Does everyone deserve love?

the said:
The state should assign people to love the unloveable.
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No one would be motivated to be lovable if they knew it would result in being paired with a piece of garbage.
And all the pieces of garbage will be attracted to your state.
Seems like a horrible idea.
 
jupiterswoon said:
I recently conversed with a friend who said that in his last relationship he was "good" the whole time, and couldn't believe that it didn't work out.

Personally, just because a person is "good" in a relationship, aka well behaved, doesn't necessarily imply that they deserve that same behavior. That strikes me as a transactional relationship- "I will be good" implies that "you need to be good to me". Sometimes even if a person is "good" they might have different intentions. I have met many people who thought that because they were "good" they arbitrarily deserved things- like the "nice guy" who suddenly starts getting pushy because he feels like he is "owed" something.

I think on a deeper level, some people are not necessarily capable of loving or being loved, and that although people have potentially lovable things about them, it doesn't mean they are unequivocally lovable.

It also makes me wonder what would happen as soon as that person gets tired of being "good" that they might fall into all sorts of behavior that comes to them more easily once they get what they want or get tired of fronting.

It strikes me that people in healthy relationships might never say they were on "good" behavior, just simply that they are "lucky" to be in those relationships.

When people start feeling like they deserve love, I don't think that relationship is built on actual love. Love to me seems to be about not having expectations, and opening oneself up to vulnerability. Being on good behavior seems to be more about preventing hurt, than really loving someone. It also seems to be more about implicitly using guilt than enjoyment.

Thoughts?

Do you think people deserve love- is it a right? How would you personally quantify a person's lovability?

Do you think all people are lovable? Do you think that "good" behavior deserves a relationship? How do you define your own relationships? Have you been in relationships where the other person used this argument? What do you think the relationship is between expectations and the quality of a relationship?
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I'm not a particular fan of theorising desert or entitlement, its become almost impossible to do so they're such loaded terms now.

I'd also say that I'm not sure if its a great idea to apply economic and transactional models to intimate relationships and love, it doesnt surprise me that it happens though, Erich Fromm criticised Freud's theory of limited personal resources to be "spent" in relationships as nothing more than the internalisation of the money values of his time, sociology writ as personal psychology. I know there's people who love the economic models so much that they want to apply them to everything, I'm not sure they serve very well in their proper sphere let alone in a more holistic fashion.
 
Eventhorizon said:
A baby gets love...but deserve it? What has it done to deserve it?
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There is a fundamental difference in comparing babies and adults. For an adult there is more things to love and more things not to love. A child doesn't have a personality in the sense that is applied to an adult meaning a kind of personal identity. This is not to say that a baby is not unique or anything like that, its just to say that there are fundamental differences to babies and adults. Because of the apples to oranges thing, it seems that the same rules do not apply to babies and adults. Therefore we should restrict our discussion to adults to teens.
I think no one deserves love, but ideally love should be given. In the case of a baby, I would say love can be given. A parent sees the potential of the child. They see themselves as part of the child, and who created the child. By seeing all of this, the parents give their love willingly. The child doesn't deserve the love (in the sense that the love should be given even if the parents didn't want to love the child), didn't earn the love, but does get the love nonetheless.

Now I'm struggling with the right kind of words here. A baby should be loved, but a baby doesn't automatically deserve love unconditionally and purely. Ideally that would be the case, but it shouldn't be expected. All people have the free will and right to choose who they love. It is preferred that they love the child. This is the difference between should be given and could be given. I say this to try to keep from offending any parents out there by a misuse of words.
 
say what said:
Agree a billion percent! I posted earlier that I think love needs to be defined- we can't just think of it as romantic love, but we can't also assume all love is the same!
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I think in the context of this thread it was romantic love. Although I like all the tangents that were brought up :)
 
LucyJr said:
In the sense that love is loving also when the recipient doesn't deserve it.
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But that's the whole point of 'everyone deserves love'. Being deserving doesn't mean that you complete actions that are required to be love...it means that regardless of what someone does or doesn't do, they should, on some level, receive love.
 
say what said:
But that's the whole point of 'everyone deserves love'. Being deserving doesn't mean that you complete actions that are required to be love...it means that regardless of what someone does or doesn't do, they should, on some level, receive love.
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Even someone like Hitler should get some love?
 
LucyJr said:
Even someone like Hitler should get some love?
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Maybe if he had more love in his life he wouldn't be the way he was

My perspective of love is the same as my perspective on compassion and kindness - I know we don't see eye to eye on it! ;)
 
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