If only separating the two was a simple matter of making each its own thread…
Oh well, off to pour another glass of wine.
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I appreciate the sentiment, Melisma, but experience has shown it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
So far, maybe.
I won’t try to dissuade you. Just promise you’ll be open-minded when that love does find you.
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No, this is the part where you look like an idiot, because you do not realize that I was not talking about you or me or any capsuleer, I was talking about the people of Floseswin. I could (and might have to because it is not the only battle around) still conceivably go “nah I’m just gonna sit this one out” but they cannot.
Whether it counts as a war is not about whether you or me or the lovebirds can opt-out from fighting it, Aria Jenneth. You have gotten very good at looking away from all evil you chosen kin causes. Indeed you serve as a good examble of someone blinded by love - not romantic love, but love just the same.
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I love my family as they exist in husband and my children. I love my people as they exist in my corporation and State.
However, just as important as love is duty as expressed in a sense of honour, and obligation to others as a sense of responsibility. Too many abandon duty out of romantic love. That just seems selfish to me, and I would not respect someone who places selfish desires over duty to others as a good decision maker.
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I have to agree with this. At the same time, I have to point back to my own earlier post where I discussed the difference between ‘loyalty’ and ‘obedience’. Keeping in mind the distinctions many others drew, and the insistence they presented that societal constructs such as these differ from culture to culture… I still can’t say that I think that matters.
To me, the great danger of love is that it might render someone unable to do their duty. It might make them hesitate when they cannot afford to, might make them show mercy when it cannot be countenanced, or drive them to vengeance when such a pursuit endangers the greater good. I’m especially mindful of the caution Elsebeth offered:
Love can compromise us. If it does… then I do not think our duty is to abandon it, or deny it, or shun it. I think our duty, to ourselves, to our kin and culture, to our giri at every scale, is to recognize it, and take clear and honest stock of just what changes it has wrought in us.
Someone who is compromised by love, that they cannot bring themselves to fire upon an enemy of their people, would fail their duty to those people, if for example they remained in a position where they would be called upon to do so. But they does not mean they must fail their people. There are other ways to serve, other roles to fill.
To use an example: if a Matari pilot were a member of the TLF, and remained in the TLF after embarking on a relationship with an Amarr loyalist in the 24IC… that would put them in danger of failing their duty. If they met on the battlefield, and the Amarr lover destroyed a member of the Minmatar fleet because their paramour hesitated… that is a failure. That is the compromise twisting the Matari pilot and weakening their bonds with their kin.
If, on the other hand, the Matari pilot transferred into a different role, transitioned to hauling for the supply chains or even moving to a desk job… anything where their service to their people were not in conflict with their relationship… I think that duty can be fulfilled[1].
But they have to be honest with themselves. They have to be willing to admit to themselves, and possibly others, ‘I cannot fill this role anymore. I cannot do this job. You need to find someone who can, and I will find another way to serve.’
Finding a balance between the two is possible, I feel… but it requires work, honesty, and a willingness to admit one’s limitations. Which are all things most people avoid like the plague.
1. Similarly, I think that if someone’s leaders order them to engage in acts they feel to be morally wrong, duty compels them to refuse the order, state why, resign their commission and submit themselves to the consequences. Our duty to those who come after, and those now who see what we do, is to try to not be monsters… But that, too, takes work, and honesty, and admitting our limitations.
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If you cannot put the love aside and are compromised because of it, then, certainly, you have to remove yourself from the duty it compromises, and if you cannot do that, the people around you and above you must remove you from it.
I find it odd, though, that putting personal love aside for the duty if you can is not the preferable solution. What kind of Gallente holovid romanticism is that?
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I don’t think it’s the preferable solution because the impact of it isn’t constrained to yourself. If the relationship is reciprocal, then attempting to simply nope on out and keep going as you were… is dishonest, and it inflicts needless harm on another human being. If you have other ways to fulfill your giri to your people without inflicting needless harm, then choosing to simply ‘put it aside’ is taking the easy way out. In addition to being dishonest, it’s lazy.
Choosing the dishonest, lazy path doesn’t bode well for someone’s willingness to meet their commitments. If they’ll choose the easy way out, over the more difficult, but less harmful path… they’ll do it again, whenever things get difficult. It’s a failing, and it indicates they’ll fail their duty in other matters as well.
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I think if we are at the point where it seems to me that you call setting personal, selfish feelings aside for duty “easy” and “lazy”, we are not communicating well enough that there’d be any point in continuing this.
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I think you’re misunderstanding my meaning, and that’s on me for not being clear enough. I’m not saying that setting aside emotional attachments is objectively ‘easy’. But choosing one or the other, in either direction, is easier than finding a way to meet the obligations of both. I didn’t think it needed to be said that the description of ‘easy’ was a relative one, or that it applied just as well to choosing to abandon duty for love. It’s the same decision, no matter which direction you go in: If you can set aside your commitments once—either set—you can do it again.
Now, now, there are plenty of Gallente romance holovids where putting love aside for duty drives the plot. I should know, I feel like I’m living one.
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Hey, made me smile.
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Love poses its own dangers, certainly. If it was a rational feeling then “crimes of passion” would not be defined under most national laws. I also think the assumption that love is benign or innocent for those involved is a very dangerous one to make – it has been in the playbook of spies since time immemorial to compromise an enemy through affection with the intention of betrayal.
Love is a difficult concept and can mean a range of things.
Love between family members is not the same as between foreigners. There is romantic and platonic love. There is erotic love… I could go on.
If one wants to exult love, one better is specific about the type of love one wants to laud.
All that said, I personally find a god much more ‘loving’ - speaking in the cataphatic mode - that in his wisdom made sin not inheritable from one parent to offspring (which it is not, as I argued), than a god that shows his ‘love’ in that he burdens the child to make good on the sins of the parent.
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Uhh… guys, love can exist alongside duty.
Take all this blather that seems to imply that I wouldn’t shoot Constantin if he was floating between me and freeing my kin. I would, and I’d expect him to shoot me just the same.
Why would I? It isn’t a matter of which I love more, him or my people. It’s because I know the love he and I share transcends whatever strangeness put us in the situation of opposing each other, while the “love” my kin bear for me is clearly dependent on whether or not I’m killing enough Amarr—as demonstrated by the number of Matari who have enjoyed waxing political about really terrible wine here.
And that’s the flaw. My supposed kin and neighbors only like me when I’m doing the things they think I should do. That’s a condition, and as I’ve said, true love has no conditions.
Of course, I still love you all anyway, because I can’t help doing it.
And I do have to recognize that Constantin and I enjoy the conceit of being able to die and live again. I wouldn’t perma-kill him. Which is why I’m glad this doesn’t matter! I chose a non-combat role in the war long before I met him. I contribute in the ways that I can do so most effectively, and if you doubt that I can’t shoot capsuleers effectively, you should come find me and challenge me to a duel. You’ll have a hearty laugh and a fresh killmark.
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Maybe it’s because either of you would wake up in a pristine clone in you got shot to death. After all, you’re capsuleers. And I assume you have backups for the case this hypothetical shooting scenario happens out of pod.
Of course it does. It must have them, even. Just because you love someone, does not mean they are immune to criticism for doing actions that are contrary to your beliefs and standards. We absolutely should hold our loved ones to account, and leave them if they are unwilling to change negative aspects about themselves. Love is not a free pass, and if one chooses to ignore bad traits about someone they care for then I wonder how much they actually care for each other. Those we are closest to are also those we should hold to the highest standards, because they reflect on ourselves and, more importantly, it is our responsibility to them, to help them be better people. When your family chides you against choices you have made, it is not because they don’t love you, but the opposite – they don’t want to see you do something that will hurt you, or that will hurt others they care about.
There is no fantasy fairy tale love of perfect harmony that overcomes all evil in the world. Many, if not most cases of people absconding with a lover in defiance of the advice of their families ends in hurt and heartbreak in the real world. Love can be flawed, it can be blind, it can be dangerous, it can be abusive. Love is difficult.
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——
One shouldn’t ignore them, certainly. But they also shouldn’t leave someone because of them. They should help each other grow past those bad traits. And if they can’t find a middle ground, then it just wasn’t meant to be.
You are decidedly talking about something that is not love.
No, she’s right. Love can be as flawed as the people involved. Two people can love one another very much, even if one of them—abused and emotionally damaged in their own youth—turns abusive and cruel when angered or challenged. Love can push people into actions they know to be wrong, and hurtful, to protect the person they love. It’s difficult, and you yourself recognize those difficulties even in the same post:
Don’t leave someone because of their bad traits. Try to help one another grow past them. And if they don’t… then leave them because of their bad traits.
It’s not a simple thing. It’s not an easy thing to unravel. It’s us, and we’re flawed… so it’s flawed.
Maybe they only agree with you when you’re doing the things they think you should do. If they didn’t like you, would they continue associating with you? Keep talking to you? But at the same time…
Don’t conflate ‘like’ and ‘love’. I don’t like my father. He’s detached and indifferent to most things, and not because he’s all cold and logical, but because he’s apathetic and, frankly, lazy. He just wants to go to work, come home, have a meal and a drink, and be a lump watching holos. He barely interacts with my mother, even. That’s just who he’s grown to be. I don’t like him.
I still love my dad. But I really don’t like him.
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