Sabtu, 25 Agustus 2007

Essay: THE SPIRIT OF LOVE: MOTHERLY LOVE

By: Nurani Soyomukti

"Homology of meaning directed by cultural globalization also make the people have nothings to define their existence for elucidating in their own world".


THE SPIRIT OF LOVE is being challenged by today Indonesian condition in which social disintegration, violence, and terrorism become real threat for humanism. Terrorism as the practice of how people realize their religious believe is very difficult to prevent. It doesn’t mean that terror will make this world to be difficult to face. Terror is everywhere.

There are some historical epoch that create the dialectical relation between material circumstance with ideological dynamics among society where inter-individuals and inter-groups define their existence. Terrorism as ideology of violence has no roots in human existence but in the material circumstance where human face real economic and material condition for fulfilling their need. Today economic and political contradiction seem to be the basic of how human existence cannot be expressed naturally.

Homology of meaning directed by cultural globalization also make the people have nothings to define their existence for elucidating in their own world. Government should provides the basic of human need because the material things is the most identical with human existence itself. The disintegration of economic suc the dramatic gap between the haves and the haves not will spread out dissatisfaction among the people. Our less-educated people cannot explain why such contradictory world happen. Their just understand that government cannot gives anything what they need for developing their lifes (food, shelter, education, healthy, and so forth). They just feel unsatisfied and disappointed.

Liberal-individual ideology brought by capitalist-globalization is really inserted among people. It accelerates the disintegration social relation. Love and beliefe become expensive things among the social. Even in the difficult economic life, cheerfulness, tolerance, reliability, ambition, and an ability to get along with other people is in friction. No more creative activities pertain and developing union. Most of people are pessimistic toward “love” when this world just colouring the commercial song lyrics, just spoken by pretending artist in the (electronic) cinema or telenovela. And the most important, the government never fullfil their promises for welfaring people.

Commitment of love doesn’t belong to geverment because it cannot give their people what they want. The real love is giving. Ability to love is an act of giving. Beyond the element of giving, the active character of love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic element, common to all form of love. These are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
That love implies care is most evident when government care the people as mother’s love for her child. Government is representation of the state, the state is always assumed as ‘mother earth’ where all land and other productive thing must be managed for all people, not for few ones. In Indonesia this is kind of state mission, the earth and what in it must be used for all people.

It is really that we are lacking of motherly love. Government and leaders are mothers, people are infant. No assurance of mother love would strike us as sincere if we saw her lacking in care for the infant, if she neglected to feed, to bathe it, tto give it physical comfort. And we are impressed by mother’s love if we see her caring for the child. It is not different even with the love for animals or flowers. If a woman told us that she loves flowers, and we saw that she forgot to water them, we would not believe in her “love” for flowers.

Erich Fromm in his “The Art Of Loving” (1956) argued that “love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love”. Where this active concern lacking, there is no love. Care an concern imply another aspect of love; that of responsibility.
In our society today, unfortunately, responsibility is often meant to denote duty, something imposed upon one from the outside. Responsibility could easily deteriorate into domination of possessiveness, where it not for a third component of love, that is respect. But responsibility, in its true sense, is an entirely voluntary act. To be “responsible” means to be able and ready to “respond”. Without the will to dominate others, we can see others respectly because respect is not fear and awe.

If the persons who govern this country are fear that they are not be wealthy, if the interest groups are fear with economic policy who is pro-people, it mean that they are not responsible and respect to people. The feeling of possessiveness is opponent of the real love as well as it is clear that respect is possible if we have achieved independence, and if we are able to stand and walk without needing crutches, without having to dominate anyone else. Respect exists only on the basis of freedom: “l’amour est l’enfant de la liberte” as an old French says “love is the child of freedom”, never that of domination.

But, our contradictory life cannot be reached merely by the feeling. Love as the feeling or pshycological phenomenon is a fact of material things that is easy to come and go. That is so problematical when love just become the infrastructure and lies in an objective, independent of subjective analysis. Such deterministic and positivistic thinking will take “love” (that can be spirit) away from social analysis and practices. Rationality as part of modernization aspect cannot look the spiritual dimension of human relation. Homogenization of culture implies that love is meant in one-dimensional interpretation.

However, love is great spirit; but rationality will only covers the eyes of individual from the existence of inter-subjectives relation that invites meaning that must not be destroyed by everythings. In practical words, the action and reaction among globalization have to be placed in intersubjective analysis. Each person and group have their meaning from their existence. The problem of how the objectives contradiction cannot explained yet by people has its relation with how love also have another aspect, that is knowledge. Educate people to love is to educate people to know and to touch the reality. No loving without knowing.
Terror and aggressive action can be motivated by “love” but without knowing the reality. Also, terror can be mitivated by “knowing objectively” but without love with its inter-subjective relation that exists. Love is not aggressive instinct or death instinct (Thanatos), but love is unifying instinct or life instinct (Eros).

Love is active penetration of the other person in which the desire to know is stilled by union (not separateness and destruction). In the act of union, we know each other, we also know ourself, we know everybody and everything. We know in the only way knowledge of that which is alive is possible for man—by experience of union—not by any knowledge our thought can give. For example, sadism is motivated by the wish to know the secret, yet we remain as ignorant as we were before. The sadistic man have torn the other being apart limb from limb, yet all he has done is to destroy him. Love is the only way of knowledge, which in the act of union answers our quest. In the act of loving, of giving ourselves, we discover ourselves, we discover us and them, we discover human(ism).

The government and most of the elites in our country not only give nothing for people’s welfare. They also let the people un-knowledgeness not just because of expensive education but also of the illusions made by government. That condition of poor and un-educated omong peoples have been blunt the productive force of our nation. The president has urged people for creating excellent culture. But the basis for driving productive and creative force among people cannot be provided. Really, welfare and democracy are important things. When love will become our spirit? Wallahu’alam!***

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