Love

1639: 

Love is one of those words that's been high jacked by religion, the greeting card industry and the writers of corny romances. It has so many sickly-sweet overtones that it stops us mentioning the word in public. Love is used as an absolute that’s beyond question. But love isn’t quite everything. Or at least, it isn’t a cure-all.

Life’s problems can’t be solved simply by showering love on them. In the material world, we have to attend to feeding and clothing, washing, paying bills, maintaining machinery, etc. Love is certainly a big emotion and it works well on things that are on a grand scale. But it isn't usually applied to the mundane. It's kept like one's best suit, for important occasions. We tend to shower it on significant others, and on those who do a lot for us. But things that can't respond? Can we or should we consider 'loving' things?

Take the fridge; it does a lot for us. What a useful machine it is. Surely it deserves a little attention from us, if not loved at least kept in good order and kept clean. It preserves our perishables and keeps our beer cold. The fridge and the computer and the car, they each deserve at least respect, or at the very least, some of our time and energy. But in our hurry to show consideration for the animate we often have nothing left over for 'things'. And if this is a failing, if this is why our homes and the interiors of our cars are sometimes a mess, it might reflect an attitude that carries over to other 'things'. And this might be why we treat farm animals so badly, because we think of them as mere 'things'. They are the property of the farmer. What business is it of ours to interfere? That's what most people think, and so we don't interfere. But that suits us just fine, because these animals are not so much living beings as sources of food. Why be concerned when they are about to die anyway?

Humans are good at ‘loving’. But we’re not always consistent with it. It’s often completely absent in our attitude towards animals. We absolve ourselves of the crime of neglect in this case, because we know we are capable of love and show it in most parts of our life. And it follows that because we only are doing what others do, that we are normal, and what we do is therefore okay. But feeling love in one quarter, doesn’t make up for the absence of it in another.