LOVE - Even the most dim-witted observer must have noticed the obvious link between criminal transgression and misplaced affection. A cursory inspection of the annals of crime reveals dozens of individuals rendered misanthropic by rejection. Inadequate personalities are unable to cope with the overwhelming emotional upheaval caused by what they imagine to be love. This, more commonly, in fact, is desire, want or need, but we needn't quibble on that score. If someone wants to kill his fiancee with a bat, he can attribute his motive to love until he's blue in the face. The facts speak for themselves.
The confusion is exacerbated, of course, by the self-appointed spokesmen of higher emotions. For centuries, singers, poets and artists all treat the pursuit of love with the insight and maturity a child might the pursuit of chocolate. To covet is not to love. Need this even be discussed by intelligent people? It seems obvious that a relationship in which the participants are smothered and repressed has nothing whatsoever to do with love. Let's not behave like psychopaths and then claim to have been discombobulated by higher feeling. This is to resort not only to humbug but also reckless misuse of language. I wouldn't labour the point, but the most celebrated relationships of our age are united by the hallmarks of dysfunction and abuse. The ideals of romance have been debased by those whose yearning for attachment is based entirely on self-interest.
Spencer, predictably, argues that I know nothing of romance. “Why would I be interested in a virgin's theories on relationships” he sneers. Occasionally, if others are present, he regurgitates a fantasy in which I'm twisted by self-abuse. This is an ironic insult coming from someone whose own solitary indiscretions precipitated the resignation of a housekeeper who inadvertently surprised him in an act of semi-public sordidness. It should also be remembered that this is someone whose own marriage culminated in his suffering a serious stab wound to the buttock.
It's always easy, of course, to spot the beast in others, less straightforward to recognise its traits in ourselves. Most criminologists are so preoccupied by the activities of child abductors or serial killers that they ignore the million small acts of self-affirmation that contribute more to human misery than any mafia. We must examine our own motives with the ruthlessness a surgeon would apply to a cyst, only then might we appreciate the intended effect of saying, "I love you."
Love... or mere lustful yearning?
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