Analysis Of Alain Badiou's In Praise Of Love

Little children loves to listen to fantasy stories about love between prince and princesses such as “Cinderella”, “Snow White”, “Beauty and the Beast”, and as you get old you might know more stories like “Romeo and Juliet”. When you are small you dream for experiencing love like in those stories, and even if you do realize that it is impossible to magically meet a princess or price, many still desire the romantic encounter with someone. Though, is that love? Or is it that act of loving just occurring in your own fantasy world that you have created? “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Jean Paul Sartre states in his essay “Existentialism” that how we interpret an act or an emotion is depended on what you choose to believe. However, …show more content…
Encounter is simply meeting one another, and declaration is the act of agreement between the two, such as saying, “I love you” to him or her. Fidelity is then the act of sacrificing your own values for the other so that the others' value is fulfilled. For example when a mother give birth to a baby, they encounter, and the act of accepting the new life as their family member, would be declaration. As the baby grows and recognizes him or herself as 'self', his or her values start to change and in parallel to that, he or she tries to understand the values the mother or the people around them have. The mother too would think about her children's value to make sure they are brought up with satisfaction and therefore would sacrifice her own time to raise her children and understand him or her. This sacrifice is the process of fidelity and structures the parental love. In case of friendship love, both would care one another and share their experiences and time together. Through that experience, one would realize similarities and differences between them two. Some might stop having a relationship due to those differences, which means the split between the two. However those who choose to continue to have relationship and tries to resolve a problem cause by those difference, are able to find true friendship because the act of trying to resolve …show more content…
This does not mean that the feeling you felt, the loving emotions, is an illusion. For example, in the novel Enduring Love by Ian Mc Ewan, Jed Parry has been objectifying Joe Rose, who is the protagonist, because of his obsession. Through out the novel, Jed expresses his love by stalking and sending letters to Joe. To this Joe suffers by being stalked and loved by a stranger, which is Jed. Even though Joe does not love Jed and does not recognize his act as expression of love, Jed's love towards Joe is true for Jed. However, Jed is viewing his lover, in this case Joe, through his own view of love. He loves Joe and thinks that Joe loves him back, and he even states that that is their faith, but that is through the religious lens Jed believes. The feeling Jed has is true for him but he is not in love with Joe Rose as a being. In Jed's brain, he thinks Joe lives in his 'reality' but he does not. He has created his own 'Joe Rose' to complete his fantasy world of love. This delusion happens in our life as well. One might feel love towards another but that person who you love could be a creation of your own, even he or she physically exists. Especially in a romantic love, you feel love towards another, but once you get into a relationship and face reality, realizing the differences and similarities in between, the romantic love can be easily broken apart. That is why we