1 00:00:00,370 --> 00:00:06,220 Love is our highest value, what we all crave and what we believe makes us fundamentally 2 00:00:06,220 --> 00:00:14,080 human, but it is also the source of considerable anxiety. Chiefly, we worry whether we are 3 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:18,980 entirely normal because it frequently feels as if we are not experiencing love the way 4 00:00:18,980 --> 00:00:26,500 we should be. Society is subtly highly prescriptive in this regard. It suggests that to be a decent 5 00:00:26,500 --> 00:00:32,369 person, we should all be within sexual relationships and furthermore, that within these, we should 6 00:00:32,369 --> 00:00:37,790 ‘love’ in a very particular way: we should be constantly thrilled by our partner’s 7 00:00:37,790 --> 00:00:42,750 presence, we should long to see them after every absence, we should crave to hold them 8 00:00:42,750 --> 00:00:47,289 in our arms, to kiss and be kissed by them and – most of all – want to have sex with 9 00:00:47,289 --> 00:00:53,960 them every day or so. In other words, we should follow the script of Romantic ecstasy throughout 10 00:00:53,960 --> 00:01:01,050 our lives. This is beautiful in theory and hugely punitive in practice. If we’re going 11 00:01:01,050 --> 00:01:06,210 to define love like this and peg the idea of normality accordingly, then most of us 12 00:01:06,210 --> 00:01:12,210 will have to admit to ourselves (with considerable embarrassment) that we don’t know much about 13 00:01:12,210 --> 00:01:18,870 love – and therefore don’t qualify as decent, sane, or normal people. We’ve created 14 00:01:18,870 --> 00:01:25,950 a cult of love radically out of line with most of our real experiences of relationships. 15 00:01:25,950 --> 00:01:31,140 This is where the Ancient Greeks can help. They realised early on that there are many 16 00:01:31,140 --> 00:01:37,290 kinds of love, each with their respective virtues and seasons – and that a good society 17 00:01:37,290 --> 00:01:43,160 requires us to append a correct vocabulary to these different states of the heart, lending 18 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:49,560 each one legitimacy in the process. The Greeks anointed the powerful physical feelings we 19 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:55,031 often experience at the start of a relationship with the word ‘eros’ (ἔρως) . But 20 00:01:55,031 --> 00:02:00,810 they knew that love is not necessarily over when this sexual intensity wanes, as it almost 21 00:02:00,810 --> 00:02:07,160 always does after a year or so in a relationship. Our feelings can then evolve into another 22 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:12,999 sort of love they captured with the word ‘philia’ (φιλία) normally translated as ‘friendship’ 23 00:02:12,999 --> 00:02:18,450 though the Greek word is far warmer, more loyal and more touching than its English counterpart; 24 00:02:18,450 --> 00:02:23,989 one might be willing to die for ‘philia’. Aristotle recommended that we outgrow eros 25 00:02:23,989 --> 00:02:29,290 in youth, and then base our relationships – especially our marriages – on a philosophy 26 00:02:29,290 --> 00:02:35,311 of philia. The word adds an important nuance to our understanding of a viable union. It 27 00:02:35,311 --> 00:02:40,639 allows us to see that we may still love even when we are in a phase that our own, more 28 00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:49,389 one-sided vocabulary fails to value. The Greeks had a third word for love: agape (ἀγάπη). 29 00:02:49,389 --> 00:02:54,219 This can be best translated as a charitable love. It’s what we might feel towards someone 30 00:02:54,219 --> 00:02:59,000 who has behaved rather badly or come to grief through flaws of character – but for whom 31 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:04,450 we still feel compassion. It’s what a God might feel for his or her people, or what 32 00:03:04,450 --> 00:03:09,510 an audience might feel for a tragic character in a play. It’s the kind of love that we 33 00:03:09,510 --> 00:03:15,400 experience in relation to someone’s weakness rather than their strength. It reminds us 34 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:22,069 that love isn’t just about admiration for virtues, it’s also about sympathy and generosity 35 00:03:22,069 --> 00:03:29,540 towards what is fragile and imperfect in us. Having these three words to hand – eros, 36 00:03:29,540 --> 00:03:35,890 philia and agape – powerfully extends our sense of what love really is. The Ancient 37 00:03:35,890 --> 00:03:43,280 Greeks were wise in dividing the blinding monolith of love into its constituent parts. 38 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:48,639 Under their tutelage, we can see that we probably have far more love in our lives than our current 39 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:51,920 vocabulary knows how to recognise. 40 00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:58,160 did you know that The School Of Life is actually a place? 41 00:03:58,160 --> 00:04:05,520 Ten places in fact. Campus' all over the world from Melbourne to London, Taipie to Istanbul. 42 00:04:05,520 --> 00:00:00,000 With classes and books and much more. Please click on the link below to explore more.