Notes on Bell Hook's All About Love

 7/18/22

Bell Hooks

A few notes

Thinking of love as an action not a feeling is a good start. It generates accountability. Actions shape feelings. Love is as love does.

The heart of justice is telling the truth and seeing ourselves and the world the way it is not the way we want it to be

In our culture lies are told about the most insignificant aspects of daily life. People lie to avoid conflict and / or to spare someone's feelings. Many learn to lie in childhood to avoid punishment or disappointing or hurting adults. We're taught that telling the truth will cause pain. Lying becomes a way of preventing being hurt or hurting others. Lying fascinates kids because it has power over adults.

In The Mermaid And The Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements And Human Malaise  Dorothy Dinnerstein says that when boys feel powerless over their mothers, lying enables them to manipulate her and that boys learn to lie to obtain power. Of course women lie too and also we lie to pretend powerlessness.

Harriet Lerner says “Men tend to lie more and with more devastating consequences. Often men who would never lie in the workplace lie in intimate relationships. The Patriarchy helps them get away with it. They are taught that to be honest is “soft.” (tragic)

Victor Seidler in his book Recovering Masculinity says “When we learn to use language, boys quickly learn how to conceal themselves in order to master the world. Often in a trance state estranged to feelings, men utilize strategies they learned as boys. Their inability to truly connect causes an inability to be accountable for truly causing pain. Many men see themselves as victims of lovelessness and lying expresses their ongoing rage at the failure of love's promise.

“Where the will to power is dominant, love will be lacking.” CJ Jung

Men use lying and omission to subjugate women. 

Trust is the foundation of intimacy. When lies and omission erode trust, intimacy cannot grow or live.

(Personally I find this terribly sad and trust with all my heart that it will not end here)

Justice between people is perhaps the most important connection people can have.