“I loved her so much! How dare she dump me and start ignoring me! Now I will commit violence as revenge.”
In this line of reasoning we have selfish desires masquerading as a virtue. The thing I label love is a complex of desire, attachment, and (limited) altruism. If I lump them all together as love, I can more easily convince myself that my desire and attachment are actually virtuous. Thus I can convince myself that my feeling of anger is righteous rather than petty. Thus I am more likely to act upon that anger and lash out with violence, on a small or large scale.
I believe that this kind of thing happens a lot in romantic relationships. People mistake their selfish desires for virtues. And I believe that this is party because of the muddled concept of love and our cultural glorification of it.
“I loved her so much! How dare she dump me and start ignoring me! Now I will commit violence as revenge.”
In this line of reasoning we have selfish desires masquerading as a virtue. The thing I label love is a complex of desire, attachment, and (limited) altruism. If I lump them all together as love, I can more easily convince myself that my desire and attachment are actually virtuous. Thus I can convince myself that my feeling of anger is righteous rather than petty. Thus I am more likely to act upon that anger and lash out with violence, on a small or large scale.
I believe that this kind of thing happens a lot in romantic relationships. People mistake their selfish desires for virtues. And I believe that this is party because of the muddled concept of love and our cultural glorification of it.