0:05 one of the most provocative analyzes of
0:08 Love ever produced is to be found in the
0:10 writings of the Danish existential
0:13 philosopher Soren Kierkegaard
0:15 in a book entitled works of Love
0:18 published in Copenhagen in 1847.
0:21 clickergard then 34 years old proposed a
0:24 theory which deliberately upset every
0:27 leading idea that his own age in this
0:29 respect very similar to our own liked to
0:32 entertain about the hallowed concept of love
0:33 love
0:35 first and most importantly Kiker guard
0:37 insisted that most of us have no idea
0:40 what love is even though we refer to the
0:43 term incessantly the first half of the
0:45 19th century in Europe saw the Triumph
0:47 of what we today call romantic love
0:50 involving a veneration and worship of
0:53 one very special person with whose soul
0:56 and body we hope to unite our own
0:58 kikagard insisted that through
1:00 concentrating on romantic love we
1:02 develop a narrow and impoverished sense
1:05 of what love should actually be love is
1:07 not he insisted the special excitement
1:09 we feel when in the presence of someone
1:12 unusually beautiful Pure or accomplished
1:15 he proposed that we return instead to an
1:18 exacting version of Christian love which
1:21 commands us to love everyone starting
1:24 most arduously with all those who we by
1:27 Instinct consider to be Unworthy of Love
1:29 kikeard made a vital distinction between
1:32 what in Danish is termed Calicut true
1:34 love the kind Christians are commanded
1:39 to give and elskov or erotic love for
1:40 cakey God we should learn to love all
1:42 the many people it would be so tempting
1:45 to curse and to hate those whom we
1:47 believe are mistake and ugly irritating
1:51 venal wrong-headed or ridiculous to
1:53 learn to love such people that is to
1:55 practice Calicut and that is the real
1:57 accomplishment and the summit of our
2:00 Humanity it is true love when we can
2:02 look at someone who appears misguided
2:05 lazy angry or proud and instead of
2:07 labeling them revolting can wander with
2:10 imagination and sympathy how they might
2:12 have come to be this way when we can
2:14 perceive the Lost vulnerable or hurt
2:17 child that must lie somewhere within the
2:20 perplexing or dispiriting adult
2:22 love means making the effort to extend
2:24 our compassion beyond the bounds of
2:26 Attraction so that we may look
2:28 generously on all those we might at
2:30 first glance have deemed Beyond The Pale
2:34 or undeserving kikagard tells us that if
2:36 we understood love properly when we said
2:38 we loved a person we wouldn't mean that
2:40 we admired them but that we had a handle
2:42 on all the many difficulties that
2:44 underpinned their troubling and
2:46 objectionable sides
2:48 was especially aggrieved by how his
2:50 contemporaries had replaced the
2:52 Christian emphasis on forgiveness with
2:54 the pursuit of something that feels a
2:57 great deal more objective hard-edged and
3:00 rational namely Justice the pursuers of
3:03 Justice want to give everyone what they
3:05 actually deserve this sounds extremely
3:07 reasonable until one comes face to face
3:09 with an uncomfortable fact that if we
3:12 all actually ended up with what we truly
3:14 deserved the world would at once be
3:17 rendered entirely unlivable the attempt
3:19 to pursue Justice at all costs and the
3:21 belief that doing so is theoretically
3:23 possible gives rise to appalling
3:25 intolerance for if one really believes
3:28 that one can be a Flawless instrument of
3:30 righteousness then there is logically no
3:32 limit to the degree of Rage or the
3:34 sternness of punishments that can be
3:37 brought to bear upon wrongdoers
3:39 but for Geek guard our goal should not
3:41 be to try to create a world in which
3:43 everyone gets exactly what they deserve
3:46 it is to try to ensure that as many of
3:49 us as possible get the kindness that we need
3:50 need
3:53 apply to Children concepts of Justice
3:55 quickly reveal their absurdities Kiger
3:57 guard could see that if parents were to
3:59 give their children exactly what they
4:02 deserved most small people would have a
4:04 stroke be put out on hillsides to Die
4:06 the pursuit of Justice May spring from
4:09 the noblest of motives but it is in fact
4:12 a quick route to an unloving hell
4:14 instead kikagard proposed that there is
4:16 a ladder of love from the most
4:19 undemanding to the true and that we must
4:21 learn to climb this ladder on the first
4:23 rung of the ladder we love those who
4:27 love us then we love those who do not
4:29 love us then we love those who persecute
4:32 us and finally and triumphantly we
4:35 should love everyone without exception
4:37 Kiki God mocks those who say they
4:38 believe in love but then add that they
4:40 haven't found someone that they can love
4:42 there are millions of people around
4:44 points out Kierkegaard if we say that
4:46 they are not worthy of love we haven't
4:49 understood love we need to love those we
4:51 can actually see not in kindergarten's
4:54 terms invisible beings a kicker Guardian
4:56 dating site would force us to love
4:59 utterly random candidates not based on
5:02 admiration or virtue but on the basis of
5:05 our shared Humanity kikagard bemoaned
5:07 the selfishness of preferential love
5:09 Christianity has never taught that one
5:12 must admire his neighbor he wrote one
5:14 shall simply love him
5:16 Kiki guard detects an appalling
5:19 snobbishness in romantic love people who
5:21 otherwise Pride themselves on their lack
5:24 of prejudice will apply terrifyingly
5:26 strict criteria to their choice of
5:28 partner they want someone with just a
5:30 certain sort of face or income or sense
5:32 of humor they think of themselves as
5:35 kind and tolerant but actually when it
5:36 comes to love they have all the
5:39 broad-mindedness of a believer in what
5:41 Kierkegaard called a caste system
5:43 whereby men are inhumanly separated
5:46 through the distinctions of Earthly life
5:49 kickergard adds Christians don't only
5:51 love the poor they love everyone the
5:54 rich the corrupt the powerful he who in
5:56 truth loves his neighbor loves also his
6:00 enemy love is the fulfilling of a law to love
6:01 love
6:03 Kiki God talks about Christ's love for
6:06 his disciple Peter who repeatedly lets
6:07 him down
6:09 Christ did not say Peter must change
6:12 first and become another man before I
6:14 can love him again no just the opposite
6:16 he said Peter is Peter and I love him
6:19 love if anything will help him to become
6:23 another man so in imitation of Christ we
6:24 should love people especially if they
6:27 are hateful doing something hateful does
6:30 not disqualify anyone from Love in fact
6:32 it makes them all the more deserving of
6:34 it we speak continuously about
6:36 perfection and the perfect person rights
6:38 kicker guard but Christianity speaks
6:40 about being the perfect person who
6:43 limitlessly loves the person he sees
6:45 with all his imperfections and all his
6:48 weaknesses ultimately kicker guard wants
6:49 us to do something that sounds both
6:53 utterly odd and yet entirely kind
6:55 to be a Christian means to be the
6:58 imitator of Christ he writes and to be
7:01 an imitator means that your life has to
7:04 have as much similarity to his as it is
7:07 possible for a human life to have
7:09 Danish readers of the 1840s who came
7:11 across cake God's writings on love must
7:14 have been as surprised as we are about
7:15 what this philosopher had to say on the
7:18 subject because his perspective is so
7:20 different from that we ordinarily
7:23 operate with but however arduous message
7:26 to us may be we can see how relevant it
7:28 remains we too so often get stuck on the
7:31 idea that we have not found the one and
7:34 on that basis refuse to love anyone we
7:36 too judge and moralize rather than
7:39 forgive and lend sympathy we may still
7:42 be at the dawn of understanding what
7:45 true love really offers and requires of us
7:46 us
7:49 to learn more about love try our book on
7:52 how to find love which explains why we
7:54 have the types we do and how our early
