When Love Unlearns Violence
Love as a philosophy of power, and its capacity as a transformative agent to heal communities, institutions and individuals
The thing about love is that it is addictive. Like all addictive substances, everyone has a different tolerance: some have a low or higher tolerance, others crave a fantastical high and will do whatever it takes to get a hit, find themselves unable to handle even a minor dose without wanting more. Love is like a drug, and we all have taken some variant of it. I have to emphasize that drugs are not inherently bad or immoral - all drugs exist for valuable purpose. The metaphor of Love should hence be applied that way as well when engaging with this piece.
Do you know the source of your loving? Where it came from, how it grew and how it evolved with every person you experienced or every thing you cared about?
There’s nothing wrong with loving openly and genuinely but in a loveless world, when administered incorrectly, love can be deadly to both the giver and the receiver - but not in the way you might think it does.
When I talk about Love, I’m not referring to the butterflies in your stomach or the warm sentiments you might feel for another person. I’m referring to Love as a philosophy of power, and its capacity as a transformative agent to heal communities, institutions and individuals. This is based on bell hooks’ all about love: new visions, which offers a groundbreaking analysis of love and lovelessness in culture, relationships, religion, institutions and community work. It is in all about love that bell hooks asserts “love and abuse cannot exist.”
Love can shatter your reality and sense of comfort. Love is pure and true, and so it will reveal that truth to you no matter how hard you try to resist. People walk around with their guarded emotions , trying to be “hard” or “cool” or to embody whatever sociopathic characteristic that our capitalist society values more than compassion, consideration and community. Some people have their ego convince them of a specific narrative about who they are and what people ought to give them because of it: admiration, reverence, endless grace. They do this because they don’t believe they are real or worthy unless a person reacts to them and their performance. It confirms to them that their chosen persona is good enough, strong enough, powerful enough, convincing enough. Once a person does this long enough and consistently enough, their coping mechanism may morph into narcissism that manifests through reactive abuse.
Love can be terrifying when all you’re taught is to love violently (and possessively). It shatters your very self and asks for you to live outside this violence. Can you imagine what it takes to rebuild a soul conditioned to violence when it has never known peace?
I don’t wanna feel
I don’t wanna cry
So I’m gonna dance until I feel alright
I just need a dose of the right stuff
I just need a hit of your lovedrug
- Lady Gaga, Love Drug from the MAYHEM Album (2025)
A soul that is conditioned to violent love can look like:
Being obsessed with someone who repeatedly rejects you because you learned early on that love is to be earned and that maybe one day, when they choose you, you will feel real love (you won’t)
Staying quiet in your pain and discomfort because you want to avoid conflict and maintain the peace, because love can only be attained through your silence and complacency (you forgot your voice is the most powerful love you have)
Chasing different people to hook up with, keeping hoes in different area codes so you can feel the intensity and validation of being wanted, because someone taught you that loving too openly, too sincerely, too passionately was too dangerous and too demanding for them to handle (you’ve never been too much and you always deserved to receive what you gave; your intensity is godly)
Playing mind games, creating false illusions of who you are, setting up the next date before breaking up with your current partner because you’re afraid that the grief of heartbreak will break you like it did the first time (it never did)
Believing there is always a better option, a better partner just waiting for you so you refuse to commit to the people who already choose you, because you don’t want them to leave you before you can leave them; because you learned partnerships never last (even though your endless love endures)
Like all drugs, we all find ourselves at some point in our lives using them for either recreational or medical uses. We aspire to it for the same reasons that we fear it – it’s why serial monogamists can’t stop their addiction for discovering themselves in other people over and over again. It’s why romantic partners betray themselves for cheap thrills and excitement after prolonged bouts of comfort and complacency to one another. It’s why a lover will forsake themselves and their desires by surrendering to the expectations of their community. It’s why people will make goal posts out of people, chiseling their future husband, wife, counsellor, wallet, baby maker, looking to find a perfect love crafted in their image.
This is all so amusing, to live in a world that values these acts of discovery and adventures with other people while keeping you blind to the fact that love cannot be planned. Love happens to everyone every day because that is the natural way of life.
Love, unfortunately, is not grand. Sometimes it’s boring. Sometimes it’s exciting. It’s not a sweeping event or emotion. It’s also a choice rooted in action. Love is who you are and what you choose to be: you’re not eternally broken and no one ever broke you.