Recent life circumstances have spurred me to reflect further on love as an activity, but also on love as a "passivity", as it were.
It strikes me that, at root, the activity of loving consists of freehearted giving, whereas the "passivity" of loving consists of gracious receiving; and, moreover, that there is beautiful nobility in both the giving and the receiving. This nobility is well captured in a poignant scene from Willa Cather's novel O Pioneers! (Part II, Chapter XII), wherein our heroine Alexandra has offered financial support to Carl, her childhood friend and intended husband, who replies: "To take what you would give me, I should have to be either a very large man or a very small one, and I am only in the middle class." (In the context, it's clear that Carl is speaking of moral classes, not monetary ones.)
It's noteworthy that the word "take" is used here rather than "receive", for we associate taking with character traits approaching avarice, whereas receiving requires attitudes of thankfulness for the gift and esteem for the giver. This is a significant factor in the nobility of receiving.
As Aristotle emphasizes in his writings on soulcraft, the ideal relationship is deeply reciprocal, characterized by freehearted giving and gracious receiving in both directions. Yet unavoidably there are situations (e.g., illness and convalescence) and times of life (esp. childhood and old age) when one receives more than one gives; philosophers of care and relationships must do justice to these, as for instance many Confucians have done. Furthermore, what's given can be of a different order than what's received; we see this in the very same scene from O Pioneers!, where Alexandra says to Carl: "What good comes of offering people things they don't need? I don't need money. But I have needed you for a great many years."
Thinkers as disparate as Aristotle and Nietzsche have long held that giving is more worthy than receiving because giving is more active and flows from an abundance of life and character. Indeed, there is an amusing passage in Aristotle's Ethics wherein he goes back and forth between considering it more noble to oneself do something beautiful or to give a loved one the opportunity to do the beautiful action and thus shine forth in nobility (an internal debate that perhaps only an ancient Greek could engage in!).
Yet, as I say, there is nobility and beauty in graciously receiving, too. There is an analogy here to the arts: the unsurpassed mastery of Sophocles, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Vermeer, Bach, or Beethoven is a gift of wonder to all mankind, but their artworks possess continued meaning only because millions of human beings have been receptive over the course of centuries to what these artists brought into the world. The same is true of the great philosophers, scientists, reformers, and revolutionaries throughout human history. On a more intimate scale, such influence makes itself felt in every marriage, friendship, workplace, and community.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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