Languages of Love: Smiling and the Sense of Sight

Before looking at the "smile" as a love language, it is important to keep something in mind - something that applies to all the love languages to a certain extent.  Love languages are more fittingly called gestures, and gestures are distinct from words.  Gestures without words can communicate love very profoundly, but a profoundly loving relationship cannot be founded on gestures alone.  For example, Jesus says, "No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friends."  These are his words.  Then he dies on the cross to "prove" this love - which is his gesture.  If the only thing we knew about Jesus is that he died on a cross - if he never said anything - we would not see his death as a gesture at all.  We are able to see it as a gesture because he said, "No one takes my life from me, I lay it down freely."  A gesture's capacity to communicate love depends heavily on the explicit verbal communication of intentions and choices.

Some people are shy when it comes to expressing love. Someone who is shy will have a tendency to avoid words, but will engage more exclusively in gestures in order to communicate love.  Gestures are open to interpretation, so if their author provides none, the true meaning of the gesture might be lost or go unnoticed.  Jack likes Jill, but is too shy to tell her.  He uses the language of service to try to communicate his love to her, but she pays no atention to why Jack does things for her.  She just thinks Jack is, "Nice."  We could take away from this example the need to pay more attention to the gestures of someone who is shy, and then try to encourage them to express their intentions.  Someone who is shy will want to know that their gesture is received positively before they will be able to express their intention.

So even a smile, which can clearly communicate openness and pleasure at seeing someone, can only communicate that when confirmed at some point by words.  To put it differently, a smile is much more meaningful when it is our friend who smiles, but when a stranger smiles it is either a sign of openness to conversation, or just simple politeness.  Sometimes strangers smile at us in an "intrusive" way.  Perhaps you have had the experience of being smiled at by someone you don't know only to discover that they thought you were someone else.  Or perhaps you have smiled at someone whom you thought to be someone you know, only to find out that they weren't.  This experience is usually accompanied by feelings of embarrassment or awkwardness that reveal the inherent inappropriateness of certain kinds of looks, smiles, or gazes.  The affective knowledge we have of a person can be the source of a loving gesture such as a gaze or a smile, but if we misjudge the reality itself, the gesture becomes ridiculous - like a child who takes the hand of a stranger in a crowd, thinking them to be his mother.

There are several levels, once again, of sensible love and spiritual love.  So if we are going to consider the ethics of visual gestures, it will be helpful to notice that certain gestures are fitting for certain types of relationships.  These gestures are founded on respect, as we have already seen, and they develop according to the level of intimacy appropriate to the relationship.

The fundamental visual gesture of respect is paying attention to someone when they require it.  This is an attitude that involves both the body and the eyes.  The positive visual gesture of respect making eye-contact during conversation when appropriate.  The visual gesture of respect that involves a certain negation is avoiding staring.  The visual gesture of respect involving the body is attention, or a position of listening.  One of the fundamental visual gestures of respect, therefore, is "showing" someone you are listening or paying attention.  And that is something you show by not performing another activity when that someone requires attention.  At the same time, when someone attracts attention to themselves without having intended to, basic respect would indicate not paying attention to them.  Some cultures use a bow to indicate respect or even veneration.

Beyond visual gestures of basic respect, there are visual gestures open to friendship.  The most universal visual gestures that communicates an openness to friendship is the smile.  Visual gestures that make use of the hands vary from culture to culture, but it would seem that every culture makes use of hand gestures to communicate - some more than others - and that there are specific visual gestures that use the hands to indicate an openness to friendship.  For example, there is a visual gesture that initiates a handshake, or the gesture of "waving" at someone.

Visual gestures of friendship differ not so much in kind as they do in intensity.  The eyes are more or less expressive according to the interior disposition.  The eyes are like the window of the soul, that is why we have a hard time trusting someone whose eye-contact is strange, exaggerated, or too fleeting.  The better we know someone, the more we understand from their gaze too.  It is important to realize that our gaze communicates something that words cannot, and that some people are more sensitive to a gaze or a smile than others.

Languages of Love: Difficulty

Upon further reflection, and a long discussion with br. John Mary Jesus, I am reconsidering my analysis of the last three love languages.  As you have probably noticed, there is no direct correlation between the languages of quality time, gift giving, and service and the sense of sight, smell, and taste.  This has led me to consider that there are more than five love languages.  For example, the sense of sight has a love language of its own which I would call a "loving gaze."  It is the difference between simply looking at someone, and gazing at someone you love.  For those of you who have seen the movie Avatar, there is a phrase used to translate this kind of loving respect-filled gaze: "I see you."  But more on that in a future post.

The difficulty comes in when trying to analyze gift giving, quality time and service.  On the one hand, these three languages depend on more than one sense, and on the other hand they depend upon something other than the senses themselves.  Giving a gift has several strong sensible moments when effected in person: there is a gaze exchanged, a "thank you", an embrace, a choice of the gift based on what the other person wants.  Obviously this combines physical touch, affirmation, gaze, presence, and lets call it "taste."  But the physical gift itself plays an important role.  The gift itself is like an incarnation of love.  Love cannot be given per se, but a gift can be given and a gift is a symbol of love.  Service is another language of love that depends upon an action accomplished.  Certainly there are the basic languages of love that demonstrate that a service is being accomplished out of love: it is done carefully (Physical Touch), without complaint (~Affirmation), joyfully (Smile/Loving Gaze), in person (Presence), and according to the preferences of the one for whom the service is being accomplished (Taste).  But the service itself is an action that effectively demonstrates the "idem vele" (same will) of the persons who love each other.  By performing a service for someone you love, you show them concretely that you want what they want.

When two people choose to prioritize their friendship and turn the exercise of it into a life-intention (going from a friendship that provides momentary meaning, to a friendship that provides daily and lasting meaning), it requires an engagement in common life.  Common life is based on a balance between service and quality time, and is renewed and invigorated by giving beyond the norm.  Love is what enables us to be fully invested in the routine, and love also enables us to go beyond the norm because love enables the true gift of self (which is symbolized by gift giving.)  So the fervor of love inspires us both to engage fully in the routine (service and quality time) and, from time to time, to give spontaneously - unexpectedly.  We like our gifts to have the element of surprise, because love itself is surprising and unexpected.  That is why love needs the stability of day to day life to avoid exhaustion, but also rises above the routine.

So how best to proceed with a philosophical analysis of the love languages?  What appears more clearly to me now is that the sense of sight, smell, and taste have their own respective love languages: i.e. loving gaze or smile, personal presence, and acquired taste.  And the languages of quality time, service, and gift giving are compound sensible experiences that make use of an intermediate activity, or object to communicate love.  I began to evoke the need for the languages of quality time, service, and gift giving in the exercise of common life, and I think it might even be better to call them languages of communion.  One of the properties of love, or one of its effects, is communion.  Quality time is communion at a personal level.  Service is communion at the level of nature.  And gift giving demonstrates the order of communion - living for the other person, being other-oriented.

Of course, the last three gifts - Quality Time, Service, and Gift Giving - could also be analyzed according to Aristotle's three kinds of friendships: utilitarian, pleasure based, and true friendship.  True friendship requires spending time together according to Aristotle, and one does not have a true friendship with more than a handful of people during one's entire life.  You have to "empty an entire sack of salt," with someone before you can begin to consider them your friend - it takes time.  That would cause me to pair up quality time as an important exercise of true friendship.  Another aspect of friendship is pleasure, friends like to please one another.  Finally friends like to help one another.  Utilitarian friendship tends to mach up with service, and pleasure based friendship tends to match up with gift giving.  This being said, it is also possible to see how certain gifts may be given because they are useful, and certain services because they make the other person happy.

I will continue to reflect on the last three languages - which I will refer to as the languages of communion - and in the meantime write posts on the last three gestures of love based on the senses: Gaze/Smile, Presence, and Acquired Taste.

Languages of Love: Affirmation and The Sense of Hearing

Another way to talk about words of Affirmation, a way that is less psychological, would be to talk about blessing.  Unfortunately, the word bless is loaded with religious undertones.  The word in Latin is "Benedicere" which means, literally, "to say the good."  Affirmation can be undertaken as a kind of method - which quickly comes across as unnatural.  And the problem, in my opinion, is the objective.  Affirmation can be executed as a form of flattery with a goal to build the other person up, or to gain their trust/good graces.  Blessing, on the other hand, is completely "extra," if you will.  To say the good to someone or about someone simply because you love them is true affirmation.

Why is it so hard for some people to speak the good?  Why is it so hard for some people to hear good things spoken to them or about them?  If our sense of touch, which I wrote about in my last post, is the sensation closest to the material cause, closest to the body, closest to reality in a very concrete way, our sense of hearing is closest to our heart in a very affective way.  We've all heard the saying, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"  But let us honestly admit that words can hurt us much more profoundly than sticks or stones.  Here is where we can discover once again the basic ethical requirement of words spoken.  Once again, respect is a basic necessity even when it comes to words.

If I love someone, I realize that their words, and what they say to me, carry much more weight and significance than someone else.  Even the sound of the voice of someone I love has deeper access to my heart than a stranger or acquaintance.  So, if I realize the kind of influence someone else's voice and words can have on my feelings, I can begin to discover the importance of my own words and vocal inflection in the lives of other people.  And we find again that respectful vocal expression is fundamental in an ethical relationship.  Respect is fundamental for true human relationships, but insufficient for a loving relationship.  Respect is avoiding doing wrong to another person, but love pushes us to go beyond respect - love drives us to form a communion with the person whom we love.  And this communion - within a personal relationship - is based on respect and built with truth and love.

We need words that respectfully communicate truth and love to form this communion.  And if the communion that we form with someone we love is based on respect, the love that we express is based on truth.  Truth without love becomes intolerable in a personal relationship.  And love, without truth, loses its strength.  So words, which have intelligible and affective dimensions, are able to communicate both truth and love.  And words of affirmation speak the truth about that which is good in such a way as to communicate our love for someone.  "I love you," when spoken with intelligence and not mere passion is the greatest and most concrete phrase of affirmation.  To say you love someone, and to say it with intelligence, is to say it based on a discernment of their goodness.  It is the other person, existentially, who draws me out of myself, who makes me vulnerable, and whom I trust with my vulnerability.  That is why it can be hard to say, "I love you."  Being attracted to someone is one thing, showing them that you care is another thing, but going so far as to put into words the vulnerability you experience in their presence requires a great deal of trust and a personal choice.  Saying "I love you," is saying, "You are good.  And your goodness is such that my life is altered by you because of your goodness."  "I love you," is the blessing, the "benedicere" par excellence.

Now, it isn't just a matter of "what" you say, as we all know, it is a matter of "how" you say it.  Here we could imagine a whole slew of scenes where we try to say, "I love you," perfectly.  I am not suggesting, however, that saying "I love you," sincerely has to do with any kind of performance or public speaking expertise.  Saying "I love you," sincerely doesn't even have to do with adding on a passionate or romantic twist.  Saying "I love you," truthfully, means saying it because I recognize that the person I love gives meaning to my life.  Saying "I love you," is saying "You give meaning to my life, and I am grateful to you for that."  Saying "I love you," then, requires an act of intelligence in order to be said truthfully.

More could be said about how "hearing goodness spoken," is the second love language, and how it depends not only on the content of what is said, but also on the manner and intention.  However, I would like to examine one more properly philosophical point before bringing this little reflection to a close: the efficient cause a mode of the final cause.

The efficient cause in philosophy is one of the five causes, and it has to do with the origin of a movement, or the start of something.  The efficient cause answers the question, "Where did it come from?"  Our sense of hearing is especially well suited to respond to this question.  When you hear something move, you might not know what it is, what it is made of, or what it is for, but you can have an idea of where the movement originates.  And a voice is a sound that originates somewhere as well.  Physically, the sound originates in the voice box and with the vibration of the vocal cords, but the origin of the meaning of the sound is not physical.  The origin of the sound is indeed the soul, and not just any faculty of the soul, but the intelligence.  Our intellect is what gives meaning to the sounds we produce with our vocal cords.  So, the voice is a meaningful sound which originates in the intellect - as regards its formal content - but we could also look deeper and see that we speak not because we have to, but because we choose to.  So the deepest origin of the voice is the will - the deepest origin of the voice is the heart.  Sometimes we even say, "I'm speaking from the heart," in order to drive that point home.  And indeed, words spoken from the heart, cut straight to the heart.  Hearing someone truly say, "I love you," is an invitation to receive them at a deeply personal level - and a deeply personal revelation.  What is hidden at the origin of a man's actions and words - his mind and heart - are made "tangible" to the ears, and this is the sense of hearing.

Languages of Love: Physical Touch

So what can we say about the ties between the sense of touch and the emotional love language called "Physical Touch?"

One of the first things we teach children is about the right and wrong kinds of touch.  Indeed, the love language that communicates by means of physical touch requires a basis of respect.  Children have to learn that hitting, biting, scratching, etc. are not the kinds of physical touch that favor or foster a relationship with another person.  The body of a human person is not just a physical object, it is a personal reality.  The more I come to know and love someone, the more I recognize that their body is precious because of who they are.  Physical touch, as a language of love, must begin as a language of respect and grow into a language of tenderness, and in one special case - marriage - the language of physical touch is a language of intimacy.  As soon as physical touch loses its personal quality - as soon as the intellect shifts to seeing the body of the other person as a thing rather than as a someone - that touch can no longer communicate love.  Now, obviously, for those who are already well versed in this love language, the importance of these gestures of tenderness is clear.

But for those of us who do not speak this love language, we find ourselves at the fundamental level, which is physical respect.  And the basic tenant of physical respect involves not touching another person unless they need help, or are in danger.  But as a love language, physical touch is merely based on respect as its foundation.  In order to actually "speak" the love language of physical touch one must actually learn how our gestures of touching or caressing another person can communicate love.  It is also important to mention that tenderness is not foreplay.  Tender gestures are not an open invitation to intimate gestures, and do not necessarily call for them.  Tenderness can communicate a personal love by  the sense of touch.

Love, when it is true, is personal.  That means - among other things - that it depends upon the person. The love that I have for each person whom I love is unique.  No two loves are exactly the same, and in this sense, no two pats on the back are exactly the same.  The knowledge I have of the person whom I love will determine in part my physical gestures of tenderness towards them.  A tender physical touch does not aim for some effect other than to communicate - based on a foundation of respect - how precious the other person is to us.  This basis of respect means that a tender gesture is never imposed, that it can be spontaneous but is entirely relative to the other person.  A tender gesture is not possessive or overbearing.

The gesture of physical touch, as a means of communicating "I love you" to someone requires an act of intelligence.  It is not a purely passionate gesture, and that is why I like bringing in the aspect of intelligence.  Our will is our faculty that undergoes attraction at a spiritual level, but it is only by cooperating with our intelligence that it is able to choose.  Our intellect is "responsible" for what we choose to love.  Emotions and passions tend to muddle our thoughts, and can even condition our actions to the point that we act without intelligence.  So the gesture of physical touch that communicates love is not a cold gesture, nor is it a passionate gesture - it is a means, chosen intelligently, to communicate a kind of respect-filled love and awe.  The gesture of physical touch communicates to the one we love that our respect and true appreciation for their person is not abstract, but that it is concrete.

The sense of touch is the sensation most immediately connected with knowledge of the material cause.  When we touch something, in other words, we have a special knowledge of what it is made of.  On the affective side of things, obviously we are going to speak of the final cause as being the principle of attraction.  And since the final cause is the cause of causes (act is before potency) even the material cause - furthest from the finality and closest to what limits and conditions us - exists by the final cause.  The body of a human person is not just a shell, it is not "the soul's garment," it is not a prison, nor is it anything impersonal.  The body is personal, and that is why we can use gestures of physical touch to communicate personal love.

The Languages of Love: Philosophical Approach

I thought I would begin a philosophical analysis of the five love languages by presenting a simple introduction to what has interested me already about them.  One of the remarkably interesting things about the five love languages is that there are quite simply five of them.  Gary Chapman will indeed explain that there are different "dialects" of the five languages, but that does not eliminate the foundational nature of the five.  We also have five senses, and this is perhaps one of the first things I thought of when I was inspired to approach the five love languages philosophically.  What is so interesting about us having five senses and there being five love languages?  Well, if you think about it, language is taken here to signify the means of communication.  Communication can be visual as well as audible, and you can communicate by gestures as well as by words - and gestures communicate love much more adequately than words.  Love is communicated by both word and gesture, and we have, as it were, five "built in receptors."  Five different ways to experience reality, five fundamentally different ways to experience love.  It might be a stretch for some of us to think that way, but this is perhaps the best way to begin a properly philosophical approach to the love languages.

There are different kinds of knowledge, and (as I am taking a realistic approach to knowledge) all knowledge is based on a fundamental contact with reality.  When you say that a dish is hot as you pass it to your neighbor at the dinner table, you got to know it was hot by picking it up with your hands.  That physical contact causes the transfer of qualities from one body (the dish) to another body (your hand).  So that, if you've been holding it long enough, your hands themselves become hot to the touch. But your hand becoming hot, and your feeling the hotness of the dish are not the same.  One is a physical quality (the hot dish), the other is a sensation (you feel the hotness of the dish).  The sensation is in you, and it was caused by the hot dish.  Sensation is the first degree of knowledge, it is the first degree of interiority, it is the first non-destructive assimilation of reality.  "Knowing" is a vital operation which enables the knower to "meld" with the world around him without destroying either himself or the reality he is knowing.  And this first level of knowledge is born in us through our senses.  After that, we could talk about affective knowledge and intellectual knowledge.  We could make further precisions about the kinds of affective knowledge: emotions, passions, friendship-love (which contains a kind of knowledge of the other person which we call "the secret" - not to be confused with Oprah's stuff)  We could also make further precisions about the kinds of intellectual knowledge: equivocal, analogical, conceptual, artistic, etc.

Since we are focusing on knowledge as it has to do with love, as indeed different experiences of love have to do with different ways in which we have known love, our investigation is situated at the level of affective knowledge.  Gary Chapman also situates himself more specifically at the level of emotional love.  Love is not just an emotion, because even when we don't feel love, we do not necessarily cease to love or to be loved.  So love is a choice as well, and even most importantly and fundamentally.  But if we opt for a strictly platonic and spiritual exercise of our capacity to love another person, we are being unrealistic - unless we (or they) happen to be an angel, or other purely spiritual being.  So Gary Chapman has decoded, in his study of the languages of emotional love, a useful psychological tool for diagnosing problems that are situated at the emotional level.  However, if our choice of another person depends upon our emotional fulfillment - a sort of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" - our choice will be too weak to stand the test of time.

What interests me as a philosopher is to look at the connection between our experience of emotional love and our primary knowledge of reality.  Love is the attraction to a good reality.  When I love something, or someone, I am drawn to them because they are good.  And this attraction is stronger or weaker depending on both the kind of good it is, and the knowledge I have of that good thing/person. I can be attracted to persons that I do not know very well, and I can be attracted to persons I have known for years.  The attraction tends to be more passionate (or emotional) in the first case, and less so (or at least differently so) in the second case.  But this attraction, which is an affective knowledge of reality, can be awoken by different sensible experiences of reality.  Goodness is mediated to us at the very basic level of sensation.  And depending on the extent to which one is alert to their various senses (intelligently alert, not just hypersensitive), their ability to experience the good will be conditioned accordingly.

Some people learn better by hearing, some people learn better by seeing, some have a keener sense of smell or taste or touch.  What this means is that everyone has a sense among their five senses that is "closer" to their intellect.  Similarly, when it comes to the will, which is a capacity to be attracted as well as to respond to an attraction, one sense is "closer to our heart" if you will.  Some people are "touched" more by what they hear, some are more "touched" by what they see, others by odors, by flavors, or by something more directly tactile (like a caress).  So I will be looking at each of the five senses, asking myself which love language they correspond to most directly.  Here are my basic intuitions that I will be developing in the coming weeks:

1. Physical Touch - Sense of Touch
2. Affirmation - Sense of Hearing
3. Quality Time - Sense of Sight
4. Gift Giving - Sense of Smell
5. Service - Sense of Taste

The Languages of Love

Love, is it just a word?  Is it just a feeling?  With love in our lives, everything makes sense - we have direction and a sense of purpose.  But when it disappears, nothing makes sense anymore...  Can we trust ourselves when we love someone?  Does our life have any profound meaning if we opt out of love?

A friend of mine just told me recently that he broke up with his girlfriend of over a year.  Some of us might be tempted to say, "Welcome to the club, kid."  But how far can we take this bitter attitude before love and faithfulness appear to be nothing more than a beautiful myth at best, and a sorry joke at worst?    Indeed, the club of the broken hearted becomes a counter-witness to the very stirrings of love.  You hear people say, "I've been in a relationship like that before - and I won't be making that mistake again."  And yet, how difficult it is to truly grasp someone else's defects before all their charm wears off.  And how often people who have been in a "destructive" relationship tend to move on only to find themselves in another "destructive" relationship.

Of course, when things don't work out, we like to play the blame game.  Who is to blame?  ...Who isn't to blame?  And that depends on a lot of things of course.  If you are being abused for example, please don't make up excuses for the one who is abusing you.  Abuse is not just physical of course, it can also be verbal, or psychological.  I've often wondered if manipulation is a form of abuse, and I think that even manipulation could be considered abuse, but only when it is conscious.  Unconscious manipulation is something we all do to a greater or lesser extent because of our selfishness.  Children are a good example of unconscious manipulation.  They try everything to get what they want, and then they continue using behavior that works because it allows them to continue to get what they want.  Manipulation could also be called, "pushing someone's buttons," which is a form of abuse when it is done consciously.  When it is done unconsciously, and the manipulative person is able to realize that their words or deeds are manipulative, they are then able to chose another form of behavior.  There are still other kinds of manipulative personalities that are problematic though, and they would be the compulsively manipulative kinds of personalities.  And people who are compulsively manipulative, though it may be unconscious, could indeed create an abusive relationship if the other person is unable to rise above their tactics - which requires a certain level of emotional detachment and intelligence.  Unfortunately, I think we could all classify ourselves as unconsciously and compulsively manipulative to a greater or lesser extent.  So... what to do... what to do...

Well... if we are manipulating someone, it is because we are trying to get something from them that they did not necessarily intend to give.  Or it is because we are trying to get them to say something that they did not really intend to say.  Manipulation is getting someone to do what you want them to do whether or not they really want to do it.  Putting enough pressure in the right places to get them to move, in total disregard of their own personal freedom.  And when it comes to love, we can become very manipulative.  Being the reason for/cause of someone else's actions or words can very closely resemble being the meaning/purpose of their lives.

The problem comes in when, after a certain amount of time together, two people who loved each other feel as if "The love is gone" (to quote the Muppet's Christmas Carol.)  This is the moment when we feel as if we have to resort to manipulation to get from the other person what we feel we need to be able to continue in the relationship.  And if manipulation is the only way left, it not only poses a  problem for our conscience, but for our very existence.  It is intolerable to continue to chose to live next to someone, as a companion, for whom our own existence does not seem important.  If a husband feels like he is uninteresting, unimportant, or of no great significance in the eyes of his wife, how long can he continue like that?  And how long can they continue like that if the feeling is mutual?  Especially if the children are grown and gone, and there is nothing left to distract their lives from that painful reality!

If both persons want the relationship to work, but can't seem to get it to work, there is an interesting guide that Dr. Gary Chapman came up with.  He writes and teaches something he calls the "Five Love Languages."  While the approach is above all psychological, I think it merits a philosophical analysis as well.  Love is not just affective, it also requires an act of intelligence.  True love requires a cooperation between one's mind and one's heart, where the mind becomes the servant of love.

In future blogs, I would like to examine each of the five love languages according to Gary Chapman (physical touch, kind words, quality time, gift giving, and service), to see if these intuitions can help us understand the affective dimension of the human person more profoundly.  For example, why are there only five love languages?  Could there be more?  Is there a connection between one's senses and the love languages?  Does God use all five love languages to communicate with us?