Someone may ask, “Do you believe in Platonic love?” Questions like that are baffling. Is it really so hard to believe that Platonic love exists? Only the childish sort of person who imagines that everyone thinks exactly as he does would disbelieve it. Since we can believe in the existence of all kinds of unreasonable people, and even believe in the existence of all kinds of perverse feelings, why would we not believe in the existence of a certain kind of love? The question really worth asking is, “Do you approve of / recognize / long for Platonic love?” Of course, before that, we also need to make clear what “Platonic love” means.
The term Platonic love is a later invention, and roughly refers to purely spiritual love. In my view, this kind of love is by no means the highest realm of love; rather, it is the precondition or foundation of love! Think about that kind of male-female love built on fleshly desire—does it deserve to be called “love”? That is not love at all. Once we say that love has appeared, and not merely infatuation or dependence, then that love must be spiritual. Whether or not such spiritual love comes after bodily love is beside the point; in any case, once we speak of love, it has already transcended the body.
A spiritual love that bypasses bodily love is of course possible—for instance, the love of the ugly, the disabled; sexless marriages are not uncommon either, and sometimes online romances may count as well. However, why must one rid oneself of the body? Since people who happen to be ugly or incomplete can still love, if someone happens to be young and beautiful, would that person instead be unable to love? True spiritual love is meant to transcend the body, not to go around it.
Then, when one transcends the body and reaches spiritual love, does one have to reject the body—in plain terms, must one necessarily reject sexual intercourse? That is by no means certain either. So what does love mean in Plato, then? I read the Symposium, and feel that if one were to summarize it in the simplest possible words, the typical Platonic love is probably “male homosexuality without intercourse” (Note: Plato’s Platonic love does not seem to reject the body entirely. In ancient Greece, physical fitness was often also part of virtue. However, the ancient Greeks, especially the philosophers, had such strong chauvinism that they believed women’s souls were a grade below men’s, and women’s bodily beauty was likewise a grade below men’s. In short, the ideal beloved was an attractive, well-built man…). I am not disparaging homosexuals, but if we are discussing love between men and women, and take homosexuality as a model or example, would that not be incongruous? To put it more harshly, would that not be rather perverse? Platonic love in this sense is not something I approve of, let alone long for. What Plato failed to make clear is why heterosexual love is so special, and how it differs from the love between teacher and student, brothers, or father and son. Of course, at root one can say that all love is first and foremost spiritual love, all an unconditional giving. Yet in concrete terms, what one gives and what one desires differ in each case. Moreover, people who love one another are meant to live together; if one merely “acts spiritually” in the head and heart, while doing nothing for the other person in reality, then what is that? If there truly is spiritual love, then naturally it should overflow into reality and be revealed there—so why must one suppress it? Plato thought the body was the fetter of the spirit; that is not wrong. But Plato’s therefore hating the body is simply too obsessive. Trying by every means to evade fleshly desire only shows that one is still bound by it. Is it because one fears that bodily pleasure will sully a pure spiritual love? But if the spiritual love between two people is so firm and real, how could it be so easily sullied? Since the two hearts are already in accord and no longer separate, why should there still be reserve?
The relation between body and spirit is intimate. First, the body is the foundation of the spirit; second, the spirit must transcend the body; but in the end, the spirit must flow out through the body—for example, if a person is good in spirit, his goodness will of course manifest through his body; keeping goodness in mind must ultimately be carried out bodily, and such good deeds realized through the body are sincere from the heart. The relation between sex and love is similar: first, sex is the foundation of heterosexual love; second, love must transcend sexual desire; but in the end, love can still flow out through sex, and sex is the ritual of love. For someone harboring malice, good deeds are nothing but hypocrisy and deceit; but for someone harboring goodwill, good deeds are nothing more than a natural and sincere expression. For someone without love, intercourse is nothing but an outburst of bestial desire; but for those who love one another, it is nothing more than a natural and sincere expression as well. People who refuse sex while talking about love are as dull as those who refuse to put moral cultivation into practice and instead talk empty words about it.
Finally, one incidental point: Plato tried to extract the purest, most absolute part of love, but Platonic spiritual love is still conditional and not pure love. Imagine two people fall in love because of the nobility of each other’s spirit, and then one of them, due to an accident or illness, develops a mental problem—perhaps their personality changes completely, perhaps their memory is entirely lost, or perhaps they simply become a vegetative human being with body but no spirit—what will the other person do? Of course, it is understandable if one leaves because the other has practically become another person; I am not making a value judgment here about whether one should or should not leave. But at least there are indeed some people who, even when the person they love not only grows old in body but undergoes a qualitative change in spirit, still refuse to abandon them. Such people certainly exist. Then what is it that sustains them? Merely responsibility or duty? Or merely dependence, or even habit? I think that love may still be present here. But this kind of love is of course not spiritual love, so what is it then?
In my view, “Because of …, therefore I love you” — whether that “…” is something bodily or something spiritual — is ultimately a limited kind of love; pure love ought to be unconditional. Of course, absolute purity does not exist in this world.
August 29, 2007
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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