Friday 11 January 2008

The virtue of love

A: Love is no more a virtue than breathing is a virtue.

B: I know what you mean. It depends what you do with love. After all, people may selfishly love only themselves, or else may love to torture, or love death ...

A: You don't know what I mean at all. I am not speaking instrumentally, after that fashion. Love is not the scale against which we should measure the rightness of wrongness of actions, for there will always be some people who love any action, no matter how base. What I mean is that we ought not to presume to congratulate ourselves merely on the fact of loving. Loving must be the medium through which we move, no more worthy of mark (in itself) than air. Loving must be the background noise of our lives. It ought to go without saying.

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