A friend reminded me of this clip, from the documentary Derrida (2002 Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering), that we watched in the first year of grad school. Do you have five minutes to spare for a man named Jacques?
Derrida is asking whether we love someone for who they are, or do we love the fact that they're a attractive to others, wear nice clothes, smell good, read fine literature, enjoy the same music we do, etc. Do you love the Who? Or do you love the What?
I suppose that my confusion stems, apart from Derrida's near complete inability to say anything straightforwardly, to the fact that I don't really see a big difference between the two. Or at least, that the difference is somewhere between compatibility and charity. I mean, if your wife never bathed, cursed like a sailor, and called you a turd-eater every day, those are not endearing qualities and you could say that you do not love her romantically and that spending the rest of your life with her is worse than death. On the other hand, you can still be concerned for her temporal welfare and desire to see her progress, etc. I mean, what you do is in good measure who you are, so to separate the two seems impossible. If we consider the difference though between Christ-like love and personal preference, then I can see making a distinction, but then Christ-like love doesn't ask us to be romantically involved with a person, but rather just to treat the person with kindness, respect, consideration, and tolerance, independently of what they do. I don't know if I'm contradicting myself, but there it is.
So maybe my explanation was off. I see it more as a difference between loving the idea of someone, and the someone themself. I think in high school there were some girls I liked the idea of, but I didn't really like them. I don't know. But hey, Kentucky this week. Good times.
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I shall now demonstrate my ignorance and lack of intellectual vigor by saying, What?
Derrida is asking whether we love someone for who they are, or do we love the fact that they're a attractive to others, wear nice clothes, smell good, read fine literature, enjoy the same music we do, etc. Do you love the Who? Or do you love the What?
I suppose that my confusion stems, apart from Derrida's near complete inability to say anything straightforwardly, to the fact that I don't really see a big difference between the two. Or at least, that the difference is somewhere between compatibility and charity. I mean, if your wife never bathed, cursed like a sailor, and called you a turd-eater every day, those are not endearing qualities and you could say that you do not love her romantically and that spending the rest of your life with her is worse than death. On the other hand, you can still be concerned for her temporal welfare and desire to see her progress, etc. I mean, what you do is in good measure who you are, so to separate the two seems impossible. If we consider the difference though between Christ-like love and personal preference, then I can see making a distinction, but then Christ-like love doesn't ask us to be romantically involved with a person, but rather just to treat the person with kindness, respect, consideration, and tolerance, independently of what they do. I don't know if I'm contradicting myself, but there it is.
So maybe my explanation was off. I see it more as a difference between loving the idea of someone, and the someone themself. I think in high school there were some girls I liked the idea of, but I didn't really like them. I don't know. But hey, Kentucky this week. Good times.
Ben, to answer your question, I do love The Who, that Tommy album is pretty good. I've never listened to The What.
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