Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind; Love, love, love: What is it?, part one

From the Great Hall of the Cooper Union in New York City. National Educational radio presents the Cooper Union forum series on peace love and creativity the hope of mankind. These programs were recorded by station WNYC. Here now is the chairman of the Cooper Union forum Dr. Johnson E. Fairchild. Good evening ladies and gentleman welcome to the forum. As your chairman Johnson was speaking to you from the great hall of the Cooper Union we are continuing with the program of peace love and creativity. Quite appropriately the discussion this evening has to do what is it. You're the wonderful doctor Evers and coil. Dr. Cohen spoken here a previous time and I'm sure you probably all know him if not

from Cooper Union from his practically 300 performances on the long johns show on some of the network which I've done a great deal of work in the probably practice analysts. He is on sabbatical from Brooklyn College at the present moment. I would just mention one or two small facts of history about him so it will not sound like too much of a bit wary but just an introduction. I just mentioned is a graduate of Harvard University. Someone who loudly and philosophy. Believe me that in the academic world is almost

enough. In addition to this doctoral degree psychology from Columbia University. In addition to present practice work in Brooklyn has been doing a great director of the Brooklyn Association for Mental Health. The first vice chairman of the American men's organization. I just like to say oh I was happy to welcome Dr. Evans or coil back to the Cooper Union forum. He is discussing what is it. I like you

Mr. Fairchild your most generous. Lovers. What is love so radically love is the desire of the whole. And the pursuit of the whole is called Love romantically. Love is the Young Dawn standing beyond the outer rim of the world. Love is the fall down blown on the dark. Love is a thief a beggar a bringer of red rose. Love is a dream. Fantasy.

The dream. Love is a Many Splendored Thing. Hippie wise love seems to be indiscriminate a roll in the hay. Hot frames a one night stand. A warm. Feline. Animal. For Stoppard boy love is transcending. Self transcendence. Love is only mystical contemplation of the beautiful and the good. Love is really dyin nation emotion to be contrasted with Olympian reason. Love is a

fusion of emotion and reason. The passion of reason Love is an antidote to excess stench of loneliness. Love is a Platonic men. Son equating love I must state it's nature's not always so tender trap snake here to ensure the perpetuation of the species. Some have gone so far as to compare love to a form of insanity. A mental derangement and a psychotic state. Semantically love is a synonym for and interchangeable with sex.

Others semantically say that love is the absence. The Opposite of Sex. Some who would compromise say that there is an overlap of love and sex. Religious we. Love is conceived of as sacrifice. A sharing of divine creation with the divine creator. Love is the adoration of the gods. It is the unceasing quest for the Holy Grail. For purity the ineffable The noumenal the unattainable the eternal. The unchanging The everlasting. The Universe or humanity in the

abstract. For Humanity in the concrete religious way. Love is the everlasting. Ever growing ever really knowing ever enriching for the lover and the loved. The evergreen union of one man and one woman out of four billion to the strands of the desert grow cold till the stars in the heavens grow all. Love is the conqueror of debt. Psychologically love is a need which can be somewhat glibly explains. Love is more than a need. There is something they call functional autonomy that creeps into the picture.

Love is Eros. The opposite of panic loss. Love is the building constructing growing emerging principle as opposed to its opposite. Love is the primordial. Eighty and. Impulse rather than the primordial ABN impulse. Love is communication. It is the growth of the mature particularly optimally psychologically. Love is for the mature. Secondarily for the neurotic the egocentric. Love. Has myriad champions

apologists facets. What others see like and evaluate a few of these facets. Jurisdictionally we may be of course immediately challenged by those who would contend that love as an emotion is immune to exempt from privileged from selectivity from evaluation. C-like to Vitaly evaluation. Our it is argued the modus operandi of reason. Not emotion. Further it is argued. That this would necessarily involve an appeal to values. And once you mention values you immediately lay yourself open

to the on ending discussion. Are they absolute. Are they relative. Do they exist irrespective of people of times. Are they fashioned by people and changed in different times different climes. I shall make Arthur to this point later. In the interests of clearing away much underbrush let us without apology focus on. Male female love and disregard for the moment love of the gods of the country of the school of parents of siblings of poker of the outdoors etc..

Let us disregard these other kinds of love if we can. If we can because it is conceivable that all have a common element. A moment ago I said let us see liked and evaluate a few facets of love. Let us implies free will and assumption that some of you may wish to challenge. Do so challenge. But please not tonight. I honestly do feel that I am not a Willis puppet but you are not. That you and I make meaningful if wrong decisions. I said let us. Who is

us. Who are we. Whatever assumptions we make here will largely determine our final decision on what love is. Are we the judges. Mature or immature. Successful or fair years in our own self perceptions. Are we yanks saying or nay saying. Do we. Not to beg the question love ourselves. Our lovable. If we are not lovable and is lovable man is a prerequisite for loving. If we do not love ourselves can we love. Can we love others.

Are we the judge is 16 or 36 or 56 or 76. Does age of the lover make a difference. What is our l. Q Our love quotient. What has love meant to us. Have we scored or struck out. When did we last have love relations. Last night. Last week last year. Never. How was it. So sound. Magnificent or frustrating as hell. Did it reinforce or enhance. Or undercut our

self concept. Are we eagerly anticipating. Or dreading another encounter. I have a very strong hunch. That the answers to these questions are most pertinent to our selection and evaluation of love. Let's seemingly shift the scene for a moment. How's your house. How are you. How's your bank. Do you have a headache. How's your blood pressure. How's your liver. I'm minded of William James who when asked Is life worth the living. Replied It depends on the liver.

Seriously health is another major factor in our evaluation. How's your job. Do you have one deal I guess. Are you getting job satisfaction or gratification. One of the promotional opportunities. How's the pay. Again I submit this has a bearing on what you expect from. Demand love. Why all these seemingly irrelevant questions and let me throw in another one. How's your social life. How many parties are you attending. How many parties are you giving What interest do you have. What hobbies. What do you

do with your time your life your love. The conch is this. That the richer you are emotionally. The fewer demands you will make on love or. Vice versa. The poorer your health. The pillar your job set up the emotionally poorer your social life the greater the demands that are made on love. What is your economic. Social educational religious heritage. What were the eternal verities that you were taught when you were growing up. How have these eternal

verities. The inside on what love is all about. Checked out over the last 10 20 30 40 50 years. Again the point I am making if not laboring is that this is relevant to a consideration of love. I rarely dream of spaghetti. I seldom speak of spaghetti. I get all the spaghetti I want at home. You want to cherry that what a step or two further. Who are you. Divine creatures of a divine creator or a monic born of the beast. Or children of their I use the word love fallible

progeny of fallible progenitors in and a more or less relatively unstructured or blunt world or in Jameson's terms a buzzing blooming confusion. Questions are endless. Shall we try for an answer or two. May I take you off the spot for a couple of reasons courtesy. I'm getting paid. You are not. And I do know a little bit more about me than I do about you. I have a hunch that were probably a lot more alike than we are different. Allow me to change the charge from let us to let me see like and evaluate a few of the facets of love. Note however if this is done. That you

will be getting basically one man's opinion powered by his cultural heritage and his life experience. I shall of course proud to be as objective as possible. Objective in this case means forgetting age. I am over 30. Wait I am over 175. Personal experience or lack of it. I am a man. That is to say a fallible human being neither divine nor demonic. I like to believe that I am relatively honest. Realistic practical. I do prefer living in this world of action rather than in a world of words. I believe I am primarily if not exclusively a member of

the here and now were a lot. Rather than a future resident in some mansion with many rooms in the sky or a candidate for everlasting roasting over a brimstone fire. At the eternal BBQ in the nether regions. If you will accept these partial credentials let me now select and comment on several facets of love. I suggest that love is a major theme of life with many variations. But possibly Well all of the admittedly contradictory inconsistent in compatible definitions of love that have been offered may be true. For some. For a period of time. Though

certainly not for all. For ever. Love is pluralistic. And changing rather than unitary and eternal. People differ they perceive differently. They have different values they differ in resources material physical intellectual or spiritual. Circumstances change internal and external pressures vary. If this be so and I submit it is so would it not be unreasonable unrealistic to assume that love in could be the same for all. I also suggest that love

like life. May have time limits. Almost all speak of falling in love. Forming out of love also happens. Which is not to say that it was not love while it lasted. Unless for ever notice be made a criterion of love. In which case there would seem to be something tautological about the concept. How long must love last to be called love. One night one year one decade one lifetime. That's the question. What is the answer rather than leaving it as a question. Let me suggest more than one summer. I also suggest that one might have more than one hour

before qualifying as promiscuous. How many two three seven eleven hundred twenty seven. I don't now. This may be largely a cultural factor. Our Judeo Christian heritage which is one or two of many potential Heritage's stress the one for one concept. Had you or I'd been born Mormon or Mohammedan. We might see things differently. We might be quite convinced that two or four or x is the right number. I wonder if there is any such thing as a right number. I wonder to what extent. Our virtue represents the girdle of necessity in which we find

ourselves. For the moment let the men in the audience assume that. They were paying for it. You have an unlimited opportunity what your perception of what is right and wrong change for the ladies in the audience. Assume that you were Cleopatra or whomever you wish to identify with and had. The opportunity. For more than one. Love. Honestly would you have taken. Would you take advantage of it.