In Eng­lish, we use the word ‘love’ very loosely. We are taught that we must love our­selves if we hope to love oth­ers. We are told that par­ents love chil­dren and chil­dren love par­ents; but that that is not the same thing as spouses lov­ing spouses, or patri­ots lov­ing nations, or friends lov­ing friends. The word ‘love’ is applied to so broad a swath of human expe­ri­ence that it is by itself an impo­tent word, unable to accu­rately pro­vide con­tex­tu­al­ized mean­ing. Of course, we have other love-related words — lust, affec­tion, friend­ship, char­ity, devo­tion, obses­sion; but we rarely use them appro­pri­ately and we often cre­ate seman­tic syn­onymity that frus­trates the dis­tinc­tions that they exist to supply.

I am con­vinced that a flex­i­ble and con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous analy­sis of the four ancient Greek dis­tinc­tions is the most valu­able in help­ing us to bet­ter ori­ent and mod­er­ate our own inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships. For that rea­son, I am going to sketch some brief notes to help estab­lish a start­ing point for fur­ther dis­cus­sion of this always crit­i­cal matter.

στοργή

Storgē, Affec­tion, Famil­ial Love,
or Love by Familiarity

It is not an acci­dent that the word ‘fam­ily’ and ‘famil­iar­ity’ are derived from the same root, fam­ily is essen­tially a rela­tion­ship of famil­iar­ity. It is the first love we expe­ri­ence and its strength is in its longevity and per­ceived incor­rupt­ibil­ity. It can be said that famil­ial love is the most basic foun­da­tion for inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ship, because it is our ear­li­est and most last­ing expe­ri­ence of love. When the ties of affec­tion break down within fam­i­lies, it is often the most inju­ri­ous and dev­as­tat­ing expe­ri­ence of rela­tional division.

Storge is both one of the weak­est and one of the strongest forms of love. Its strength is in its nat­ural, emo­tive, and dif­fu­sive char­ac­ter. It exists as a result of nat­ural asso­ci­a­tion and could also be described as ‘envi­ron­men­tal love.’ Its deep­est aspects are those of per­va­sive­ness and con­stancy. Because it is the nat­u­rally occur­ring result of envi­ron­men­tal asso­ci­a­tion, it is not founded on ‘wor­thi­ness’ or ‘value,’ but rather tran­scends most dis­crim­i­nat­ing fac­tors. It is not, as many believe, uncon­di­tional, though. It is very con­di­tional, it is con­di­tioned by its environment.

Its weak­ness, on the other hand, is its shal­low aspects. One may not be coerced, in the tech­ni­cal sense, to have affec­tion; but nei­ther does one make the choice to have it. Because moral dilemma — the painstak­ing process of decid­ing how to act — pro­vides us with deeper impres­sions, love based on choice is con­se­quently deeper. Because peo­ple assume that famil­ial affec­tion is a sort of ‘built-in’ and ‘deter­min­is­tic’ vari­ety of love, it is made vul­ner­a­ble. Famil­ial affec­tion is almost always expected and demanded, irre­spec­tive of each party’s behav­iors and those behav­iors’ nat­ural consequences.

Famil­ial affection’s great­est weak­ness is in cre­at­ing a struc­ture of love that does not cul­ti­vate more emo­tion­ally and intel­lec­tu­ally pro­found vari­eties of love. In most instances, the vari­eties of love over­lap and inter­act, but in famil­ial rela­tion­ships love is almost wholly dis­tin­guished by storge to the neglect of other vari­eties of love.

Seen as ‘envi­ron­men­tal love,’ storge can also be the moti­va­tion behind any­thing famil­iar to our envi­ron­ment. We may love our nation, our home­town, our race, our class, our socio-political iden­ti­ties, a famil­iar cli­mate or a famil­iar ter­rain, a famil­iar archi­tec­tural style or a famil­iar habit. These appli­ca­tions of storge are also plagued by cer­tain expec­ta­tions; we rebel against all forms of change and are deeply injured by tres­passes against these familiarities.

It has been used to describe the form of almost oblig­a­tory affec­tion that a monarch must have for his sub­jects, while also being used to describe return­ing ‘love’ to that self-same tyrant. The fam­ily is a macro­cosm of this, because in famil­ial rela­tion­ships we are often expected to ‘love’ those who exhibit noth­ing wor­thy of our love. The demand is made that we ‘love’ the tyrant and in many cases we refuse to do so; because storge is monop­o­lis­tic and does not fos­ter other vari­eties of love, when famil­ial affec­tion breaks down, there is no com­mon­al­ity to pre­serve the rela­tion­ship. We might think it upset­ting and impos­si­ble for family’s to become estranged, for chil­dren to shun their par­ents or par­ents their chil­dren; but it is the most under­stand­able and sym­pa­thetic rela­tional divorce that exists.

A child does not choose to be born. His exis­tence relies on the actions of his parents. He does not choose the cir­cum­stances of his birth; lan­guage, loca­tion, reli­gion, gov­ern­ment, class, &c. He does not choose the peo­ple that make up his family. He is, how­ever, endowed with a God-given dig­nity, an equal­ity that makes him just as valu­able as any­one else. In fam­i­lies, a nat­ural but unen­light­ened hier­ar­chy of expec­ta­tion and demand almost always forms, based on:

1. The irra­tional belief that chil­dren are per­ma­nently indebted to their parents.
2. The irra­tional belief that par­ents will always pro­vide for their chil­dren, when needed.

These demands and expec­ta­tions ignore the intrin­sic dig­nity and equal­ity of the child. The child can­not be justly indebted to his par­ents, because a just debt is contractual. A con­trac­tual agree­ment is mutual, because there is no deci­sion or choice to be indebted to one’s par­ents, there can­not exist between them a just debt. As a result, par­ents that have expec­ta­tions and make demands ignore that they alone are fully respon­si­ble for giv­ing birth to a free agent, and have no right to expect or demand any­thing from that child once that child has reached mature free agency. That respon­si­bil­ity extends to every­thing that they do for that child. When that child reaches matu­rity and is no longer depen­dent on parental assis­tance, that child is also com­pletely exon­er­ated of all debts. Like­wise, the child has no grounds for expect­ing or demand­ing any­thing from their par­ents after hav­ing reached matu­rity. Only after this point in life can the child/parent rela­tion­ship incur con­trac­tual, mutual, and rec­i­p­ro­cal debt. It is at this point that famil­ial affec­tion is pro­vided the pos­si­bil­ity of a deeper vari­ety of love, although it rarely does because that affec­tion is some of the most damn­ing and restric­tive bag­gage than any­one can carry around. As Philip Larkin once wrote,

‘

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on mis­ery to man.
It deep­ens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

The con­clu­sion is cyn­i­cal, deter­min­is­tic, and cow­ardly; but under­stand­able and insight­ful. If we want famil­ial rela­tion­ships to be more than blood-association, we need to work harder to cul­ti­vate other forms of love within them.

To be continued…