The general argument made
by Helen Fisher in her work What is Love? is that there is many kinds of love.
More specifically, Fisher suggests that there are three main types of love:
lust, romantic attraction, and attachment. She writes, “…human beings evolved
three basic brain networks for loving as they courted, mated, reproduced and
reared their young: lust, romantic attraction, and attachment. And as days
turned into centuries and nature weeded out those who failed to reproduce,
natural selection hardwired these three distinct systems into the human brain.”
(pg. 334) In this passage, Fisher is suggesting that these three concepts are
in fact part of our brains because they have evolved that way over the
centuries of human existence. In conclusion, it is Fisher’s belief that as
humans, we love in three ways: lust, romantic attraction, and attachment.
In my view, Fisher is neither right nor wrong because I think
it is a very interesting theory that she presents in this article. It does make
sense that these are the three ways we could love each other and I know for a
fact that lust is real, but the other two I think could be explained better. For
example, I feel that romantic attraction is too broad of an idea. Just because you express romantic gestures
for someone, doesn’t mean that the two of you love each other. Take Peeta and
Katniss for example, at first Katniss has to pretend to love Peeta, she wouldn’t
have noticed him if the bread wasn’t involved. Also, I feel that the way she
describes attachment isn’t very romantic. It sounds more like a contract
someone would make with someone else saying, “Hey, do you think we could raise
a kid together for at least eighteen years? After that it doesn’t matter.” Although
Fisher might object that these two stages can be romantic situations, I
maintain that the second and third ways to love are not convincing. Therefore, I
conclude that Helen Fisher is neither right nor wrong, this is her opinion and I
agree with it to some extent and it was also very interesting to read about.
No comments:
Post a Comment