“Love Is a Doing Word” Pt.1

I remember the first time I heard the opening lyrics to the song “Teardrop” by Massive Attack: “Love, love is a verb. Love is a doing word, fearless on my breath”.

It was during my ‘undergrad in philosophy’ years, when I was learning ways to critically examine and analyze concepts. It was at that point that I really began to question my understanding of the concept of Love.

Everything before that was just childish pseudo-intellectualism fuelled by Western RomComs, Shakespeare, and Christian self-sacrifice narratives. The ultimate act of Love, I used to believe, is to sacrifice one’s own self and interests for another.

That was the “Love Software” program that was downloaded into my brain. That is until I found the work of bell hooks. Specifically one of her books in particular, which was a catalyst for this transformation.

In this post, which will have a part 2, and possibly a part 3? I want to do 2 things. 1- I want to talk about how my views on Love and Masculinity where shaped, and how they transformed, mainly after delving into the work of bell hooks. 2- How can I, and we, define Love so that it can be identified by anyone, anywhere, regardless of their race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation etc.

Back in 2009 I attended and presented a paper in a conference at York University. The conference was on Love, where people from different philosophical backgrounds presented different conceptions of love.

A few months before the conference I had read “The Will to Change: men, masculinity and love” by bell hooks. Her book is the single most important and influential works I have ever read on the topic of Love and how it relates to Masculinity.

Her work ,in particular, pushed me to delve deep into my own psyche, my upbringing, experience, and biases on how I understood Love and Masculinity. What I was taught and experienced of “love”, directly or indirectly from the men and the women in my family, and my people, were and still are very different.

And there was definitely time where I began to shun mine and my people’s own ethnic, cultural, religious and spiritual beliefs, practices, and conceptualization of Love. Looking back on myself and my belief, I can now critically process and understand how I favoured the more euro-centric Western narrative about love.

I grew up watching Arabic movies and shows, and reading stories and poems about Love and Romance, by Arabic authors. But after we moved to Canada, all of that stopped. There were hardly any Arab resources that were accessible, on any such and other topics.

It didn’t take long for me to start realizing that the western narrative around love and masculinity was unrealistic, unachievable, and toxic. But I still did not have the cognitive tools and critical capacity to vocalize my confusion, until I started reading bell hooks.

Her work pushed me to critically examine the societal understanding of Love and Masculinity, and their socio-political dimension. I began to think about the concepts of Love and Masculinity and their significance in different relationships, from hetero-normative, monogamous, polyamorous, to the BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+.

Whether they platonic, romantic, or familial relationships, I wanted to consider the idea of Love, it’s relationship to Masculinity, and how this relationship unfolds in us and society. So I do not consider it lightly when I say that her book had a profound impact on me and my perception of Love and Masculinity.

Back to the conference. What I wanted to present is a conception of Love that is concrete and tangible. I was never satisfied with the adage “you just know when you’re in love, you both care for each other, and you get butterflies etc.” type of thinking.

Nor was I pleased with the traditional “Love is self-sacrifice” and “God is Love” understanding of the term. To me, these kinds of conceptions about love were way too simplistic, superficial, and lazy.

In the first case, we are left to our own devices to translate feelings of anxiety and nervousness around and toward a person that we think fits the mould of what we have been taught is the “ideal” person for us. Someone who fits a certain look, has a certain facial symmetry, skin colour, often white euro-centric, and embodies Western values of freedom, equality, family etc.

And in this sense, not only are white euro-centric people have been brainwashed by the same software, they are also programmed to believe that it is the best and only true belief system to follow.

To me, this became and incredibly narrow scope of the values and attitude we should consider when it comes to building relationships with people,

Does that mean that love between humans is whatever aligns with certain values, attitudes and aesthetics of euro-centric ideals? Because we immediately run the risk of committing a fallacy we call “Begging the questions” in philosophy. This happens when the premise(s) of an argument assume the truth of the conclusion.

For example:

P1: Euro-centric Western narrative (values, attitudes etc,) says that Love is XYZ.

Q2: And how do we know that Love is XYZ is true?

P2: Because its definition aligns with the ECW narrative.

Q3: But how do we know the ECW narrative is true?

P3: Because Love is XYZ

Q4: But how do we know that Love is XYZ?

P4: Because ECW narrative explains it…

And we just end up going in circles. Intellectually lazy. Especially within euro-centric Western society, any conception of Love (or much of anything else for that matter) that doesn’t align with that narrative, is wrong.

In the second case, the religious undertones seem to push us to adopt a view of Love that centres primarily on self-sacrifice, at least from a Christian viewpoint. The ultimate act of love, we are told, is Jesus sacrificing himself for the sins of humanity.

Back in February 2024 I came across a blog post by Geoff Holsclaw, who is a professor of theology, cohost of the embodied faith podcast, and a pastor at his local church (don’t ask me which one). In his post titled “Why Sacrificial Love Misses the Point“, Geoff says:

To follow the course of sacrificial love, without tending to its source, leads to burn out, discouragement, and disillusionment.To follow the flow of sacrificial love, without tending to its fount, leads to martyrdom-complexes and selfish manipulations.Sacrificial love as a goal or a practice—in isolation—will leave you adrift in a world of unfulfilled needs, codependent relationships, and frustrated reform projects. 

This really captures my own thoughts on the matter, even when we take God out of the equation. What’s to keep one person from constantly invoking the “if you truly loved me you would do this XYZ for me”?

Looking at it this way, relationships can quickly de-evolve into narcissism and codependency.

To put it simply, In the case of narcissism the person tries to assert their grandiosity and fulfill their needs, at the expense of the other person. The way I see it, in a relationship, a narcissist passes blame at every sign of criticism, and takes all credit at every sign of success. Narcissists also see to love martyring themselves…again with the self sacrifice.

Furthermore, a codependent person will attempt to fulfill all the needs of the other person, such that they never really learn to do anything for themselves. The person becomes dependent on their partner to do things for them. And as such, this also ends up being a version of “self-sacrificial” love that does more harm than good.

But why is this conception of Love harmful? Certainly there are cases where people get along and progress for the most part. Though we cannot ever be sure what happens behind closed doors, many people in these kinds of relationship give the sense that everything is copacetic. Sure there are some ups and downs, but on the whole it seems things are ok.

Except everything is NOT ok. The relationships, and the people in them, become stagnant. People cannot move forward because they are stuck in either doing everything for someone else, or having someone else do everything for them.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that we should not do things for each other, or allow other people to do things for us. Some self-sacrifice and compromise can be healthy, and allows us to problem solve together.

It also allows us to better understand ourselves and each other. And sometimes it’s just so nice to be able to do something kind for someone else and vice versa.

But when we start to act, towards ourselves and each other, out of constant shame, guilt and fear, we are engaged in nothing more than survival.

And this is how I came to see that the traditional conception of Love, specifically from the patriarchal, male perspective: we are shamed, and guilted and end up acting out of fear towards others, and we think that is Love.

This is where the irony is for me, Love as self-sacrifice becomes a matter of self-survival. The person’s attempt to validate their self and assert their ego, by either imposing their will or relegating it to someone else, runs counter to what Love is supposed to do for us.

Love is supposed to elevate us, nurture us, and encourage us to form better connections to others and the world around us. Love, to borrow a line from Herbert Marcuse’s book ‘An Essay on Liberation‘, is supposed to move us towards “creating ever greater unities of life”.

And this is where we must begin our conceptualization. Love pushes us to create ever greater unities of life. A concept that is simple and tangible enough for everyone to understand, and put into practice.

I will end this post on this note because I feel that I’ve said a lot. In the next part, I will propose and explain my conception and definition of Love goes beyond the boundaries of culture, sex, gender, race, and religion.