In a recent philosophy discussion, the host Stephen West discusses the topic of love. He claims that modern concepts of love was greatly influenced by the romanticism era. It is difficult to describe what love must had been like before then since I live in a culture that embraces the romantic version of love.

According to Wikipedia,

Romanticism was a reaction to rationalism as much as it was a result of the social changes. … The “romantics” are the philosophers and literary writers who addressed irrational motivations in human nature, particularly emotions.

To Plato, love is a form of identifying with another person through a level of closeness to wisdom and beauty. Today, we call that platonic love, however, plato himself never used that term. In plato’s writing of The Symposium a group of men in ancient Greece attend a banquet that has music, dancing, wine and other forms of celebration. The central point of the story is one of the events is the host challenges the guests to deliver a speech to Eros, the god of love.

Nietzche believes the romanticism version of love removes rational thought from the equation. To Nietzche, love and greed are two sides of the same coin. Basically, people see something they like and strive to obtain it. For example, if a person see’s a car that is desirable to them, then they might work extra hard to obtain it. This is analogous to how Nietzche would view love. It is the motivation to obtain something that person holds desirable.

Nietzche does not think that love is good or bad. He believes that it is in in human nature to love whether it is a person or a thing. According to Stephen West, his views of love fits in nicely with Nietzche’s Will to Power model laid out in his writings.