In the chapter “Love” of the story “Youth”, Leo Tolstoy wrote about three kinds of love. Was the great classic a good psychologist? As a writer, Tolstoy is a genius – but he does not understand anything about love, expert Inna Shifanova believes.
“There are three kinds of love:
1) Love is beautiful,
2) Love is selfless and
3) Love is active.
I’m not talking about the love of a young man for a young girl and vice versa … I’m talking … about love for a mother, for a father, for a brother, for children, for a comrade, for a girlfriend, for a compatriot, about love for a person.
Love is beautiful… For people who love so much, a beloved object is kind only to the extent that it excites that pleasant feeling, the consciousness and expression of which they enjoy. People who love with beautiful love care very little about reciprocity, as a circumstance that has no influence on the beauty and pleasantness of feeling. They often change the objects of their love, since their main goal is only that the pleasant feeling of love be constantly aroused. In order to maintain this pleasant feeling in themselves, they constantly speak in the most elegant terms about their love both for the object itself and for all those who do not even care about this love.
The second kind of love – selfless love, consists in love for the process of sacrificing oneself for the beloved object, without paying any attention to whether these sacrifices are worse or better for the beloved object. “There is no trouble that I would not dare to do to myself in order to prove to the whole world and to him or her my devotion.” Here is the formula for this kind of love. People who love like this never believe in reciprocity (because it is even more worthy to sacrifice oneself for someone who does not understand me), they are always painful, which also increases the merit of the victims; mostly permanent, because it would be hard for them to lose the merit of the sacrifices they made to their beloved subject; always ready to die in order to prove to him or her all their devotion, but they neglect the small daily proofs of love, in which special impulses of self-denial are not needed. It is all the same to them whether you have eaten well, whether you have slept well, whether you are cheerful, whether you are healthy, and they will do nothing to provide you with these comforts if they are in their power; but to stand under a bullet, throw themselves into water, into fire, wither away from love – they are always ready for this, if only an opportunity occurs. In addition, people who are prone to self-sacrificing love are always proud of their love, demanding, jealous, distrustful and, it is strange to say that they wish their subjects dangers in order to save them from them, misfortunes in order to console them, and even vices in order to correct them.
The third kind – active love, consists in the desire to satisfy all needs, all desires, whims, even vices of a beloved being. People who love in this way always love for the rest of their lives, because the more they love, the more they recognize the beloved object and the easier it is for them to love, that is, to satisfy its desires. Their love is rarely expressed in words, and if it is expressed, it is not only not smugly, beautifully, but bashfully, awkwardly, because they are always afraid that they do not love enough. These people love even the vices of the beloved being, because these vices enable them to satisfy yet new desires. They seek reciprocity, willingly even deceiving themselves, believe in it and are happy if they have it; but everyone loves just the same even otherwise, and not only desires happiness for the beloved object, but by all those moral and material, great and small means that are in their power, they constantly try to deliver it.
Inna Shifanova, family psychologist:
Tolstoy is a genius as a writer, but he does not understand anything about love.
Love unites two personalities, each of which has its own dignity and its own boundaries. If there is dignity, then the boundaries are clearly defined, and then no one requires either himself or the other to meet other people’s expectations. True love gives everyone the opportunity to be themselves without violating other people’s boundaries. The demand for sacrifices is inappropriate here, respect for boundaries is appropriate. When there is mutual respect, then there really is an eternal recognition of each other, and this is the main driving force of love.
If one wants to get to know another for the sake of encouraging his vices, with the aim of admiring his love and his forgiveness, then this has nothing to do with love. These are attempts to compensate for something (lack of attention, status, self-confidence, understanding, various social fears), this love is not effective, but scarce.
Tolstoy builds abstract reasoning, creates schemes and constructions of the world and love for the world, they lack the specifics and warmth of true love for a person.
He, it seems to me, is describing himself here – three of his own reactions to others, depending on his own mood. In such a relationship, the other person is an object, not a subject. The identity of the partner is not here. And he, a living person, feels that it is not about him, but about the myth about him and about admiring himself. Behind ecstasies, you can hide any feeling, even from yourself (for example, contempt, indifference or hatred).
Three kinds of love according to Tolstoy are three different stages of inharmonious relationships in love. A very common problem.
1. Now we would call it the candy-bouquet stage. Clients usually say: “He looked after him so beautifully, who would have thought?!” Usually there is a “genius of pure beauty” and an angel. Love is unearthly. Of course, unearthly! Man is never an angel, but this is denied. And claims are made to the partner, how dare he stop being an angel. What right does he have to be imperfect! True, they usually really care about reciprocity, they are jealous of all “objects of love” at the same time.
2. The unfortunate “object” is constantly waiting for it to again correspond to its former delights, and makes a mistake – it becomes a victim. “They never believe in reciprocity (because it is even more worthy to sacrifice oneself for someone who does not understand me)” – that’s right. They have every reason not to believe in reciprocity, no one is going to understand them.
3. The third type exists as an unattainable ideal, as a goal to which the other must strive. But it is not clear, according to Tolstoy, what is the “beloved” doing at this time, allowing himself to be loved?
Tolstoy knew how to love humanity, not a person, so he hid behind the pathos “about love for a mother, for a father, for a brother, for children, for a comrade, for a girlfriend, for a compatriot, about love for a person” his love for women that does not develop . I see him as a teenage boy who is sure that there is nothing to love him for, because he considers himself a terrible criminal and sees his shortcomings as terribly exaggerated, reassuring himself only that these are the vices inherent in the whole world. He passionately wants to be loved in spite of everything, sacrificially and unconditionally, and at the same time they understand him well, guess his desires even without words and without requests, go to meet his needs. His desire for love is permeated with childish selfishness. But he does not notice this, just as he does not notice that each time he describes love as one-sided, which does not know how to enter into a dialogue with another person and, in essence, does not see him.
* More details: the chapter “Love” in the book: L. Tolstoy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth” (AST, Astrel, 2012).