Many societies throughout history have attempted to redirect its citizens loyalties away from their closest relations towards the state. Examples include:
- The ancient Greek city-state of Sparta held that children belonged to the state and at age seven boys were separated from their families to live in communal barracks. Here they were taught the skills to become accomplished warriors and moral citizens.
- Collective-socialist ideology was also present in the Israeli Kibbutzim of the 20th century. Here was practiced a radical collective childrearing tradition, where the children were raised communally, spending only limited hours each day with their parents, and sleeping together in a separate children’s home without their parents.
- Several authoritarian states of the 20th century, including Mao’s China and Stalin’s Russia, actively encouraged children to report on the actions of their parents when those actions were merely perceived as disloyalty to the state.
The above are attempts by a collective to strengthen the bond between a child and itself at the expense of weakening the bonds between that child and their family. The question is not whether it is possible to do this. It is. Instead the question is whether it is wrong to do so, and if so why is it wrong?
Indoctrinating citizens to love their country is commonplace. It happens from liberal democracies through to authoritarian dictatorships. From civic classes in school, to national holidays and parades, to the singing of anthems and waving of flags, instilling a love of country is a goal of most, if not all nations. But seldom is such instillation done at the expense of the love between a parent and a child.
And I believe it is an aberration of love to even attempt it.
I believe that a society must celebrate the love found between individuals. Between two partners, or a parent and child, two friends, or a niece and their closest aunt. It is in all of these human relationships that our love can deepen, with roots spreading out to tie our greater social fabric together. It is upon such love that the foundations of our societies must be built. And it is this love that was wholly created and gifted to us by The Greatest Love.
Nation states are however human inventions. They were not created by The Greatest Love. They do not have an immortal soul as bestowed by Them. And they cannot love in the sense of the word used in this blog because they are not examples of life as endowed by The Creator. From an earlier post “… human life, love, and a soul form a trinity. All three must exist together and if but one is missing the other two cannot be.”.
We can love our nations, or our communities, or even an abstract concept such as our liberty, or an inanimate thing such as a sunset. But I believe The Greatest Love has reserved the deepest love that can be experienced for that which is between two individual souls as imparted by Them. Nations do not have souls imparted by the Creator. Nor do sunsets.
When two souls come together in love they form a unique bond. A bond that must be held aloft and cultivated throughout each of their lifetimes. It is these bonds that come closest to mirroring the love The Greatest Love has for all of us.
When a state or community or any group of individuals tries to manipulate our love by prioritizing the group over bonds such as these they are not just misguided. I believe they are going against the Will of The Greatest Love. The deep and powerful bonds found between two individuals must not be weakened by any third-party intervention or manipulation. Who we love must be left for our own hearts to decide.
Yes, as outsiders we can give counsel. We can shine a light on the love that is forming. But when two human beings are willing to prioritize the other’s happiness over that of their own, the definition of love favored in this blog, a bedrock foundation of love begins to form. A love that can grow to become reciprocated, equal, and deep. When this happens outsiders must stand back and allow that love to flourish.
Such love as this must be allowed to transcend human notions of wealth, or class, or caste. It must be allowed to break down the walls of discrimination that humans have built around sexual orientation or gender identity. And it must discard the idea that the love of any group must come before it.
I know that the love that can form between two human souls can in fact be greater than that which forms between an individual and their Creator. I know this because I am such an individual. I know my own heart and I know I love my partner more than my god. Despite this, The Greatest Love blessed my love by declaring it sacred and I believe this is a confirmation that They no longer dictate that our love for Them must be greater than all others.
I believe the above holds true not just on Earth but in the heavens as well. We must give up any expectation that what awaits us in the heavens is a love greater than anything we can experience on this Earth. If this were so it would lessen the value of love to be found in this World. If the greatest love one could experience could only be found in the heavens, within the arms of The Greatest Love, then what inspires us to find, and grow, and make such a love available here on Earth?
We must not bide our time during our Earthly existence, in anticipation of what awaits us in our next heavenly one. We must live life to the fullest by searching for our greatest love here. And if after much searching you find that your greatest love is your god, then that becomes even more beautiful.
The Greatest Love, when bestowing love upon our hearts, did not somehow reserve our deepest love for Themselves. They did not somehow engineer our heart to only love Them the most. Nor can we just will ourselves to love Them more than others. Love is not some form of thermostat we can just dial upwards when necessary. Instead life needs to be experienced, our emotions felt, and our loves grown. And when life leads us to a greater love separate from The Divine can we merely suppress those emotions? Deny them altogether? Is this what our god’s love and mercy would expect from us? No. It is instead what vanity and pride would demand from us. And that is not the god I believe in.
Our World is becoming more secular. We are growing, progressing, and learning to think for ourselves. And we are questioning the most dogmatic principles from the past, including the notion that we must love our Creator before all others. That notion is now eclipsed by a greater truth. The greatest freedom that exists in the heavens or on Earth. The freedom to love whomever we want and at whatever depth our heart determines.
This post began with examples of populations trying to break down familial bonds in order to redirect a child’s love towards their state or community. But the limits of such manipulations were eventually laid bare. The love a parent has for their child cannot be replaced. By intentionally trying to weaken such bonds we create aberrations of love and slowly dismantle a society’s social fabric.
Consider the example of the Israeli Kibbutzim. By the late 20th century their communal sleeping arrangements (CSAs) were abandoned. There was a desire for more individual autonomy as well as mother’s, who grew up with CSAs, refusing to let their own children experience such a system. As one participant in the social experiment would later say: “… you always had to adjust yourself to others. You could not be unique and special; you could not express your own needs, but rather had to be a 2-year-old socialist, a 10-year-old socialist, and a 15-year-old socialist. To be ‘a good kid’ meant to conform to a lifestyle forced upon you without being asked for your opinion or desires“.
A critical lesson had been learned. Humankind must never act to weaken the bonds found within such close family units. And although the deepest love in the Universe will forever be the Divine love The Greatest Love has for each of us, such depth can never be reciprocated. Our love of The Divine will always be dwarfed by Their love for us.
Today we are free not just to love anyone that our heart embraces. We are free to love them even more deeply than The Greatest Love Themselves. Yes it will bring great suffering upon its loss, but to not have experienced such a love in the first place would be an even greater tragedy. Because on this World there can be a love that is greater than even that which we can have for our god: it is the selfless, sacrificial, and reciprocated love found between our closest relations. We must never be afraid to say that a love such as this is the greatest love we have. No in fact it is quite the opposite. The Greatest Love has provided us the freedom to love freely so long as we also hate with extreme caution. When we can achieve both, They bless our love and declare it sacred.
This is what I believe.
A Love Story 