I would hope the answer is yes. However, would a parent still love their child if they pulled Jeffrey Dahmer-type stuff on them? I wonder, is there always SOME condition?
Like for example, with a marriage, you might love them UNLESS they cheat on you. If they are your child, you might love them UNLESS they brutally rape or try to kill you. For a friend, the condition might be as broad as AS LONG as you still share interests.
Or can anyone here attest to being able to still love despite all these things?
I’m not sure anyone can give an honest answer to this. There are people in my life that I love despite some pretty bad things, but that’s not really proof that I would still love them if they did much worse things. I’d like to think that I would, but its impossible to say.
That said, I tend to believe that “unconditional love” is redundant, in that, I believe love is an act of selflessness, and thus, to put conditions inherently taints that. How can I say that I’ll be selfless to you, unless you do something I don’t like like?
As for whether it exists or not, I have seen plenty of situations, mostly in various documentaries, of parents who continue to love and visit their children even when convicted of some pretty heinous crimes. So, even if it doesn’t really exist, I’d like to think that it at least exists as an ideal that we strive for and, that some people get close enough to that its difficult to distinguish.
Hitler had a dog, and afaik it loved him. No greater love exists than shown by a mama squirrel protecting her babies from a redneck bent on dinner…or something…
There are people who stay with and apparently love serial killers and abusers. So I’d say that there is such a thing as unconditional love, or something pretty close to it. What I don’t see is why it would be considered desirable to anyone but a predator.
I think in some cases it exists but it is not always a good thing. Take for example all the women who go back to their exceptionally abusive spouses. My wife says she loves me unconditionally and from all evidence this may be true, but I kind of hope it isn’t.
ETA: Just to be clear, I haven’t given my wife any reasons not to love me, and have never bee abusive to her in any way.
This too is true. But I would say that the person staying with the killer or abuser isn’t right in the head. I personally would have a hard time not killing a spouse that abused my children. But I’m also a hetero guy with no children so it’s unlikely to occur.
Well, there’s the thing; I don’t think that unconditional love (or unconditional anything) is being “right in the head”.
Do we consider it mentally healthy if someone is unconditionally angry, unconditionally sad, unconditionally hungry, unconditionally afraid? No. Having an emotional state that is stuck permanently “on” isn’t a good thing. I think this is an example of how we’ve turned the emotion of love into an idolized fetish instead of just another emotion that can be good or bad depending on circumstances.
I think unconditional love, i.e., a love that persists No Matter What, doesn’t exist.
My wife and I have been together over 20 years. I love her more now than ever. We’re two components of a single unit, completing each others’ sentences, anticipating needs without words, the whole nine, and the thought of being without her is truly unpleasant. However, I know it is possible for my love to dissipate if she were to do something I found unforgivable, and I can easily imagine such circumstances.
Unconditional love sounds like a self-esteem issue to me.
What about loving someone while still acting reasonably-ie even if your lover was a serial killer you’d report him/her to the police because your love for them is exceedeed by your desire for justice.
Unconditional love might exist, but it really, really shouldn’t.
Unconditional love would mean loving something not based on any properties it might have. But if love is to have any meaning, I want based on who I am.
Otherwise the person loving might as well love a faceless person in Nepal that s/he has never met, or a squirrel, or a plank of wood. Only if the love is contingent on some part of my identity should I value it, because otherwise the thing being loved upon has no association with anything that I can or should identify with.
Sure. Not only is it possible, it certainly happens. However, unconditional love means love without condition. So, if someone tortures you, kill your children, murder your parents and/or any number of other heinous things you will STILL love that person regardless. THAT is probably not possible, as everyone has a breaking point…and even if it were possible, it would be highly disturbing bordering on psychopathic. Hell, not even bordering on…it’s over the shark psychopathic/sociopathic behavior at least.
We aren’t built that way. No one could love ALL human beings…or even a large percentage of them. We simply can’t encompass such feelings. Hell, I don’t think that people can even wrap their minds around loving all of their fellow countrymen…or even all of their fellow small town citizens. That’s why we invent symbols. It allows us to ‘love’ something that’s bigger than our small tribe or family grouping.
And if you are implying God or the gods or something along that line then consider what this supreme being or beings allows to happen or makes happen. If God or the gods loves each and every one of us then why do so many of us live lives of misery and pain…and in many cases short, brutal lives of misery and pain? Consider the Jewish/Christian/Islamic God who supposedly wiped out all but a single family of humans (and all the other creatures except 2 or 6 of each kind that were saved on a magic boat)…or the cities wiped out and peoples slaughtered in the OT. Even the Jewish/Christian/Islamic God doesn’t love all people…he simply loves SOME of them, and apparently loves some ‘races’ better than others.