hooked on love

In the book All About Love by bell hooks she addresses the lack of love and its impact on the society in which people lack love. She addresses this issue outside of and including romantic love and the effects on the person, community, and culture. More specifically, she challenges the belief that love is lacking, unnecessary, and unattainable in our society. This belief she contends adds to the stresses and dysfunction in life and can be made better by implementing a life with love. In All About Love, hooks states that love is an action and people should practice expressing love in all areas of their lives and through this action society can undergo a massive positive change in politics, economics, and all other aspects.

Hooks addresses 13 different topics in which love or the lack of has a lasting impact on one’s life and society. One of the most important and interesting topics is justice and childhood, where she addresses this topic from a novel stance. Many parents find themselves raising children under similar circumstances and with the same practices that were used by their parents despite the negative feelings those practices may have instilled in those new parents. Hooks addresses how even the most educated and liberal minded people do not think to extend the same rights and justices in which they believe to their own children. Hooks writes, “There can be no love without justice. Until we live in a culture that not only respects but also upholds basic civil rights for children, most children will not know love.” At first read, one may think of course children are given their basic civil rights and of course they are loved. Until one further thinks about the statement. Hooks goes on to explain how there is a stark difference between caring for children which most parents do without any issue, because they understand their responsibility. However care does not equal love and there is a clear distinction. Children are at the mercy of their parents no matter how good or how bad those parents may be. In many cases the systems that are in place to help them end up failing them and can end in the worse of terms. Loving children means respecting them and not wielding power over them as subservient beings in a household. Children should be loved as young people growing into their mature selves with support from the adults around them without abuse, shame, and neglect. Loving children seems to be an area where America as a country does not have the best reputation and unsurprisingly so many of its citizens have the same abusive practices with their children creating broken children who lack love as children and adults. Think about the children being held in cages at the border, the children in each state's foster care system who are abused, the children who are funneled right into prison, the children who are left behind in education and economic terms, and the list goes on. Another important topic addressed by hooks is the importance of living by a love ethic. A love ethic is the set of standards for the action of loving in all aspects of one’s life and everyday encounters. A love ethic replaces fear, power, and domination in exchange for equality, justice, and love.  This replacement allows space and opportunity for the lover to experience more fulfillment and for the ethic to change the area in which it is being applied. Living by a love ethic is instrumental to change in any circumstance including personal relationships and political structures. For example when hooks writes, “Domination cannot exist in any social situation where a love ethic prevails. Jung’s insight, that if the will to power is paramount love will be lacking, is important to remember. When love is present the desire to dominate and exercise power cannot rule the day.”  she identifies the juxtaposition while living with a love ethic and trying to hold on to unloving systems and practices. There cannot be a place of love and domination existing at the same time. Love does not place one over another in levels of importance and status. Power is not meant to serve everyone in the current societal structure, it only helps those in the highest levels of our social systems and socioeconomic classes. People living mostly in fear and without love allow themselves to be powerless and loveless in a system that is not built to support them. The love ethic is necessary to spark change in any system of life and “embracing a love ethic means that we utilize all the dimensions of love – care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge – in our everyday lives.” Living under such an ethic combats those infractions against change and in support of the unloving systems, and such an element which is prevalent in current American society is greed.

The “American dream” and attaining such is the seed of greed planted to market for a life in a better socioeconomic class of one’s current state. It is always a person from humble beginnings becoming among the wealthiest people because of hard work, perseverance, and smarts. Of course, with wealth comes the ability to own whatever the heart desires and everything else as well. This is the actual American dream, materialism. There are a lot of people who want to acquire things to make themselves feel better and to allow them a sense of security/placement in society. If two people own the same items of a certain price point, then they must be equally good people. The people have something in common and so the cycle continues. hooks writes, “When greedy consumption is the order of the day, dehumanization becomes acceptable. Then treating people like objects is not only acceptable but is required behavior.” This is business 101, this is an academic way of saying, “it’s not personal; it’s just business”. Unfortunately for us, greed is so rampant in our society that business and profits always take precedence over people and their standard of living. Look at the COVID-19 pandemic and its American response. There are millions of people who have been infected, millions more can/will become infected, and the government response is to send children back to school so parents can go back to work to make more money for the people who already hold 99% of the country’s wealth. The spreadsheets and bottom lines are focused on monetary numbers and no one is factoring in the human cost – because it’s just business. The way that some people who lack certain material things allow themselves to be manipulated and controlled by people who have access to those very things is detrimental to ever achieving an equitable and just social and economic system in America.  Greed is not a new phenomenon and is not specific to American culture, but it is one of the original tenets of the American way of life. Greed is as American as apple pie. It can be argued to have been one of the reasons for the inception of America as an independent country and is at the foundation of all of the other sins of the nation.

Hooks writes about more notable topics which are impacted by love and the lack of which include dealing with loss, romantic love, and mutuality. These issues as addressed are also worth a deep review because there are additional insights which are offered to build on and apply towards daily living and inevitable change. The current climate of American society is certainly at odds with the idea of doing anything with love at this time. In living through and experiencing life under the current conditions it is more than glaring to acknowledge the impact of lovelessness on society as a whole. Mutual respect is missing, there is no honesty and trust in business and commerce, and everything is a constant power struggle. Living in and upholding these institutions drives love further from the culture as a whole and makes it seem more inevitable to see actual change anytime in the future.

bell hooks’ book All About Love should be a required read for anyone who wants to see some sort of change and wants to be responsible for a shift in society. In her book hooks, writes about 13 topics related to love not only in the romantic sense. She illuminates different ways the social and economic structures in America benefit from the lack of love in our culture. The lack of love allows there to be an ongoing status quo and resistance to change which can help everyone live more just and equitable lives. In All About Love, hooks states that love is an action and people should practice expressing love in all areas of their lives and that through this action society can undergo a massive positive change in politics, economics, and all other aspects.