postmodern love

Pre-modern love is love less the romance: nothing intimate, nothing personal (“I love you because I own you, my lady), like when the German poets and minnesingers (love singers) in the early centuries perform something similar to the Filipino harana (courtly love songs) in public.

Campbell narrates in his “Power of Myth” that love for them is not a person to person feeling but a general sense of proprietorship, not passion.

Modern love is born out of Eros, that naughty god who shoots fatal arrows so that man and woman are sexually excited and romantically attracted (“I love you because we are fit to be together, dear”).

Since modernity is very much taken with a bible of rules and strictures, the “normal” or “traditional” concept of love during this period is limited to the two sexes created in Genesis, to persons with close age and proxemic distance, and to a context accepted by the society.

Postmodern love (“I love you because I do.”) may exist side by side traditional and modern love, and the characteristics of this may be articulated by defining first postmodernism.

Postmodernism is a style of thought that playfully transcends modernist notions of society, economy, art, and culture. It is eccentric–bordering on thoughtlessness and formlessness–being a permutation of past styles, narratives, and theories. It is a product of contingencies (or accidents). It knows no authorities; in fact it parodies authority. It is highly pragmatic, meaning, what works for a person is what thrives, or, carrying out tasks or acting out according to what is practically useful. It is, so to speak, elitist for it is not very much concerned about the social implication of its stylistic acts. Its sole concern is its existence, so it is conscious about itself, and not about grand solutions to external problems. It has many versions of the world and postmodernists freely jump from one world to another, never afraid to explore life in different worlds, never afraid to fail, never afraid to fall for the strangest of strangers.

Postmodern love, then, knows no boundaries as it is playful and relaxed and floating amongst serious issues in Life. So playful and carefree that it simply laughs at real threats to its existence and perpetuation. Above all, it is unconditional in spite of jealousy, obsession, age/class/culture difference, religion barriers, gender discrimination, and accidental meeting.

for M.