conversations after chess

[lapsedmodernist]

love can only be defined through metaphor or metonymy.

someone could argue that it could be also defined through praxis. i would argue that that would not be a definition, strictly speaking.

Comments

[klingrap.livejournal.com]

Girl, why you always using big words I don't know? And why most o them start with "meta"?

And what the fuck is praxis? I thought love couldn't really be defined, and that's what made it so much fun.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

oi. i guess because i live and get fucked up with big dorks, and i am a big dork myself.

love can't be defined but part of the fun is trying to come up with all the metaphores that fall short, just ask the Romantic poets.

[klingrap.livejournal.com]

Love is....

tortellini with a whole bunch of parmesan cheese dumped on top.

Actually, that sounds BETTER than love right about now. Damn I should get me some lunch.

[elph8.livejournal.com]

Not particularly germane, but:

"Sure, money can't buy you love; but love can't buy you shit."
-Beau Sia

lurve

[tomorrow-devil.livejournal.com]

If your notion of love involves something like predestination, the knowledge that there is a special somebody out there for you, or a completely unromantic view on love (like attributing it to two people who have found just the right balance of hormonal and societal input), then praxis and love would be practically the same thing - basically insight into the workings of another human being, and a developed appreciation of that human.

On the other hand, if you have a more existential view of human nature, then praxis might be downright antagonistic to love. I can also see it helping someone to celebrate their loved one, or helping someone to appreciate the subtle behaviors of their loved one, but it seems first and foremost to block love on a basic level.

Re: lurve

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

i see you still have that lj icon.

very interesting.

i think your points about praxis are true; what i was saying had more to do with what a "definition" is than what "love" is...
i think defining ANYTHING through praxis can easily spill over into a tautology, at least within parameters of "definition"

Re: lurve

[elph8.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez.

Re: lurve

[(Anonymous)]

I think the attempt to dislodge definition from praxis is well intended, but it ultimately can't work. How else do we figure out what love is without performing an action which to us epitomizes love and then remembering that action, or the feeling of doing it? This isn't really limited to love either. I think any reasoning chain that does anything worthwhile has some kind of tautological foundation if you look at it with scrutiny.

The other place I can see us getting ideas about love is from cultural artifacts, which I think is legit in a sense, but I can't help thinking the lack of depth of personal experience here weakens (or at least should weaken) the effect of these artifacts on our understanding of ourselves.

Put another way, I think that the more connected you are to your own experience, the better, and the more easily you can let go of the hallmark commercial's ideals of love, the better.

Lurve,
Joe

Re: lurve

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

i don't think you are actually contradicting my point (which really was more about semantics than about love)

you said:
I think the attempt to dislodge definition from praxis is well intended, but it ultimately can't work. How else do we figure out what love is without performing an action which to us epitomizes love and then remembering that action, or the feeling of doing it?

i think an epitome is by default an allegory/metaphor/metonymy...so i guess you can define love through praxis, but only in the sense that praxis enables an epitome, only through the praxis' symbolic function, only through that one level of deferral that is transformative to some extent.

which is not really "only" at all--it is quite a lot.

how can you divorce your own experience from the cultural artifacts? at best, it is still refracted through them; that is the framework we have for meaning, it's like language...no one escapes from camp Derrida, remember?

love (metaphorical and metonymical)
v.