Custom «Analysis of the Social Phenomenon of Love» Essay Paper Sample

Introduction

A phenomenon is any occurrences, a fact or a happening that can be observed and the term is often applied to something that is unusual or unique and it sometimes applicable to person who displays rare talents or abilities e.g. in sports in line with that a social phenomenon is defined as anything that is able to be influenced by organisms sufficiently alive to respond to one another and one aspect of sociological studies is the study of social phenomenon which love is an example of them. Social phenomenon includes the influence from the past and this concept is based on behavioristic trends as well as emphasizes upon the objective nature of the social life, studies of group life, groups ecological and the environmental studies (Giles, 1994).

There are various different kinds of social phenomena and some of them include the following: negative campaigning in politics, popular musical or artistic styles, company loyalty, decline of communism, child abuse, social capital, fascism, contentious politics, civic engagement, rationality, women refugees, teen pregnancy, face book, cellular phones rise in plastic and cosmetic surgery, anorexia and perceptions of beauty, obesity, US consumer culture, dependence on internet fro social communication, freak shows, online dating among others (Wood et al, 2005).  

Analysis

Love is defined as a deep, tender and ineffable feeling of solitude and affection towards a person and such kind of love arises from recognition of attractive qualities, kinship or even from a sense of underlying oneness. It's an emotion of strong attachment and affection which Psychology depicts it as one of the social phenomenon and a virtue that represe4nts all of the human kindness affection and compassion. Love form the central part of many religions for instance Agape in Canonical gospels and as "God is Love" in the Christian phrase. In addition to that love can also be described as actions directed towards others or even oneself and often is based on compassion or towards others based on the component of affection. Love can be used to refer to a diversity of feelings, attitudes as well as states that comes from a generic pleasure to some intense interpersonal attraction. Moreover love can be used to refer to passionate desires as well as intimacy of romantic love to the sexual love termed as Eros which is a Greek word for the term love (Giles, 1994).

The world can also be sued to refer to the emotional closeness of the familial love as well as the love that defines friendship which is the platonic love and finally to the profound oneness or the devotional nature of the religious love. Often love acts as major facilitator of many interpersonal relationships thus giving it some central psychological significance which make love to be one of the common theme utilized in the creative arts.  Scientifically love is understood as an evolution of the survival instinct that is primarily used keep human being together against some menaces while at same time facilitating a continuation of the species through the process of reproduction. Psychologist Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love in which he argued that love is constituted of three components that include: commitment, passion and intimacy. He goes to explain intimacy as form of love by which two people are able to share secrets as well as other various details of their personal lives and intimacy is often shown in romantic love affairs and in friendships. The commitment form of love is having the expectation that a relationship is going to last forever whereas the most common form of love is the passion and sexual attraction. This form of love is often shown in infatuation as well as in romantic love. Passion can further be refined in to two independent components which are romantic passion and erotic passion.

Several types of love exist and one of them is the Eros love which is also called erotic love. This type of love is basically based on existence of strong feelings towards another person and often occurs during the first stages of a man-woman romantic type of relationship. More over egos love is normally based on physical traits like beauty, intelligence, good breed among other physical characteristic of individuals and thus such basis give it a weakness as its based on self-benefit rather than benefit of the other person (Giles, 1994). The person supposedly in love enjoys the relationship as long as he pr she derive happiness or personal benefit from the relationship and when he ceases being happy or the relationships stops being beneficial to him he believes that he has fallen out of love (Wood et al, 2005).  Such judgment occurs because this kind of love is based on feelings along and such type of love was never true love and hence the individual never knew each other well. They just feel a strong emotional attraction towards each other without ever knowing each other personalities well thus each only shows the good side of each other hiding the bad sides which are a bad start for a true love which dictates that partners must first know both side of each other traits.

A true love is facilitated if both person have gone through both joys and sorrows, pleasure and sorrows and at the end still remained together thus a lot of sacrifice is required. Such kind of love is often fails to stands attest of time thus ends up not lasting long hence may or may not develop into the higher from of love which is the philos love. This king of love only survives if it manages to proceed to the higher form of love. The romantic feeling experience by the person in love is a natural phenomenon and forms the most significant part of the relationship between the man and the woman. Such romance also helps in strengthening of the bonds especially during the beginning of the relationship.

Therefore people engaging in love relationships should be very carful especially when it the relationship is romantic because being romantic doe not necessarily imply that the relationship is areal love. Thus one must us his or heart as well as the mind in making judgments regarding the reality of things. In addition to that people should avoid to much into the concept of love but rather being in love and this is because in modern days the media, TV and even in movies have romanticized the concept of love such that its hard for person to differentiate the real love from the fiction. Hence one must first prioritize on knowing the other person's traits as well as love hi uniqueness thus making one to be more concerned on the other Eros than to oneself. Basically when one relies heavily on emotions with having to balance of logic is an ultimate recipe of failed relationships (Giles, 1994).

The second kind of love is the philos love which is a love based on the friendship existing between the people. In most cases lovers who start out as friends before becoming partners usually end up in relationships that last longer and this is attributed to the fact that friendship forms the foundation of successful relationships and such applies regardless of whether the relationship is a boy-friend-girl friend, marriage, relationship between family, co-workers or even employer. This type of love is in conatrcst of the Eros love which involve attraction on physical or mental traits alone where strong emotions sets in it almost immediately without the partners having know more of each others personalities 'love at first sight'. Philos love is mainly based on 'give -take where individuals benefits in a mutual manner and despite the fact that one partner is still concerned with what he takes he is also concerned of the benefits to the other party thus prompting him to give back something in return. Therefore making philos love a higher form of love as compared to Eros love as this is based on 'give 'take while Eros is based on self or self benefit principle. Philos love often develops into the highest from of love which is the agape or the unconditional love.

Agape love is a type of love that is totally selfless and a person gives out love to another person even if such act does not benefit him in any way and such kind of love continues even when the initially given love is reciprocated or not. Some of the example of agape love includes the love that a mother gives to her child, taking insults from a person without hitting back and praying that he reforms his ways, loving people who hate you, taking care of parents at old age the way they took care of you at childhood without expecting nay favor in return (Wood et al, 2005).  Such kind of unconditional love is often not associated with humans but is divine-Gods love for the human beings as his children. For instance a perfect description of agape type of love is found in the Holy bible in the book of Corinthians 13:4-8 which says ""Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." This describes the traits of a unconditional love and this is a perfect from of agape love.

Conclusion

In considering the evaluation of social phenomenon of love above its clear that many social phenomena exist in every day live and love forms one of the significant phenomena in human existence and that it involve  emotional, physical, psychological as well as mental engagement that result to a complex network of relationships that sustains human existence. Moreover several types and levels of love exists with the Eros love basically being based on physical traits or persons, while philos love on mental traits and finally the agape or the unconditional love founded on the spiritual grounds. Therefore these three fundamental elements of man constitute the social phenomenon of love.