Idolatrous love dooms itself because no human can bear absolute value

Evidence

An authentic love should take on the other’s contingence, that is, his lacks, limitations, and originary gratuitousness; it would claim to be not a salvation but an inter-human relation. Idolatrous love confers an absolute value on the loved one: this is the first lie strikingly apparent to all outsiders: “He doesn’t deserve so much love,” people whisper around the woman in love; posterity smiles pityingly when evoking the pale figure of Count Guibert. It is a heartrending disappointment for the woman to discover her idol’s weaknesses and mediocrity. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1867

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines authentic love (accepting the other’s contingence) against idolatrous love (conferring absolute value) — a core distinction in the book’s apparatus.
• XREF: Defines authentic love as opposed to idolatrous love, echoing Beauvoir’s earlier ‘spirit of seriousness’ theme and the claim that woman’s love is a project to escape contingency — connects to Heidegger’s ‘Being-toward-death’ and Sartre’s bad faith. — connects to: Love is the enterprise of pursuing an unrealizable unity with the Other; Romantic love demands proof through the beloved’s willingness to violate morality for the lover; A value grounded in being would destroy value and enslave the will (+1 more)
• SEED: An essay on how ‘idealization contracts’ work in modern relationships — the social script that demands partners be ‘giants’ then punishes them for being human.
• CANDY: The observation that the woman in love is ‘dupé by that spirit of seriousness’ which refuses to put values ‘in parentheses’ is a deft, tweetable Beauvoir line.

Broader Connections

• Romantic love demands proof through the beloved’s willingness to violate morality for the lover #contradicts (0.80)
• Love is the enterprise of pursuing an unrealizable unity with the Other #expands (0.78)
• A value grounded in being would destroy value and enslave the will #exemplifies (0.72)