Opinion | Learning Through Love (or the Absence of Love) | Observatory

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In previous articles, I talked about the radical autodidacticism of people who come into the world in situations of extreme difficulty and who, from birth, have to learn to survive. The challenges they face, I said, are like those of the little mouse in the fable who fell into a bucket of milk and, desperate to get out, kicked his feet, not knowing that the milk would turn into heavy cream and he would be able to propel himself to safety. Like the mouse, there are many who, to a greater or lesser extent, face life as a survival challenge, from which many emerge triumphant (where “coming out triumphantly” does not mean creating comfortable conditions but, as I say, surviving). Those who succeed begin a life of hard lessons, which other more privileged people will face much later, even as adults.

We all know that among the privileges that can be had at birth, the greatest is arriving in a context of love. Being loved is the essential resource, that is, the one that will allow the person to take full advantage of all those that come later, including food (eating disorders are generated in contexts in which food – breast milk or any other – reaches the child amid affective turbulence).

From my point of view – and neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio will agree with me – it is that vital feeling from the moment we come into the world that indicates to us our situation (favorable or unfavorable) and compels us to face and make our way through human exchanges, challenges, and dangers. Paulo Freire’s phrase “We always learn” must be taken literally, alluding to an “always” that begins with birth.

It is worth mentioning that a slightly more radical cosmology and anthropology allow us to fantasize that this feeling is not only at the origin of humans but at the origin of everything that exists. According to this view, a kind of essence we can call love would also exist at the universe’s origin. The immediate rejection that these words may arouse in some of my readers must consider that they are not anti-scientific arbitrariness but come from ancient reflections that not all current scientists and philosophers consider outdated. Indeed, the current physicalist (who dismisses everything that sounds like “soul” in a flash) will laugh at these fantasies with annoyance that I express them so simply. However, I believe that this kind of thing should be said without ambiguity or complication, with the understanding that arguments made in both directions are an absolute waste of time and that spiritual faith and physicalist faith can be resolved in just a few words (“God exists,” a cornerstone phrase in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers, for example, or “God does not exist.”) To go beyond that is utterly pointless, unless one finds great satisfaction in arguing uselessly to the point of being astonished at the other’s astonishment. I think the most that can be argued is why our faith (theistic or physicalist, I insist) is legitimate, understanding that no reasoning can disprove it. Proving that one is right and the other is wrong is a sterile exercise, like everything endless (I regret that my words do not pay homage to the recently deceased Daniel C. Dennet, one of the Four Horsemen of the Atheist Apocalypse, as they call themselves, a tireless thinker who dedicated much of his life to reasoning about why explaining this world requires nothing more than the physics of the inanimate).

Perhaps it would be less sterile to affirm that what we all seek daily is learning to guide our vital feeling fruitfully, directing it towards personal, social, and ecosystemic flourishing.

Some people are fortunate enough to be born in niches where love for them finds more or less fertile soil; that is, a loving context welcomes them open-chested; thus, they almost naturally acquire skills of communication, solidarity, and self-preservation and other seemingly magical ones like intuition, humor, and poetic creativity. And I say that they are acquired in an “almost natural” way because, although we tend to believe that the experience of love is shared by mere contiguity (as if the baby held in our arms would fully “receive” it), that encounter takes place through communicative signals that indicate the most reliable paths for exchange (they are signals that go both ways but the mother’s may be better structured and functional as true examples).

This is how we arrive at a concept of education in which mothers/fathers and daughters/sons (and then, by extension, students and teachers) show each other, through examples, the paths that can lead to flourishing; that is, we teach each other the most efficient ways to perceive and understand circumstances, leverage opportunities, and face challenges and dangers. As I say, it is mutual teaching (who will deny that children teach parents, and students teach teachers?), and those of us who have been on the planet longer have more advantages than those arriving just because we are veterans.

Now, this beautiful prospect of amorous exchange should not make us forget those who, like the mouse in the fable, are born in emergency conditions. Nothing is worse (we all know) than a love that is there to be given in abundance (like the one the baby brings) that is not received. I cannot think of any other metaphor than the thrashing of the mouse to exemplify how the lonely baby safeguards his vital love and radiates it to see if anyone reciprocates. If the environment is conducive, that thrashing can create a life-saving platform. If that happens, the first lesson will be, from the outset, not to give up even in the most challenging conditions. However, the great disadvantage of this lesson is that it is not trivial. When such a human grows up, convincing him of the sometimes vital necessity of defeat will be difficult! Let us ask him to open himself to the possibility of failure, and he will try to get rid of us, even aggressively and violently!

Indeed, this radical autodidacticism, which makes us strong but distrustful, is not inevitably destined to perpetuate itself. At some point, it may open up to forms of teaching/learning that include love for and from others. For this to happen, great shortcomings and privileges must compensate for each other. It is enough to watch the masterful film Death Penalty, directed by Tim Robbins, starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, to discover how a vital feeling that has been sheltered in the darkest shadows learns to resurface when someone from outside extends their arms to guide and receive it. Certainly, those in the position of counselor/receiver of someone in extreme need must be strong. Still, if you can show the person a reliable route, he will be rewarded with a vital encounter that can only be called rebirth.

As teachers and parents, we do not have to look for such radical encounters. (A good option is to watch the film Dead Man Walking and be moved to the core.) However, we can turn to those around us (children and students), who usually only need our trust to give what they so much reserve.

I want to end this text by proposing an idea for another film, this one a fantasy. It is about a being lost in the darkest shadows and a heroine who, empowered with privileges, descends to show him the way back. On the return, that dark, buried being reveals its hidden beauty until it emerges to the surface like a sun. It doesn’t surprise me that this film’s theme has already been seen a lot. In fact, I think it’s the theme of all films, indeed, of all human drama (sometimes with the variants that the sun does not arise and that the heroine (or hero) also grows dark. I don’t think it would add anything if the hero and heroine appeared not as individual persons but as an entire community: the issue has been represented and is central to the stories that we have begun to accept in this postmodern era: “No one saves anyone—no one is saved alone—people save each other through the mediation of the collective,” as Paulo Freire said. Would it add anything to say that this community would have to go to school first (as the great Brazilian pedagogue proposes) to be saved? I do not think so: so many others have already sensed it, starting with the people preparing for the feat!

For my screenplay, then, I will have to settle for the much-worn archetype in which human beings needing to love others one day lose hope and must learn together to regain it.

Don’t you think it’s ironic that, after so many years of effort in solitude, not even the self-taught are spared from such a hackneyed truth?!

Translation by Daniel Wetta