Hi again everyone, sorry I haven't been able to update this in the past few
days. Here's the start of The Four Loves, Chapter 2: Likings and Loves for the
Sub-Human

-Lewis relates that his generation was drilled in differentiating between the
use of "love" and "like", while French has only one word for both, "aimer". (On
the side, could that be why many people love French cuisine? :p )

-Once again "the highest does not stand without the lowest", and so before going
on to the four loves, Lewis starts off with likes

-Lewis notes two different kinds of pleasure; first, that which wouldn't be
pleasurable at all unless there was a desire for it, like water to a thirsty
man; and second, that which is usually pleasurable in itself, like a frappuccino
at your favourite cafe. He calls them "Need-pleasures" and "Pleasures of
Appreciation" respectively, similar to Need-love and Gift-love from the earlier
chapter.
(His comparison of need-love is how a child wants to be embraced by his mother,
while gift-love is how a father earnestly plans and saves for the future welfare
of his family, even if he shouldn't live long enough to see that time.)

-He then puts in a warning about not immediately jumping to value judgments
about need-pleasures and pleasures of appreciation, or about need-love and gift
love. Lewis admits that he has had to stop from immediately ranking need-love
as lower than gift-love, because the realities are far more complicated. As for
the pleasures, his opinion is that people generally think need-pleasures are
better than pleasures of appreciation. While the pleasure of drinking water is
regulated by thirst (and therefore seems to be more natural), an appreciative
pleasure for wine could turn into the need-pleasure of an alcoholic; and so the
latter becomes a complicated shift from appreciative pleasure to need-pleasure.




--- In FilipinoNarnians@yahoogroups.com, "Martin" <speedshark_99@...> wrote:
>
> Belated Happy Father's Day to all fathers on the mailing list! Once again we
continue with The Four Loves, and today we'll finish Chapter 1.
>
>
> - " . . . natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves.
They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred."
I'm sorry I can't remember, but did something like this happen to Prince Rilian
in The Silver Chair? There's also the episode in Voyage of the Dawn Treader
where Lucy foresees what would happen if she said the spell of enchanting
beauty, how Narnia, Archenland, Calormen and the islands would be laid waste in
war because of her.
>
> -Once again Lewis repeats, "The highest does not stand without the lowest."
In this case, he compares the hyper-romantic Victorian writers who glorified
love of the family and romance, with modern critics (sorry, I love my course
Psychology but I'm disappointed with Freud and B.F. Skinner) who say that it's
just hyped-up sentimentality, and that family life and romance are really
"grubby" and down-to-earth. Lewis uses the analogy of a plant: The greens and
blossoms are there, the rapture and total devotion are there. However, the
tiresomeness of frequent contact is also there, as well as personal flaws and
annoying habits. I love how he puts it:
> "Much of the grubbiness is clean dirt if only you will leave it in the garden
and not keep on sprinkling it over the library table. The human loves can be
glorious images of Divine love. No less than that: but also no more . . ."