C.S. Lewis on love and "like": from Four Loves
C.S. Lewis
Lewis fractures what we call love into four different kinds. Affection, Friendship, Sexual, and Christian/selfless love (Storge, Philia, Eros, Agape). Four Loves is worth reading but is too long to quote in what I have wanted to be a non-heavy & not-(too)long blog.
Each love, as Lewis defines them, has characteristics he describes through referring to his own life and well of experiences. Storge is like the feeling one gets when looking at puppies. Friendship comes not in having acquaintence with people and socializing with them, rather through commitment more like that of lovers only without physical intimacy. Eros integrates storge and philia along with physical intimacy. Only, eros is corrupted when it lacks a degree of selfless regard, agape.
This excerpt from Lewis' Four Loves actually has more to do with what we sometimes call love but is really more similar to "like".
"Most of my generation were reproved as children for saying that we “loved” strawberries, and some people take a pride in the fact that English has the two verbs love and like while French has to get on with aimer for both. But French has a good many other languages on its side. Indeed it very often has actual English usage on its side too. Nearly all speakers, however pedantic or however pious, talk every day about “loving” a food, a game, or a pursuit. And in fact there is a continuity between our elementary likings for things and our loves for people. Since “the highest does not stand without the lowest” we had better begin at the bottom, with mere likings; and since to “like” anything means to take some sort of pleasure in it, we must begin with pleasure.”
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