Unconditional Love is a Fallacy

[shanmonster]

I'm revisiting something I wrote eleven years ago, here.

I do not believe in unconditional love.

Ok, it may be possible for a few masochists, or it may be some sort of rare mental disorder, but I don't think it's going to happen for the vast majority of people. For example, let's imagine Jill decided to start beating the shit out of her husband Jack on a regular basis. Imagine she began to systematically destroy all his clothing, microwave all his CDs, burn his books, and set hamsters loose inside his computer. She shit on his chest while he slept, then sent incriminating pictures of him to his parents, all while chanting, "Jack sucks! I hate Jack!" Now, imagine that she's not doing this out of some sort of mental illness, but out of sheer malice, a la The War of the Roses.

Would Jack still love Jill?

Maybe for a little while, but after a bit, I can guarantee that love will turn into a psychotic blitz of well-deserved hatred.

Some people say they like animals because animals show unconditional love. Again, I believe this is wishful thinking. If you have a loving, loyal pet dog, and every day, you kick that dog and screech at it, eventually, the dog will either run away or try to tear your throat out.

If there ever was such a thing as unconditional love, I think survival of the fittest has been doing its damnedest to breed it out of our systems. What do you think?

Comments

[joannabarnum.livejournal.com]

I think many parents have unconditional love for their children.
I don't believe that it does or should exist as a type of romantic love.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is a good point. It also explains why some parents just can't cope, too.

[zydee.livejournal.com]

Parent-child love might be the only thing that comes even vaguely close, but I'm not sure it's love in the sense we mean it. Even the majority of parents will eventually turn away from a child who does nothing but abuse them. I wonder if there's a sense of obligation or pity or even habit mixed up in cases where parents stick with a child like that. Certainly I've known some children who don't do the healthy thing and cut off a parent who is consistently abusive--that kind of "love" doesn't seem much like love to me, either.