Skye Cleary - Existentialism and Romantic Love

Existentialism and Romantic Love

Existentialism and Romantic Love

Skye Cleary

Columbia University, New York, USA

Skye Cleary 2015

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First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

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ISBN: 9781137455796

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cleary, Skye, 1975
Existentialism and romantic love / Skye Cleary, Columbia University,

New York, USA. pages cm

ISBN 9781137455796 (hardback) 1. Love.2. Existentialism. I.Title.

BD436.C49 2015 1289.46dc23

2015002149

To Nick and Dylan

Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction 1

2 Max Stirner and Loving Egoistically 21

3 Sren Kierkegaard and Loving Aesthetically 45

4 Friedrich Nietzsche and Loving Powerfully 71

5 Jean-Paul Sartre and Loving Sadomasochistically 99

6 Simone de Beauvoir and Loving Authentically 125

7 Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Professor Robert Spillane and Dr Steven Segal for their guidance and inspiration during my doctoral research at Macquarie Graduate School of Management. I am very grateful to my editor Brendan George of Palgrave Macmillan for his support of this project. Special thanks to Sam Smith for the cover design of this book and her star friendship. For their relentless encouragement and love, my deepest appreciation to Nick and Dylan. To all my friends, colleagues at MGSM and Columbia University, and my mum, thank you for your enthusiasm, support, and feedback.

Grateful acknowledgments are made to Dover Publications for permis- sion to quote from the copyrighted text of Max Stirners The Ego and His Own .

Introduction

The attempt to understand romantic loving has become big business. The popularity of matchmaking industries, internet dating, romance novels, relationship self-help books, and celebrity relationship counselors are just a few examples of how the dynamics of loving relationships remain of perennial interest. Expectations about romantic loving are grand, but there seems to be an issue with the way we understand it because reality often falls short of the ideal. Romantic loving suggests images of perfect happiness, harmony, understanding, and intimacy that make the lovers feel as if they are made for each other. The ideal is alluring but flawed, because romantic loving often involves conflicts and disappointments.

This book is an existential study of romantic loving. Its central argument is that existential philosophies reveal to us the notion that once lovers free themselves from preconceived ideals about how romantic lovers ought to behave, and free themselves from being slaves to their passions, they will be free to create relationships that complement and enhance their personal, authentic endeavors. Love is a passion to be chosen and mastered, not sacrificed to One argument is that although romantic lovers lose certain freedoms, the love they acquire compensates. However, I argue that one of the key contributions of the existential approach to romantic loving is its criticism of such an assumption. After all, it is by no means given that the benefits of romantic love necessarily outweigh the costs.

Existential philosophies provide a meaningful framework through which the dominant ideas about romantic loving can be critically examined because they explore the space between the ideals of romantic loving and the compromises lovers make in order to try to achieve those ideals. Five existential philosophers have been selected for study because their narratives provide the means by which the roots of dissatisfactions and frustrations within our everyday ideas about romantic loving can be examined.

While every existential philosopher interprets being in the world differently, there is a common emphasis on concrete personal experience, freedom, authenticity, responsibility, individuality, awareness of death, and personal determination of values. It is unsurprising, therefore, that such philosophers would consider the question of romantic loving. This includes Max Stirner (18061856), Sren Kierkegaard (1813 1855), Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900), JeanPaul Sartre (19051980), and Simone de Beauvoir (19081986), who contribute significantly to the idea of romantic loving. The five existential philosophers do not provide a single solution, but rather a five-pronged critique that helps us to understand both how romantic loving can go awry and how it can be reinvigorated. An analysis of such existential notions as freedom, power, choice, authenticity, and anxiety challenges our assumptions regarding the nature and meaning of romantic loving.

The existential perspective lends itself well to such an analysis, since relationships are an important part of existential discourse. Existential philosophers acknowledge that we are born into webs of relationships, and they explore how relations with others infuse our world with meaning and modify our possibilities. Existential thinking brings to light complexities, knowledge, and expressions of romantic loving because it provides a language to understand and reflect on our being in the world and being with others, and it expands our knowledge about possibilities and dynamics of relationships. Existential philosophies remain relevant because they deal with everyday human problems.

What is romantic loving?

In 1300 BC the ancient Egyptians wrote love poems. Around 350 BC Plato classified love into different forms. The Roman poet Ovid wrote erotic poetry in 19 BC. Heloise and Abelard famously exchanged letters about their love for each other in the twelfth century. In the late 1500s Shakespeare wrote plays about love. While the literature of romantic loving dates as far back as the ancient Egyptians, only more recently has it been referred to as romantic and become a mass phenomenon, particularly in the Western world. This section addresses a few key historical developments that have influenced our understanding of romantic loving in the twenty-first century Western world and some of the dominant current definitions of romantic loving.

Historically, associations between men and women were marriages based on economic alliances that aimed at either maintaining power and wealth or providing extra labor for domestic production. Coupling was arranged as a matter of economic convenience, and so passionate love usually occurred outside marriage and was based on the natural functions of sex and lust. The love story generally ended in sexual union until the Middle Ages when the phenomenon of courtly love became popular.