5/27/12

Living and Loving Relationship

By Alex Shant


Love is a learned Phenomenon. At the turn of two century a child was seen, In the forests of a small village in Prance. The child had been abandoned for deed by his parents. By some miracle he did not die in the forest. He survived, not as a child, even though he was physically a human being, but rather as an animal. He walked on all fours, made hit home in a hole in the ground, had no meaningful language above an animal cry, knew no close relationships, cared about no one or nothing except survival.

Cases such as this - that of Kumala, the Indian girl, for instance - have been reported and it can be tested by the history of time. They have In common the fact that if man is raised as an animal he will behave as an animal, for man "learns" to be human. Just as man learns to be s human being, so he learns to feel as a human being, to love as a human being.

Psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, anthropologists and educators have suggested in countless studies and numerous research papers that love is a "learned response, a learned emotion." How man learns to love seems to be directly related to his capacity to learn, those in his environment who will teach him, as well as the type, extent and sophistication of his culture.

Family structure, courtship practices, marriage laws, sex taboos, for instance, all vary according to where one lives. The morals and folkways involved in love, sex, marriage and the family are different, for instance, In Bali than they are in New York City.

These facts concerning the effects of learning upon behavior appear self-evident when stated. Yet, they seem to have little, if any, effect upon the majority of people when applied to love. More of us continue to behave as though love is not learned but lies dormant in each human being and simply awaits some mystical age of awareness to emerge in full bloom. Many welt for this age forever. We seem to refuse to face the obvious fact that most of us spend our lives trying to find love, trying to live in it, and dying without ever truly discovering it.




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