Love

June 6, 2011
Philosopher May (Atomic Sushi) reexamines the Western notion of love arguing against the illusionsânot to be confused with characteristicsâof love, namely unconditionality, eternity, and selflessness. May begins his argument by deconstructing the root of these ideas; starting with the Hebrew Bible, he reviews stories such as God ordering Abraham to sacrifice his son, and concludes that âe should model human love not on how God is said to love us but on how we are commanded to love God.â Delving through the New Testament, May provides numerous examples of conditional love. With detailed excerpts and discussion, he explores a wide range of the philosophies about love, including those of Plato and Socrates; Spinoza, Schlegel, and Novalis; Nietzsche, Freud, and Proustâand how the concept of human love changed over time. May finds that our expectations of love are out of line with realityâthat unconditional, eternal, and selfless love may be an ideal that is impossible or extremely rare. However, people continue to seek love because they need âontological rootedness,â which brings âa rapture that sets us off onâand sustainsâthe long search for a secure relationship between our being and theirs.â Mayâs argument is not groundbreaking but his discussion of the philosophies provides a coherent narrative that is aided by his illustrative writing.

July 1, 2011

May (Birkbeck Coll., Univ. of London; Nietzsche's Ethics and His War on "Morality") finds the key to love in "ontological rootedness." People want to feel at home in the world, and intense rapture for a particular person can help us achieve this. Though love is thus of vital significance, May warns against exalting love to quasidivine status, a process he argues has taken place since the 18th century, as belief in God has declined in Western societies. Placing love in God's stead has led to distortions about it. Love, contrary to common opinion, is not in essence unconditional, selfless, and eternal. May traces the idea of love as ontological rootedness to its beginning in the Hebrew scriptures. He goes on to consider transformations of the idea through Plato, Aristotle, New Testament Christianity, the Middle Ages, Rousseau and the romantics, Nietzsche, Freud, and Proust. VERDICT This book deserves to rank with Denis de Rougemont's classic Love in the Western World. Readers interested in the history of ideas, philosophy, and religion, as well as the proverbial general reader, will gain much from May's well-crafted study.--David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., OH

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