Love

 

In bell hooks' all about love she likes Scott Peck's definition of love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."

She asserts that "love is as love does." One cannot abuse or neglect someone and then say they love them. Well, they can say that, but it's a confusion. Therefore patriarchy, sexism, racism, and savage inequalities are barriers to love. To participate, even unknowingly in these systems of oppression, any oppression is to not love.

In the chapter I just read, she talks about how parents think that abusing a child physically is OK, but that it's no OK for adults to abuse other adults. The family is perhaps open to autocrats and fascists. The idea that blood relations equals love does not equate with the above definition. Blood has nothing to do with it.

I find this book pretty amazing.

On another note:

Please consider donating to a friend who incurred medical expenses not covered in his cancer treatment by his insurance.