JuliusFawcett wrote:Yes I have two teenage daughters.
The unconditional love a baby has for her mother is that they don't think she is too fat, too thin, too white, too brown, too disabled, too stupid, too short, too tall, too spotty, too ugly, they accept their mothers as perfect as they are.
Clearly they cry to make us more aware of their needs, and they still have unconditional love for their mothers when they are hungry, too hot, too cold, too tired - none of that is personal. Later they can learn to be critical of their mothers, they are not born with that.
Good Morning Julius,
Again, I think you are limiting your thinking with all of that Happiness Ideology that you place before any practical or empirical observation. yes, babies love their mothers, UNTIL their selfish needs are not instantly catered to. Crying and Screaming, these are the makings of Temper Tantrums and later become Swearing Cussing Yelling and Breaking Things Storms of the Adult, and they are not about Love. they are about Hate of their Condition and Hate for those who have anything to do with their Condition. You've never seen a baby with a Frown for its Mother... Mother's call it pouting, but it is just the little things being Hateful.
Anyway, what if Children DO have this Unconditional Love. Well, you have squeezed it into such a compact little definition that it is now practically useless, isn't it. You say that despite all of their nasty behaviors, there is this fine bedrock of Unconditional Love -- that is apparently useless in regards to any of its actual behaviors toward their mothers, and that Unconditional Love merely consists in the fact that Infants have no frame of reference in which to Judge their Mother, and so, without any Standard to Measure by, they simply Assume Maternal Perfection -- Mother is a Child's first God, so to speak. But people Hate God too. People shake their Fist at the Sky all the time.
As far as Behavior goes, this Unconditional Love, well, if it is so non-applicable to anything practical, why do we even bother discussing it? Well, I suspect because "Unconditional Love" is one of those New Age Catch Phrases which simply must come up in every conversation in order to show off our New Age Credentials. I've said this before. the New Age is not New. The New Age had presided over arguably the worst Century in Human History (up until this one). the New Age gave us Imperialism and then Communism and then Fascism, a Huge Terrible World War (I believe History will someday see WWI and WWII as the Same World War, but with a 15 year Truce subdividing it). The New Age gave us the Atom Bomb and then Nuclear Weapons. Now it has given us this tacit Anarchy we now live with and the unchecked Oligarchy of the Rich (who were indeed able to Dream of World Conquest and to Imagine World Conquest and then to make it Real.... and then were able to Dream and Imagine and make it Real the fact that they Slam the Door behind themselves and allow no Newcomers into their exclusive paradise. Don't you honestly think that things were better in the Old Age?
They call it the Ancient Regime. Religion was respected and Morals were not questioned. Everything that was indeed wrong with the Ancient Regime was probably because of the Decay brought on by, yes, incipient New Age ideas that corroded respect for all the Ancient Civilized Institutions that were probably quite workable, if Civilization had not been interrupted by waves of Barbarian Invasions from the East (As China was successfully able to repel and expel its Barbarians, well, they all decided to leave China alone and try their luck with India, with Persia, the Arab Nations and Europe. Europe, but only barely was the only Civilization West of China to resist Invasion, but not without taking some very damaging shocks. Julius, why don't you pull your head out of those new age books for a while and study some World History. Without a Broad Frame of Reference, how can you even be sure of what you are thinking about... Yes, you have mentioned your Conscience before. But don't you think that a broader knowledge of the world and of history might, well, develop your conscience to some greater capacity and toward some greater discernment?.
Now it is like you are looking at things from the bottom of a hole you had fallen into. Climb a Mountain and see what everything looks like from there. Take my word for it, you are a Master of New Age Ideas. None of the Literature there has anything more it can give you. Grow. read something else for a while. and admit to yourself that this is not the first time you have heard this or similar advice, that fixation on New Age ideas is stifling your intellectual growth. And admit that this advise comes from stable and grounded people -- solid people whose World view is practical and reliable... no, not often pleasant but they take the Truth, whatever it is, unconditionally.... not waving away Reality as some act of Perfect Faith in their Hopes and Dreams (What do you tell a New Age Person whose Dreams do not come true. You tell them that they did not really believe... that they did not have enough Faith in themselves. its always Their Fault... never the fault of a flawed Philosophy)
Well, that seems to be enough of a lecture for today. Let me know what you think of it. We will talk more later. have a nice day.