Wednesday, February 07, 2007

 

Love Essay Assignment Due February 14

"Love" Essay Assignment due 2/14
English Assignment for Week of February 12-16 "Love"


"Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty; Greek three; and English simply one." -probably from Robert Johnson. This sounds cool, but it is not really true.

In English we have many words for kinds of love: lust, desire, affection, adore, longing, family, respect, admiration. We will say, "I adore him," or "I am hot for her," or "I totally respect you," or "I am fond of you," or "You are like family to me." Yeow! No wonder we are confused about love.

Think about all the kinds of love you have known. This quote is all over the web, and I haven't sourced it yet. It's not quite true, though.

From Swamp Donkey, a blog: All you need is love? Friday October 07th 2005, 11:18 pm Filed under: thoughtful inklings, Philosophy


Assignment
The writing assignment is to research the term “love”. Respond in an essay of 500 words or 2 typed pages.

Look at the three types of love: agape, eros and philia. Which do you think is the most valuable?

Do you think love is the most effective weapon against hate?

Is there a role for romantic love in the world, or is this a western concept which is highly overrated?

Are greeting card businesses and the candy stores a means to exploit the insecurities of the public?

Am I being too cynical?What’s wrong with flowers and candy on Valentine’s Day? What would the world be like without Cupid, Hallmark, KKSF, candlelight and special delivery?

After reading about the different expressions of love, and the three linguistic interpretations of the word “love,” choose one aspect of the word to support or deny its virtues.

Remember, after you determine your angle on the topic, complete the essay planning sheet, and perhaps develop an outline (Hacker, Ch. 1). Be certain to use a variety of support for your claim or thesis: examples, analogies, definitions, expert opinion, statistics, anecdotes, etc. Be prepared to present your argument to class on Wednesday, Feb. 14.

Extra: Bring in something concrete that illustrates your concept of love, if such "thing" exists.

Comments:
Brittany Wilson M,W 10-12

I know that "LOVE" is not for everyone and that many people do not believe in it. According to the online dictionay www.dictionary.com love is 1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.

I think that love is a very personal thing to many people and that a lot of people think that this word is used to common such as the word "the" or "that"--Its to common. So that its losing there value.
 
Brittany Wilson

As part of the reflective assignment i had to find a book and i found the book "The Art of Loving" by Erick Formm. Formm thought that Agape love was the best type of love because it was selfless love of one person for another without sexual implications (especially love that is spiritual in nature. I agree with Formm and King Jr. because to love someone is the best thing that you can ever experience in your life.
 
Sarah Pruitt
English 201 B
10-12 m.w.


Look at the three types of love: agape, eros and philia. Which do you think is the most valuable?

I believe that Philia is the most valuable love. It is the love for a friend or for your family. This is the truest form of love because there are no strings attached. You choose to love your family and your friends. You can not buy a true friendship and not all friends last forever. If you have love for your friend it is important to express this to them because if you dont you may eventually lose that peson.

Do you think love is the most effective weapon against hate?

I think that love is something that grows and developes over time. I think if people took the time to learn how to love, even your enemies, then yes it would be the best weapon against hate. The reality is is that people dont love there enemies and we often only contribute to the hate.

Is there a role for romantic love in the world, or is this a western concept which is highly overrated?

I think Love is definitly not over rated but often mistaken for infatuation. There is a roll for romantic love in the world, but there are very few people who try to fulfill this roll.

Are greeting card businesses and the candy stores a means to exploit the insecurities of the public?

I think holidays such as valentines day are completely over rated. It is almost expected if you have a loved one that they buy you something to show you that they love you. The world strives off making money and thats all this holiday really comes down to, another way for stores and companies to make money. They definitly exploit the public with pressures to go out and buy, buy, buy!
 
Porsche' Williams
Engl 201B M,W

I believe that Aagape is the most valuable of the three. It is a deep connecting type of love, with a connection to the human spirit.
I believe it is the most effective weapon against hate. With love you have the ability to heal, deep wounds, there is a comforting factor, and the ability to nurture the soul, sometimes all a person needs is for another human to show them that they are worthy of being loved. I believe love heals all wounds.
 
DInah k. Oubkeo

I believe everyone in this world is in need of love. I can relate to all the three types of love Eros, Agape, Philia. We need to feel all three in order to be truly happy in this life of sin. Deep down inside we all desire Eros type of love, the desire to feel the chemistry reaction with another. To have butterflies in your stomach, to have your cheeks turn red, a very soothing kind of feeling. It’s infatuation between two people commonly mistaken for real love. In order for it to be true love you would need all the three combined.

Agape is a brotherly love that contains none of Eros type of love. I can say that many people have Agape love in their life, some one that they love to death. We can relate to this to our family and friends, people who we call our “loved ones” We all have the greatest fear to loose those who we love and cherish the most. These are the people that we either give or receive Philia love to, which is to love unconditionally and expect no love in return. Parents can relate to that type of love.

I strongly believe that all you need in life is love. There are many types of love and I think most of us had a share of experience. Love is very affective against hate. It may not be as appealing to those who are especially stubborn with pride. But to understand love you would have to be a witness for yourself. Some may see is as being “soft” but I considered it as loving unconditionally. From family, friends, lovers and even enemies no love is stronger than to love unconditionally.

The word love is just another way of saying you respect or care about someone. There is always room for romantic love in this world. Love is like a ghost, something people talk about but few have yet to witness. Some people aren’t that great of expressing their feelings about another person so that’s where the greeting card business, candy shops, and floral shops come in. They have great creative yet simple ways of expressing “love” It’s probably a great feeling to know that you helped another make some one else’s day.

Love is very manipulating to those who are vulnerable. Agape is the love that deceives us the most. The outcome may be heartbreaking pain but in time can mend. Love is patient, so there is no need to look high and low for it. All of these types of love, real love takes times to be understood and when it’s there you’ll know and it’ll never go away because it’s unconditionally.
 
Jonell Ramos M - W 1-3

I speak only for myself, but some people can probably agree, that "Agape" is the most divine. Baed off books, to romance novels, it is how most of society picture love.
posted by Anonymous : 12:52 PM
 
English 201 A. 1-3pm
Love
To write about love I believe that you have to experience love first. A four letter word can cause a life long pain to some people who take it seriously. Love is complicated; it’s almost trying to put a ten people in a one stall bathroom.
There are many different ways you can describe the word love, either by action or verbally. In Greek there are a couple of words that defines love. The one I can identify with is Agape love meaning love for all humanity. Being that I am Christian you are supposed to have love for each and every person, including your enemies. Over all I believe in unconditional love, you love that person if they are short fat purple green no teeth, false teeth etc you love them spite there circumstances.
Sometimes I think it’s hard to put one little word on how you feel about love. I’ve been in love before from that experience it kind of turned my views on love, as far as being in a relationship. I fell in love with this guy in the tenth grade, he always sent me secret admires, gave me poetry letter everyday that we were together. He was a beautiful person. Not once had he ever called me out of my name or looked at me less then what I was. We always had fun together, we had the same morning class, we would always play argue. Everybody in the school knew that we were going to be married one day. Our relationship was beautiful; I loved him for who he was. We only had one problem, he was in love with his girlfriend and I was in love with him. I have never experienced love like that before, and I never want to again. It hurts being in love by yourself. I would constantly disrespect the girls he would condensate with especially his girlfriend. I wanted him all to myself; many good friendships were messed up because of my jealous acts. Love will make you do a couple of things, go crazy kill somebody stress, not eat etc. I was in love with him for 4 ½ years. One day my eyes finally open, I realized that this thing that I have with him will never be nothing more then friendship. It took me a while to finally get that through my system, but when I did I felt so free like a bird spreading his wings for the first time flying. It felt really good. I was becoming a new person, a person who was in love with herself and the things that pleased her. Being the daring person that I’m not afraid to get back out in the world and try to find “True Love”, a person that love me back unconditionally. Love is something not to be played with it can hurt people really bad or help people. Either way it goes I believe that loving some one unconditionally with a tough of Agape love can do this world some good.
 
A. Stephens
English 201B

Love is strong emotion that sometimes transcends understanding. Love can be divided into three types – Agape, Eros and Philia. Agape is a Greek word that means love and represents divine, self-sacrificing, unconditional, active and thoughtful love. Greek philosophers during Plato’s time used Agape to describe the love of a spouse or family or affection for a certain type of activity (Wikipedia). St. Paul described Agape love in 1st Corinthians 13, 4-8a as:

"Love (agape) is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails" (Holy Bible).

Philia is an affection that denotes brotherhood or is generally a non-sexual affection. Philia is something you would have with your friends. Eros is an affection of a sexual nature (Wikipedia). I believe Agape love is the most valuable because it is unconditional. This means there are no strings attached – you can’t earn it or buy it and it’s freely given.

Hate is the opposite of love. Hate is a feeling of prejudice, bigotry, or condemnation against a person or group of people, such as racism, or intense religious or political prejudice (Wikipedia). Love and tolerance can be an effective weapon against hate. In Marvin Gaye’s song, “What’s Goin On”, he says, “Only love can conquer hate. We’ve got to find a way to bring some loving here today”. He recorded the song in May 1971 and a lot of it is still pertinent today.

There is a role for romantic love in the world today. I don’t believe it is an overrated western concept. Romance should be based on random acts of showing affection and not based on a certain holiday. It depends on what the other person likes. For example, your girlfriend might be on a diet, so candy would not be appropriate, but flowers or a card might.

In an article in Psychology Today, the writers believe that love functions on different levels. It includes biology and behavior, but works better when the couple consciously shapes their relationships through goodwill. This means respecting each other’s worlds and learning a little something from each other.

I believe the only ones who can be exploited by greeting card and candy store companies are those who may feel guilty for not having shown affection at other times during the year. I find with the florists that this is a time for them to raise the prices because they know they will have a lot of people purchasing flowers. So, in a way, they are taking advantage of the public.

One of the virtues of Agape love is self-sacrificing. The best example of this I found was in St. John, Chapter 3, verse 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Holy Bible).
 
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