single dimension. And for a lot of people that’s the ability to sate lust.
I personally don’t see romantic love as love, per se. I see it as a possible expression of love among the many other possible expressions of love. After all, many of the things we call romance are able to be removed entirely from love. Some people even sell those experiences for cash.
What makes romantic and sexual feelings special is expressing them with someone one considers a friend or even family (in the sense of coming together to form family, not blood relatives). It’s an added layer on top of a platonic relationship. And in that line of thought, things like aromantic and asexual identities start to make more sense. They don’t need romance or sex to feel love, so why do alloromantic and allosexual people need those things to feel love? Do allo people not feel love for parents or siblings? What’s actually happening here is that allo people have expressions of love reserved for people who fit certain criteria within their communities. That doesn’t make the love of family or community any less valid or valuable, it just makes them different.
Based on my influence from certain authors and my lived experience: love is the will to exist within a community. It gives you the tools to grow, adapt, and be with people who also want to grow with you to adapt to the material conditions of the world.
Is it love to fuck a body? And then be devastated when the owner of that body decides to change its gender? I don’t think so.
Is it love to lock an adult child out of opportunities so that they remain psychologically youthful and dependent? I don’t think so.
Is it love to donate to a church out of guilt?
Is it love to fight an imperialist war for your country?
When we think of love in terms of things which capital uses to maintain itself, we end up feeling broken and alienated, even if we’re succeeding at times.
Rather, I think we can think of love as…
a friend who’s there for you even when you’re inconvenient.
a parent who helps a trans child be their best possible self.
a neighborhood that shares food and emergency supplies when disaster strikes, and a neighborhood that shares food and resources when there’s no disaster.
a surveilled food worker sneaking something out to a homeless person on-the-clock.
a lover who pieces together the broken self-esteem of their partner(s).
a worker striking because a friend was injured on the clock.
a socialist org that plants trees under whose shade it will never sit.
Love is the things that capital can’t touch. It’s the parts of living with others that oppose alienation. It’s being immersed in humanity without a price tag.