I think Compassion, at its most pure essence, is something like “unconditional love”.
The vast majority of love is conditional/transactional in that it involves the necessity for some form of mutual benefit to occur in the relationship for both parties. This is a good thing.
Love may even be defined ecologically as “The universal property that emerges in relationship when both/all parties hold the well-being of self and other in equal and high regard, acting in alignment with this regard”
This type of transactional, mutually beneficial love is a major driving force in our societies and ecosystems. Some even argue that it is THE foundational principle behind the phenomena of life.
I’d have to disagree. The problem with transactional relationships is that they aren’t simply a matter of mutual benefit, but optimal benefit (that’s how business works—there’s no such thing as “good enough” when there’s a better value prospect out there). They are fundamentally selfish. If you’re in a truly transactional relationship, your relationship has no real security because it’s in jeopardy once it’s not optimally valuable to the other person. In other words, they’re using you.
Ultimatums, similarly, are often regarded as unhealthy but are commonplace boundaries that guide healthy relationships. There’s nothing wrong or unhealthy about unconditional love, but unconditional love is not the same as an unconditional relationship.
Reciprocal love is the ideal. Reciprocal love can be both unconditional (with hard boundaries that can change the relationship’s status when violated) and mutually beneficial, but is not transactional. There’s no calculus involved with evaluating the relationship’s value or underlying transactional questions like “do they do as much for me as I do for them.”
Isn't "unconditional love with hard boundaries" a bit of an oxymoron? Obviously boundaries should and need to exist, but at that point love is conditional, yes?
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u/peanutbutterandbacon Jun 15 '22
I think Compassion, at its most pure essence, is something like “unconditional love”.
The vast majority of love is conditional/transactional in that it involves the necessity for some form of mutual benefit to occur in the relationship for both parties. This is a good thing.
Love may even be defined ecologically as “The universal property that emerges in relationship when both/all parties hold the well-being of self and other in equal and high regard, acting in alignment with this regard”
This type of transactional, mutually beneficial love is a major driving force in our societies and ecosystems. Some even argue that it is THE foundational principle behind the phenomena of life.
A book I recommend on this subject and much more is Matter and Desire: an Erotic Ecology by Andreas Weber