Banter no. 3: Define love. (early September)

Eros & Psyche (at the Louvre, Paris):

Standing in for the usual lengthy list of reads and questions, this time there were just four:

1.  Answer this for yourself, as was proposed to Socrates, Plato, etc. at a dinner party, "make the finest speech you can in praise of Love and then pass it on to the man at your right."  Or less flowery, describe what you think love/eros is in a way that can be expressed in words.  Write it down, bring it to share.  Consult whatever texts, sweet embraces, walks down memory lane, etc. that you'd like to help you define it for yourself.  & as always attempt objectivity as to where these ideas of yours arose from, being that you're probably not a blank slate of self-scripted genius (ie Disney, Shakespeare, Old Testament, etc.)

2. Read Plato's Symposium.  Come on, only 62 pages, of the aforementioned guys giving their individual speeches on Love/Eros.  They're pretty darn cool too.  My favorite is regarding Love being the child of Poverty (mother) & Resource (father).  You can either read part of it at this link (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html) or read it in full if you download the text from that same webpage, or read at the WF library via electronic resource.  I bet 99% of you will love it if you open it up...it's not a hard read, because they're funny smart.

3. Also answer this for yourself, are there different varieties of love--that you have for a child, that you have for a mate, for a pet, a friend, yourself, your art/passions, etc?  Or is love something that isn't splice-able?  I'm fond, for instance, when my daughter says, "You love me more than anything in the world, don't you?"  to reply, "Yes, except that, to me, love's not more," said the bubble-bursting mother.  Here's a curveball, did Sethe of Beloved share the same love you do for your children (or your idea of your children, if you haven't procreated) when she whacked Beloved against the shed to save her from the approaching slaveholders?  (Toni Morrison's Beloved- novel & film)

4. Bring your thoughts to banter it out Socrates-style.  If you've forgotten precisely what that means, take some time looking updialectical argument...or read here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method...but even better read Symposium because Socrates dishes it out to everyone at the end & you can see dialectical argument in action.  Though I think he isn't as clever as he is in other texts, and falls into the trap of thinking he knows something concretely, which is anti-dialectical in my mind. Read for yourself.  (Or skip it all and just show up as some of you are apt to do & amazingly skilled at.)