Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

What is love? Baby don't hurt me, no more. (Cassie Franse, Section 6. Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Schopenhauer)


*cue music that is way too cliché and could only be listened to on a talkshow*
Hey there! Thanks for joining me for the very first episode of TalkingThoughts with Cassie Franse. I’m Cassie! Surprise! Today I have a very special treat for you. We will be joined by several philosophers who are going to answer a single question:  What is your definition of love? So please put your hands together for our very first guest, Georg Wilhelm Hegel!

*audience applause*
H: Hallo, it is such a pleasure to be on this show. Just yesterday, I was watching an owl outside my kitchen window wondering….

C: Georg, if you don’t mind me calling you that, I have a question to ask you before we get too far off topic. Do you care to answer it?

H: We will know by the end of it if you should have asked me or not, no?

C: Georg, G.W, you are so right. My question is, what is your definition of love?

*camera zooms into Hegel’s face showing intense concentration and uncertainty*
H: Love… Liebe… Can you ask me something about history instead? Or Geist? But I suppose that love is a union between two people, natural and spiritual in a sense. Natural in the way that when two persons come together to form a union, they must set aside their natural individuality. Doing so helps them achieve a better idea of self-awareness and a higher self-consciousness. Make any sense to you? I know explaining it myself might be a little easier than trying to understand any of my writing.

C: Do you think when a person achieves a higher self-consciousness; do you think that person has achieved their moment in history? What if you love several times, all different people?

H: I believe everyone achieves their moment in history, but no one will know until after everything is said and done, until the event has passed will we truly know the intent and purpose for that occurrence. Why would people love more than once? My, how the times have changed.

C: Okay Georg, thank you for starting the discussion strong! I have a surprise for you actually! I’d like to welcome to the show Soren Kierkegaard!

*audience applause*

K: Hello, this is my first time doing this so I’m sorry if I mess up, I don’t have many friends, just one or two.

C: Act natural, just answer a question for me. Georg, feel free to jump in if you’d like! Soren, what is love?

*camera zooms in to Kierkegaard’s face just in time to see a tear roll down his cheek*

K: Want to know what love is? Love is making a decision which is based entirely on the aesthetic or the ethical. You can EITHER choose to love with a sense of pleasure and searching for physical beauty OR you can choose to base your love off of conventional moral rules. You just have to be prepared to know that the decision you make might not be the right one. Love is giving someone up because you don’t want to live up to the family name that for example might mean ‘graveyard’.

H: Who is she? She did a number on you, mein freund.

K: REGINE OLSEN, IF YOU ARE LISTENING TO THIS, I LOVE YOU.

*Kierkegaard collapses in on himself, overwhelmed with tears and Hegel pats his back awkwardly, unsure of what he was supposed to say or do.*
C: Okay, okay. Let me just pull out one more guest before  we run out of time. Please put your hands together for Arthur Schopenhauer!

*cricket sound, shoes are rustling, and someone just coughed*
C: Arthur, Artie, how are you? I’m so glad you were able to join us.

*Schopenhauer looks directly at Hegel and snorts*
S: It’s my pleasure, I’m glad you asked me to make an appearance.

C: I’m curious to know, what is your definition of love?

H: He wouldn’t know what love was even if it hit him right in his big nose.

*Kierkegaard and Hegel giggle and Schopenhauer’s grimace deepens*
S: I’m glad you asked. I think love is something that many think is attainable, yet when they actually do attain it, they aren’t satisfied anymore and thus begins the hopeless cycle of life. Each person has their own representation of the world around them and the things that are on this Earth. This is how a person makes sense of everything around them and ultimately within. Love is an experience. Hegel probably had something ridiculous and drawn out to say, I’m sure.

H: Excuse me, I can’t hear you over my packed lecture hall.

K: So much tension, this is making me wish Regine was here. Sweet Regine.  I. Love. Regine.
C: I’m afraid that’s all the time we have left today, please join us next week for an in depth view of what the host, me, thinks of love and which of these lovely men I can agree with partially or not at all!

*camera pans out; Schopenhauer is standing up yelling at Hegel. Hegel is holding Kierkegaard now, trying to console him while laughing at Schopenhauer’s reddening face. Cue cliché talk show music*

1 comment:

  1. I'd definitely watch this show!

    A future episode might profitably (or at least entertainingly) wonder if Schopenhauer's dismissive view of love as one of the ways human actions get co-opted by the voracious and ultimately impersonal Will was not just his way of "rationalizing" the failure of his own youthful attempts at romance. Rather than looking back with tearful regret, like Kierkegaard, he created a metaphysical system to justify his pessimism about relationships (and everything).

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