APRIL, 1969
Tie .:' Collegian .Presents
An Essay 'By- : Mr. Campbell
Love is a matter of extreme
derioultnessi. It is, as Rainer
Maria Rilke wrote, "that for
vhich all else is but a prepara
ion." Love is of ultimate ser
ousness because it is a matter'
of your whole being. In love it is
rour self that is at stake.
Seriousness is having your self
issue' in what you do. It is not
matter of any one particular
iedvity iikwhich you participate,
mt a matter of, the way in which
rou relate to any event what,so
ver in'your World. A clown can
ie serious. A poet can be frivi
ous. What counts is whether or
iot the clown is himself at issue
n his seeming frivolity. Is some
rf him destroyed if children fail
o laught with him? Is he born
mew in joyousness if they do
aught? A poet may have nothing
a stake in his poem. It may to
din be a matter of technique,
iothing more. Whether it wins a
3 ulitzer • prize or is lost in a
leap" of poems never published
s to him a matter of indiffer
nice,
Is love an idea? Is it a thought
n our head which once under
stood by reason guarantees that
we are able to live lovingly in
mar world? Is love a word we
Non live once we have read its
lefinition in Webster's? Is it a
;ping like a stone which we place
n our pocket or skip across a
)ond, an object we easily forget
>r lose in the muddy bottom of
ntr existence? Is love like a
aorkscrew, something we master
nice we understand its use? Or
s love a feeling? Is it what we
lave when our heart pounds, our
lands sweat, our knees weaken
at the sight of that he or she we
2onsider special, who makes our
toes tingle and our hair curl?
According to Eric Fromm
here are several types of serious
Love. There is what he calls
'motherly love",- love for the
ielpless and the weak, love.
THE
HIGHACRES COJ•T.FGIAN
en whether or not it is deserved.
There is what he calls "fatherly
love'„ a love for the successful
and the strong, love given when
RICHARD CAMPBELL
it is earned. There is "brotherly
love", love for one's fellow man,
and "self love", love for oneself
based not on a neurotic narcis
sism but on an understanding of
oneself as a: unique human being.
Lastly, there is what Fromm
calls "erotic love," love rooted
in the responsiveness one has to
a single person he considels to
be of exceptional importance. Er
otic love, to be healty, presup
poses the several other kinds of
love. In order to fully love a
particular' person one must be
able to forgive, be able to judge,
be able to sympathize and be
able to respect himself.
Fromm also distinguishes sev
eral ways in which we fail to
love. Love is not a weapon or a
shield. It is not something to be
'used." But to many persons love
is no more than a means of
glorifying themselves by coerc
ing other individuals into becom-
ing their slaves. To still others it
has become a way of removing
their responsibility for 'themselv
es. by permitting themselves to
be abused, to be mastered for the
sake of love. Sadism on the one
hand, and masochism on the
other, are ways in which many
of us escape - real love by substi
tuting for it a sham.
In our culture, even in the
halls of Highacres, a common
example of the sadist is Mr. Ci)ol,
the modern day Don Juan who
conceives of a woman as a
"bird" that he will have the
pleasure of defeathering, of
plucking. He approaches her not
because of the person she 13 but
because of the clothes she wears
(or fails to wear), or because
of the Mends she has ar because
of her willingness to "go down",
as if he were the new Moses or
the new Messiah. There is Miss
Hot too. She is the turkey who
gobbles up men because of their
willingness to savor the flavors
with which she taunts them. She
cares about a man's car, about
his clothes, about his ability to
take her wherever she wants to
go, about his money in the bank
(or better in his pocket), more
than she does about him. To both
Cool and Hot, who are themselv
es sick with the inability to deve
lop rich human relationships
with other persons, the people
to be relished or those who offer
testimony ,to the metallic cook
ware to which our Mr. or Miss
have reduced themselves. The
persons with whom Cool and Hot
become involved, if that is the
word for it; are to them no more
than so many licorice sticks to
be sucked dry as they see fit, no
more than some rusty pennies
thrown in a dirty jar and sought
only when the cellophane egos
of Cool or Hot need some small
change.
PAGE FIVE
Mr. Cool and Miss Hot are
able to function in the world be
cause a large number of indivi
duals have failed to develop any
temperature of their own, any
humanity that is healthfully and
wholly theirs. They are the color
less, odorless, tasteless non-per
sons who use Ban and Lavoris
because someone told them to.
They hope to acquire froth the
world what they have refused to
create for themselves an iden
tity. They are the Nowhere Man
who relies totally on others for
his evaluation of himself. If they
are ravished, their first reaction
is gratitude.
You may believe that what is
suggested here is a fabrication.
Men tend to exclude themselves
from any generalization which
may indict their behavior. So do
women. Perhaps a way to show
that the attitude so far described
occurs on this campus and in this
town as much as they do else
where is to examine several
phrases in our colloquial speech.
We "pick up" a chic; we
"make" a girl or we "make it";
we also "cut it" or "stitch it" or
"starch it." These phrases are
singularly mechanistic. We talk
about other human beings in the
same terms as we speak about
our garbage; both. are "picked
up." Just what is it that we
"make" when we have plucked a
bird? Just what have we made
when we have "made it"? Have
we dug a ditch? Have we begun
to forge in iron our own exit
from paradise? Have we put one
more entry in our celestial log;
the on we keep by the toilet:
"Stardate. Knocked off another
one. 'That's eighteen this week.
Color me used and advance me
three spaces toward being a real
man!" And let us not think it is
only the men who do the ravish
ing. If men use language that
(Continued On Page Six)