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Love in AS

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Leonid

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Dictionaries generally keep up with connotations, and I think the Webster has neutralised the definition in keeping with changing common usage, (and probably to avoid the "spiritual" aspect).

I think the Webster definition is correct. It is simply simply broader than the Oxford one. The Oxford one says "spiritual love". Using the same terms, the Webster one is saying "spiritual or claimed-spiritual or believed-spiritual love".

I don't think the problem is with the definition, only with the Leonid's conclusion that Francisco etc. suppressed or sublimated there desire to have sex with Dagny. They never did. He is mistakenly equating non-action with sublimation/suppression.

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But that only further emphasizes the "spiritual" aspect present in Platonic love, validating that "spirituality vs. carnality" is the background to AR's quote.

You might be correct on the Atlas side of things, but it's been too long since reading it for me to have an opinion.

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I think we all know what temporary means.

I agree. This is silly. We all know it means something that isn't permanant, period.

 

"That said, regardless of what we're calling such time periods, why do you contend that it [the time periods] must be brief [in order to be moral]? Yes, I know these things are the minority of cases, not the majority, but they still happen so it is still worth addressing, particularly since you seem to be arguing that Rand later in life determined that no such cases are possible/moral."

 

 

Besides, you imply that our protagonists are omniscient and omnipotent. They knew from the beginning how long their strike would last and they knew they are going to prevail in the end. Of cause they didn't, so for them the situation was permanent

No, I don't imply any such thing. They don't know how long it will last or how it will end (though, assuming they don't screw up, the odds are in their favor due to evil being impotent ultimately and so on and so forth). That isn't the same as forever though still. I have a bit of a cold of some sort right now. When will it end and how? Not sure exactly, though probably soon and with me back to my usual state. This cold is not permanent to me though I am not omniscient or omnipotent. Uncertainty =/= permanance.

 

 

 

As for a quote, it doesn't talk about sex at all. It postulates that an idea unexpressed in action is contemptible hypocrisy as Platonic love. Why? Because the meaning of this is mind-body dichotomy.

 

"You are an indivisible entity of matter and consciousness. Renounce your consciousness and you become a brute. Renounce your body and you become a fake. Renounce the material world and you surrender it to evil." (GS)

 

A man with romantic passion who voluntary suppresses his  sexual expression  is a soul without body, a ghost, a fake. And so is Platonic love.

 

[et cetera]

 

Depending on what you mean when you say "voluntarily" there, what you've said could be true or false.

 

. . . the topic being addressed is acting according to what you know to be true - EVERYTHING you know to be true, not just that you do or do not have an attraction to somebody . . .

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I think the Webster definition is correct. It is simply simply broader than the Oxford one. The Oxford one says "spiritual love". Using the same terms, the Webster one is saying "spiritual or claimed-spiritual or believed-spiritual love".

I don't think the problem is with the definition, only with the Leonid's conclusion that Francisco etc. suppressed or sublimated there desire to have sex with Dagny. They never did. He is mistakenly equating non-action with sublimation/suppression.

Well, that obscure. If one has a strong sexual desire, doesn't act on it, but also doesn't suppresses or sublimate it, what he does with it?

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But that only further emphasizes the "spiritual" aspect present in Platonic love, validating that "spirituality vs. carnality" is the background to AR's quote.

You might be correct on the Atlas side of things, but it's been too long since reading it for me to have an opinion.

Hi, Tony.  

" Socrates, in Plato's "Symposium", explained two types of love or Eros—Vulgar Eros or earthly love and Divine Eros or divine love. Vulgar Eros is nothing but mere material attraction towards a beautiful body for physical pleasure and reproduction. Divine Eros begins the journey from physical attraction i.e. attraction towards beautiful form or body but transcends gradually to love for Supreme Beauty. This concept of Divine Eros is later transformed into the term Platonic love." ( Wikipedia)

  The meaning of this divine love is sublimation of sexual desire, mind-body dichotomy, " contemptible hypocrisy.

Edited by Leonid
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