Love Does Not Rejoice At Wrongfulness Or Wrongdoing

Mini-Love-Lesson  #247

Synopsis: Exploring the opposing dynamics of love and the wrong together affect us and our love relationships; even clusters of  wrongness; the controversy over love as a cause of wrongdoing; the provocative relevance of Paul’s 10th point on love; ever-changing ideas of wrongdoing; the rejoice factor and using this knowledge for better love relating.

Love Versus Wrong

Love is against wrong!  That is the simplest way to put it.  Wrongness in all of its many forms and love (especially “agape” love) are in opposition to one another.  Therefore, they are not rightly seen as causative, supportive of, or cooperative with one another.  At least that is how this discernment of Paul’s10th tenant on love would lead us to understand.

Love As a Source of Wrong and Wrongdoing

There are those that disagree about love being the enemy of wrong and wrongdoing.  They see love as a great source of wrongs such as crimes of passion, acts of vengeance, pathological jealousy, a trigger of obsessive/compulsive dysfunction, destructive dependency, gender oppression, much toxic depression/anxiety and many cases of excessive relationship agony.

A counter argument to those who think this way is that they do not understand healthy, real love at all, and/or they have it confused with various forms of false love (see “Ever Think Seriously About Real and False Love?”).  There also is a scriptural based argument.  The quote “God is love” is cited and then it is reasoned real love (i.e. God’s nature) cannot be the progenitor of wrongness.  Who is right?  To help figure that out let’s take a quick broad look at this thing called “wrong” and it’s relationship to love.

Love Versus Wrongdoing.

As we are informed by Paul, Love is against doing wrong!  That too is a very simple way to say it.  More comprehensively, real love can be said to be against people doing wrong to anyone, including self or to anything, to supporting wrongdoing by anyone and to assisting and/or promoting wrong action by anyone and everyone- always.  The problem is there is great disagreement about what actually is doing wrong.  Added to that is all the disagreement about what is more wrong and less wrong, and when is something wrong and when is it not, plus the question are some things wrong for some and not others.  There also is debate over what are the different kinds of wrongness and wrongdoing encompassed by Paul’s teaching and are there types of wrongness not included in Paul’s statements on wrongness (see “Lies and Love”).

Now Add Translation Ponderments and Wonderments

Interpretations and translations have, do and will continue to come in sundry variations.  This is due to the ever-changing and living nature of language.  This may be especially true for our highly dynamic and now worldwide use of English.

Instead of the English words wrong and wrongfulness, some interpret Paul’s Greek “ou chai epi te adikia” to variously mean, not wrong but unrighteousness, wickedness, inequity, injustice, evil, sin, etc.  One translation even puts it as” love does not revel when others grovel”.  However, many contemporary scholars seem to agree that for attaining a fairly accurate understanding of what Paul meant in current English, the terms wrong and wrongfulness will do rather well, hence their use here.

What Is Wrongfulness Actually?

Have you ever contemplated what is involved and encompassed by the word wrong?  Simply put, it means not right, incorrect and/or mistaken.  It also means evil, sinful, unjust unethical, etc.  Paul’s teaching holds that wrong and wrongfulness are not of or from real love, but then from what?  The old answer was from Satan.  A more psychological-based answer is that wrongness perhaps comes from lovelessness and/or that which is anti – love, (i.e. indifference, hate, etc.).

So as not miss anything important, let us look at wrongfulness broadly.  If getting happy or pleased about any type or kind of wrongness is not a component or result of healthy, real love, it seems wise to develop some understanding of the types and kinds of wrongness we might have to deal with in life.  Wrongness is actually a rather complicated topic.  For a greater comprehension, I suggest you take a few minutes to scan the following seven groups of words.  Each is related to different kinds of wrongfulness for us to be concerned about.

? WRONGFULNESS & WRONGDOING ?

Term Clusters:
I. Being bad, unfair, shameful, sinful, unethical, wicked, reprehensible
II. Being untrue, false, fake, fallacious, dishonest, counterfactual, misleading, deceptive
III. Being incorrect, mistaken, in error, erroneous, inaccurate, invalid, misguided, ungrounded, inexact
IV. Being unjust, unfair, criminal, felonious, illegal, lawless
V. Being bigoted, intolerant, narrowminded, prejudice, extremist, close minded
VI. Being schadenfreude (i.e. pleased about others mishaps, misfortunes, losses, injuries, illnesses, etc.)
VII. Being cruel, malicious, sadistic, vicious, indifferent, uncaring, hateful
What others you can think of ?


It would seem that with a truly and fully loving orientation, real love would have us be not rejoicing but unhappy about each of the above and, when possible, have us acting to reverse them.  It also would seem likely Paul was pretty much indicating that.  Basically and more succinctly, yet still broadly, wrongdoing can be seen as encompassing most things unduly hurtful, most things harmful, and most things mistaken.

The Ever-Changing Understanding of Wrongfulness

It is to be noted that what is called wrong varies greatly all over the world and throughout history.  Not only that but many things are simultaneously considered both very right and very wrong depending on your cultural and/or societal frames of reference and functioning.  For instance in certain places it is wrong not to murder your daughter if she comes to love a person not within your cultural/religious frame of functioning.  Similar to so-called honor killings, revenge murders also sometimes are semi-justified in a large number of even modern Western world social spheres.

The degree of wrongness something gets judged to have is very different in various places.  Publicly chewing and spitting out gum on the ground in Singapore can bring chastisement, a fine and even jail.  Acting homosexually loving or sexual in more than 70 countries is illegal and in some places can even result in execution.  However, in 26 nations homosexual marriage is legal.  In most of the remaining countries, to one degree or another, it is increasingly accepted (see “What About “Bi” Love?”).

Sometimes what is called quite wrong evolves into being called right or even becoming of no significance at all.  Most of the modern world is now largely unconcerned about double religion marriage though that is still punishable by death in a shrinking number of lands.  Bi-racial love and royalty/commoner love relationships, in most places, are no longer illegal, shameful or scandalous like they once were.

Right and Wrong in Love Relating

Slowly in much of the world, that you love is becoming far more important than who you love and the categories that they are placed in.  That you have love is becoming more significant than whether or not you have societal approval for the labeled form in which you do your love.  Good, healthy love relating is being increasingly recognized as the substantive core that matters while gender classification becomes somewhat more peripheral. Link “Gender Diversity Love”  Hence, it is that love and being really and healthfully loving along with being really and healthfully loved that is becoming more right than is official marriage, progenitor genetics, social propriety, legal authorization or formal religious sanctification.  It is not that these things still do not still matter to many but that they matter less than does healthy, real love and love relating (see “Throuple Love, A Growing Worldwide Way of the Future?”).  It seems it is being more and more recognized by some that there is a deep, natural inadequacy or wrongness to loveless living.  It is a sort of wrong, in a healthfulness sense, and in an actualization or fulfilling our potential’s sense.  Consider these two ideas “the more we do healthy, real love the more right we do healthy, real life, and conversely “the more we do not do love the more, in a sense wrong we do life”.

A Core Concept for Rightness in Love-Relating

Remember this core concept for love success “Love feelings come naturally.  Love-relating takes learning”.  From this concept, we conclude things can be wrong in the sense of making a mistake for us to remain love-relating ignorant or without available love and love-relating knowledge.  Therefore, what you are doing right now is doing right by reading, thinking and learning about love.  Congratulations, and hurrah for you.  Do allow yourself some delight about that (see “Love Is Natural --Love Relating You Learn”).

Paul must have recognized the importance of learning about love.  Why else would he have worked at telling us about what love is and is not.  He wanted us to do love well and wrote the often quoted 16 points to help us with that.  So, now learn some more.

It is thought that at least half of all attempts at love-relating fail.  Another fourth never get close to their potential for success.  This may be true for love relationships of all kinds not just for couples love.  Parent/child, family, deep friendships, comrade love, self-love, pet love, etc. – they all count.  By the way, some are beginning to think, percentage-wise, comradeship love may be the most succeeded at form of love, others think it is pet love, while many more suspect romantic love to be the least successful.  What is your guess?

Why?  Possibly because a lot of couples seem to do a lot of love-relating wrong or not nearly as well as they could if they learned and practiced more about the how-to’s of healthy, real love-relating (see “Destroyers of Love: The 7 Big “Ds” Most Likely to Ruin Your Love Relationships”).  That of course (similar to Paul’s points perhaps) is what this site is all about.  So, we would like it if you would tell some people about this site and talk over your ideas concerning what you have just read.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: It is said “we learn better what we teach” so, what part of what you have just read might you most like teach somebody and how will you do that?

Love Thinks No Evil Nor Keeps A Count Of Wrongs Done

Mini-Love-Lesson #246

Synopsis: What is thinking evil; the strikingly harmful psychology of thinking evil for individuals and love relationships; score keeping’s corrosive problems; and an interpretation enrichment puzzle flows from; in and about Paul’s ninth tenant about the nature of love.

What Is Thinking Evil ?

Do you know how to think no evil?  That is the first part of Paul’s ninth tenet about the nature of love.  Do you have clear ideas about what thinking evil might really mean?  The second part has to do with keeping score as many people call it.  Do you keep a count, or score, on who has wronged you, hold grudges, plan or fantasize revenge, hope or pray for bad things to happen to those you oppose?

Do you obsess or enjoy thinking about things that cause harm and destruction?  Do you think evil of yourself?  Do you think evil thoughts about loved ones you get frustrated with, irritated with, angry at or feel hurt and/or betrayed by?  Do you harbor hateful thoughts toward friends, relatives, close family, children or people of any other love relationship (see “A Dozen Kinds of Love to Have in Your Life”)?  How about groups or classes of people (see “Love Against Bigotry”)?  Are these the kind of things Paul meant when he was inspired to give us this teaching about love?  Do you agree with the idea that real love does not cause, motivate or lead us to evil thinking?  What actually is evil?

To this mental health professional, evil is that which is anti-healthful to individuals and/or to groups of people including everything from two-person relationships to societies at large.  Others have different ideas.  I often have wondered if originally all morals and ethics eventually related back to primitive guesses about individual and societal health issues, one way or another.  Is evil really that which is sick, malignant, life harmful and destructive, psycho-bio-socially dysfunctionally corrupting and, therefore, ultimately in opposition to human survival?  I am sure many ethicists, moralists and others might tell you differently.  So, what do you understand the meaning of good and evil to be?  And what do you think about how thinking evil may be influencing you and the relationships of your own personal world?

The Psychology of Thinking Evil and the Harm It Does

In psychology, evil thinking can be seen as a form, or subcategory, of negative thinking.  Both for individuals and relationships, filling your thoughts and/or focusing too much on the negative, the destructive and the harmful can and does negatively impact our psychological and physical health.  It also can have a strikingly corrosive effect on your way of relating to others and usually in the way others reactively relate with you.  Such negative thinking has been shown actually to be able to shorten your life.  How?  Essentially by causing your biology to frequently make and circulate damaging stress hormones through you, along with triggering the biochemistry of mounting anxiety, fear states and toxic tension.  All of that makes for heart attacks, strokes, the development of poor health habits and increased addictions susceptibility.

Relationally, those who spend too much mental time and energy on the negative often become less positive, less cooperative and less happy with those they have love for.  Furthermore, suspiciousness, fearfulness, over cautiousness and compulsive safety consciousness may occur and tend to limit or dampen co-experiencing fun, adventuresomeness, sexuality and loving interactions (see “Removing Your Hidden Blocks to Receiving Love Fully”  and “Love in the Fridge”).

It is important to note that thinking about evil and thinking evil are two different things.  This is especially true emotionally.  Thinking evil thoughts, and enjoying it, is believed to be addictive as well as being erosively destructive.  Being agonized over thinking evil thought is not only painful but usually unproductive.  Being tortured by, or obsessed with, evil thoughts is pathological and often in need of the help of a good mental health professional.

Relationally, there appears to be a connection between thinking a lot of evil and/or negative thoughts and increases in couples and families having angry fights and episodes of domestic violence.  Also, there seems to be a correlation between negative thinking and the depletion of the brain’s production of the neurochemistry needed for processing happiness and loving feelings.  Furthermore, in close relationships, feelings of frustration, irritability, anxiety and depression seem to have a circular, cause and result, cyclical dynamic with cognitive negativity.

What Does Keeping Score Do to Us ?

Paul made a special point of telling us love is not about thinking a lot about wrongs done.  Psychologically and relationally, this is a good idea because it helps keep us from being repeatedly impacted by the bad of the past, more able to be focused on the good of the now and the possible good of the future where progress is possible.  Perhaps even more important, keeping score gets in the way of the freedom that forgiveness provides us, the creating of reconciliation and the opportunity of fresh starts.  Awareness of what has gone wrong can be useful so as to learn from it and behave more cautiously and successfully in the future.  Otherwise, not so much.

However, millions of people have been so hurt in love gone wrong experiences they never again try love relating.  Hence, they suffer love malnutrition and starvation along with its life destructive effects.  The question then becomes how to keep moving forward toward healthy, real love but with sufficient safety precautions.  That is one of the many places a good, love knowledgeable counselor or therapist can be of considerable help.

Individually, being obsessed with wrongs done, defeats, betrayals, losses, unfairness, mistakes, etc., rather than just learning from those experiences and doing better, can have very detrimental effects.  Interestingly, this turns out to be especially true for our immunity mechanisms.  Seeking vengeance, getting even, planning revenge, holding grudges, etc. is definitely a prescription for self and relationship sabotage.  Thus think no evil and keep no score of wrongs is a pretty good prescription for mental, emotional and relational health.

Interpretation Enrichment Puzzles

I like to suggest the more you can study different scholarly-based translations of a writing in a different language, the more you may deepen and broaden your understanding of that writing.  Different interpretations can help you better see the wider understandings, applications and possibilities of what was perhaps meant in any original.  Studying the original language also can be a great help.  However, that will not necessarily give the right or true meaning because words in every language are always at least slowly altering over time and location.  They differ as to common usage, exact definition and connotation.  These variations then create an ever-changing need for variations of translation.

Especially, does all this apply to this ninth tenant of Paul’s teaching on love.  Paul is understood to have written in ancient biblical Greek “ou logizetal to kakon”.  This usually gets translated into English at least two different ways and sometimes both.  Way one usually reads something like “love thinks no evil”, or “love thinks not evil”; other variations exist such as “love does not impute evil”, “love is not of an evil mind” and “love does not cause evil thoughts”.

Way two usually gets interpreted something like “love does not keep an account of wrongs”, “ love keeps no score of wrongdoing”, “love does not take into account wrongs suffered”, “wrongdoing is not scored by love”, etc.  Other variations include “love does not brood over wrongs”, “does not keep a record of complaints”, “does not keep track of other people’s wrongs”, “does not keep score of sins”, “keeps no resentful score of things wrong”, and “keeps no account for getting even or blaming”, etc.

I was advised that fully 16 of the most popular New Testament translations do not include part one – the “think no evil” interpretation and that at least an equal number of other translation efforts do not include part two – the “keeps no count or score” part.  Furthermore, I have been instructed that there are quite a few other learned and popular approaches that do include both parts one and two.

Why this big difference?  I don’t really know except to say translators vary a lot on this question.  Interpretation scholars also are known to have rather different ways of trying to get ancient words and meanings across into contemporary English understandings while also attempting to be as accurate as possible.

I have including part one and two here not because of biblical scholarship but rather because as a mental health and relational therapist both parts seem quite useful for health and well-being  I hope you may find them so in your life and in your love relationships.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: Do you think it’s true that how a person thinks about love is how they become about love, and how they don’t think about love is how they don’t become concerning love?

Love Does Not Insist on Its Own Way

Mini-Love-Lesson #243

Synopsis: A right to insistence or not; what about different translations; the real meaning of insist on its own way; and the relational psychology of insistence with systemic examples all work to broaden and deepen an understanding of Paul’s seventh item for describing love.

Note: This is the seventh in our series on a New Testament answer to the question What Is Love with additional understandings from relational psychology.

Does Love Give You the Right to Insist?

Some people believe that loving someone gives you the right to insist on a lot of things, make a lot of demands, give orders and mandate rules.  Some believe this is only true for husbands and fathers and other venerable elders.  Paul apparently saw it differently.  By this translation, Paul seems to be telling us love is not a motivator for insisting and demanding behaviors.  That seems especially true when what we are insisting on gives us some type of gain or control over someone we supposedly love.

But wait.  We have some translation problems.  The version or translation of the Scriptures you consult may read differently.

Translation Issues

Paul used the biblical Greek “ou zetei ta eautes” to convey the message describing this important element of love.  It has been translated a number of other ways.  Some examples are: love does not force itself on others, love is not self-seeking, love is not selfish, love does not seek its own advantage, love seeks not its own, love does not demand its own way, love does not seek to aggrandize itself.  There are quite a few other translations, each of which puts a slightly different spin on what Paul was trying to tell us.  Some scholars have suggested a fuller meaning is love does not seek for its own profit and pleasure or edification as a goal in itself.  Love does not strive for one’s own advantage over others is another possibility.

Here we are relying on the widely influential Revised Standard Version and the English Standard Version translations partly because of the enormous amount of scholarship that went into trying to accurately interpreting what Paul meant.

What Does “Insist on Its Own Way” Really Mean?

The understanding here seems to mean love does not motivate us to demand, order, mandate or dictate how those we love should think, act or feel.  The implication seems to be that our loved ones are to be treated democratically and with equanimity.  Therefore, love pushes us to take into account our loved one’s views, feelings, situations, needs and idiosyncrasies.  This necessitates developing good listening skills, seeing through others’ eyes and not being blind or unresponsive to the desires, emotions or ongoing changes occurring in or for our loved ones.  When differences or conflicts occur, working to compromise, or better yet, synthesize differences and working to have an “I win, you win nobody loses” outcome focus is what love requires.

This understanding of love also means not trying to control, predetermine, manipulate or force one’s own desired outcomes but, preferably with love, relying on requesting, trading and negotiating rather than insisting.

Insistence is related to having to be right, anxiety, insecurity, domination and sometimes dependence on sameness.  None of which are thought to be very loving.

The Relational Psychology of Insisting

Frequently insisting and demanding your own way comes across as intrusive, controlling, autocratic, stressful, selfish and unloving.  When it is seen this way, it usually causes the recipient to emotionally move away from the one doing the insisting and thereafter they tend to avoid that person.  Emotional closeness definitely can be prevented or destroyed by too much demanding and insisting.

There are a number of different interaction patterns to insisting things of a loved one.  Some people comply with what is insisted upon while secretly and increasingly becoming more and more resentful.  One result of that is to get even with retaliatory, passive/aggressive sabotage of the one doing the insisting.  Another thing that happens has to do with the suppression/explosion dynamic.  If too much insisting and demanding comes at a person for too long and they keep complying with the demands over and over suppressing their negative feelings about it, they may one day explode in anger and rage.  That has been known to lead to sudden violence and/or surprise abandonment.  Especially if alcohol and certain drugs are involved this can be quite dangerous.

One of the worst of all patterns involves an implosion syndrome.  This is one where one person is repeatedly insisting and demanding and the other surrendering and being compliant until one day they surrender to what another insists on, one too many times, and have a mental or physical breakdown.  Sometimes they even die seemingly to escape a no longer tolerable relationship situation.  It is amazing how many people suffering some form of serious, chronic illness suddenly start getting well after, one way or another, they lose their problematic spouse or they disconnect from their high stress family.

It is important to know that giving-in to demands and insistence rewards the one doing the demanding and insisting, because it works.  This, in turn, increases the likelihood of an increase in insistence behavior.  Some people mistakenly believe that their surrendering to what is insisted upon eventually will get them treated better and their life will get easier, plus they finely will be better loved.  Seldom does that happen.  Anything that works is more likely, not less likely, to be increasingly repeated.

It is very sexually exciting for some people to be in the submissive, surrendering role while their love mate is coming across as strong, domineering, demanding and insisting of much, both inside and outside the realm of the erotic.  So long as this is a game the couple plays where both agree to play with adequate safety features, and it does not develop into a total lifestyle, a couple can be healthy and okay.  However, sometimes things go too far or go on too long.  This is when an alteration from the dominance/submission pattern of behavior needs to occur without any loss of love in the relationship.  That usually takes some careful, loving work.

Another dynamic of the love relationship that has too much insisting going on is the open warfare pattern.  In this, the participants get to battle openly for who will get their way.  This battling can look really awful but actually often is healthier than more covert interaction patterns of behavior.  That probably is because it is more open and cathartic.

Some, mostly quite insecure people, enjoy being ordered around and having a lot of things demanded of them.  It offers reassuring proof to them that they and their compliance is wanted and valued.  The problem often is that the one doing the insisting seems to usually start devaluing the compliant one.  Their surrendering ways become identified as weakness.  This weakness eventually is disrespected and seen as unchallenging and boring.  The other thing that happens in this pattern is that the compliant one grows stronger and gets tired of always complying.  Breakups ensue.

All in all, being an insisting and demanding person in a love relationship usually does not work out well.  Neither does being too much of a submissive, compliant, surrendering person work out well.  That seems to be largely because, as the French Courts of Love ruled in the 1100s, love is best done by equals and not in relationships where one is dominated and the other domineering which they saw as was required to occur in marriage (of that time), and as it is best done in love relationships in our time.

One More Thing.

Lots of people seem to get a lot out of talking-over things religious and scriptural.  Likewise, relational psychology can be pretty intriguing and fascinating for many.  So, you might use what you have just read for such a discussion.  If you do, please mention this site and all that it offers.  Thanks

As always – Go and Grow with Love
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: Is it true that the more overtly strong a person tries to appear the weaker they must covertly be?

Love is Not Rude

Mini-Love-Lesson  #242

Synopsis: Our Renaissance of rudeness, secretly rude positive?; rudeness by intensity and variety; important or not, research into rudeness; rudeness against health and love; translation issues; a big Buddhist helper; and how it all effects your love life are all delved into here.

Note: This is the sixth in our series on a New Testament reply to the question What Is Love? (see “Love Is Patient”,  “Love Is Kind”,  “Love Is Not Jealous”,  “Love Is Not Boastful/Pretentious”, and  “Love Is Not Arrogant” ) Look for number seven in this series next month.

Our Renaissance of Rudeness And Your Love Life

Social analysts describe us as currently living in a spreading Renaissance of Rudeness slowly invading the personal lives of more and more people, especially those living in the urban centers of the world.  Some theorize it is a counter to previous formality, phony politeness and political correctness trends.  There is also a suspected tendency for more and more people to act emotionally hypersensitive as a way for acquiring a sense of permission to rudely guilt trip blaming others for their own bad feelings.

Other analysts point to data indicating low self-confidence and weak ego strength problems which seem to be growing at epidemic rates.  With that rudeness, also growing is an easy way to pretend to have social strength.  Others believe the Rudeness Renaissance is just a passing fad, destructive though it may be.

Whatever the reason, the research shows rudeness to be destructive to love and love relationships, detrimental to stress resistance and stress illness recovery, harmful to cooperative functioning at home and at work, to creative problem solving, and to the neurochemistry of happiness.  All this proves true for not only the participants but for onlookers and bystanders of rudeness events..  Children especially are suspected of being particularly susceptible.  It would seem the love relationships of everyone who experiences or perpetrates moderate to severe actions of rudeness suffers more than they gain, if they gain anything.

Are You Secretly Rude Positive?

Do you or some people you know secretly enjoy rudeness?  Some people find rudeness sexy, funny, they may see it as being confident, independent, unfettered, rebellious, nonconformist and socially powerful?  Others think rudeness is realness and everything else is phony.  Then there are those who are very attracted to the people who frequently exhibit especially shocking or clever rudeness.

Rude-crude sex especially is in demand in certain circles as is rough-tough love which may subconsciously project strength, intensity and even safeguarding potential to some.  Those raised in overly formal or polite, but restrictive, homes may find a sense of relaxed freedom mixing with the more rude and crude.  There are those who feel a pressure of unfamiliarity around the more polite and civil acting but are at ease with the less couth.

The problem is rudeness tends to eventually wear thin and become destructive to love relationships even where rudeness is seen as desirable.

What Is and Is Not Rude?

Rudeness can mean anything that belittles another person.  Purposeful rudeness is a form of social aggression where another person’s value is attacked and discounted or treated as being of inferior significance.  More potent rudeness can mean showing contempt, scorn, disregard, disdain and indifference.  Strong rudeness also can be demeaning, degrading, humiliating, embarrassing, shaming, discrediting, debasing, devaluing, cheapening, insulting and condescending.

Rudeness also can mean acting or speaking in ways that those who see or hear it judge it to be selfish, disgraceful, indecent, dishonorable, boorish, unkind, undemocratic, interruptive, impolite, discomforting and definitely non-loving.  Milder rudeness may be merely discourteous, ill mannered, uncivil, churlish,, harsh, gruff, blunt, tactless, ungracious, curt or course.  Done repeatedly these milder forms also can be quite destructive, especially to ongoing love relationships.

It is important to note that unintentional rudeness, accidental rudeness, mis-perceived and misinterpreted rudeness, as well as clashing cultural standards of rudeness also exists.

What is not rude, of course, is being polite, courteous, mannerly, respectful, gracious, tactful, cordial, affable, civil and amiable.  At a deeper level, any treatment of a person which conveys that they are of value and that they have importance and significance works in opposition to rudeness and is an asset to love relationships.

Is Rudeness Really All That Important?

There are those that wonder, of all the many more heinous behaviors, why would Paul single out or be inspired to select the relatively mild behavior of rudeness to comment on in his delineation of what love is and what love is not.  One answer is that in Paul’s world, rudeness may have been a really big deal, so much so that rudeness might even get you killed.  In that way and time, it may have been much like ghetto gang cultures where showing disrespect to the wrong people might also get you killed.

Another answer is that Paul’s Greek word “aschemonei” which gets translated as rude, meant a whole lot more than what we usually mean by the word rude today.  More fitting for current interpretations might be things like love is not abusive, vile, nasty, foul, vicious or wicked.  A third answer is that Paul may have understood that rudeness is much more insidiously destructive and antithetical to love than is generally recognized today.  (Note that some biblical translators do not interpret that Paul meant to mean rude, as we understand it today but rather something more like “love does not act disgracefully, indecently dishonorably, abusively”, etc.)

This more significant understanding of rudeness is backed up by modern research.  Did you know that some research shows you have a 94% likelihood of experiencing a counter getting even aggression response after treating someone rudely, if they feel they can retaliate safely?  Did you also know that if you are generally perceived as being a rude person, you have an 88% chance of being treated with exclusionary, distancing and sabotaging behaviors in interaction networks, including families and work settings?  Children and spouses tend to grow more emotionally distant and more likely tend to break off relationships with those more commonly rude than with those viewed as more polite.  However, rudeness is often forgiven when a person is perceived as experiencing a cascade of losses, disappointments, frustrations and/or defeats.

How Love Against Rudeness Can Work

Buddhists and Hindus call it “ Muditi” and learn it as being one of the four major mindsets of real love.  Muditi has to do with giving others love by presenting them with yourself as a happy, positive person to be with.  This can mean being your genuine best self by having authentic joy, a positive countenance, pleasant thoughtfulness and, of course, not being at all rude.  If something more serious is occurring, being kind and compassionate takes over but otherwise presenting your Muditi love is your everyday love-gift to others.  This Muditi way can be obtained by purposeful practice but never by being phony.

Research shows this is a very good, healthy self-love way to go about much of life, as well as being quite healthy for those around you.  Having a general loving, positive, happy, appreciative, enjoyable countenance reduces stress hormone development, improves immunity mechanism functioning, improves relational cooperation and harmony and contributes to a whole lot of other healthy habit-making behaviors.  Muditi is much more than politeness or civility.  It is a way to actually love others as you love yourself in ordinary day-to-day living.  As such, Muditi is a greater opposite to being rude, as well as to being indifferent and just functioning robotically.  By the way, some of my theolog friends comment that the Muditi approach is quite compatible with Christianity.

Functioning from a Muditi mindset when encountering rudeness also can be quite disarming and game changing in otherwise difficult situations.  For more about Muditi, and there is a lot more to it, you might want to look up Buddha’s Four Minds of Love and read Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hahn.

One More Little Thing

Who might you enjoy talking with about this mini-love-lessons on rudeness and love? If you do that, it would be a polite kindness to us if you mentioned this site and all that it offers.

As always Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: How aware do you think you are of times and of actions that others, especially loved ones, might think you are being rude and what might you want to do about that?

Love Is Not Arrogant

Mini-Love-Lesson #241

Synopsis:  This mini-love-lesson starts with a brief review of how arrogance and love work against each other; a look at the nature of arrogance; true and false arrogance; its destructive effects on love relationships; an appreciative note on Paul’s unusual inclusion of arrogance in his list of what love is and is not.

How Arrogance Works Against Love                                     

Arrogance acts as a put down to others as it attempts to put up the person who is demonstrating the arrogance.  Love works to help put up, or boost, everyone with no put downs involved.

When a person speaks or acts with arrogance, they may not know it but they are sending a message conveying that they are more okay, important and of significance than the person to whom they are sending the message.  Furthermore, the message conveys that the person they are messaging is of a lesser worth, status and power than merits much notice, attention or interacting with.  That message also may be received and interpreted by those who are very wounded and vulnerable as indicating they are being seen as too unimportant, deficient and flawed to be loved or to even to exist.

Healthy, real love motivates sending a very opposite message.  It works to indicate you certainly are an okay person worthy of attending to, dealing with, noticing, appreciating, caring about and you certainly are of equal, democratic value and importance along with the rest of us. In short you are a person to love and your existence is valued (see “Communicating Better with Love: Mini Lessons”).

What Is Arrogance?

Arrogance has been described as unpleasant, unattractive and undeserved pridefulness.  Arrogance simply can be defined as a pretentiousness of superiority over others.  It often is manifested by behaving insolent, overbearing, contemptuous, pompous, vain, demeaning, smug, imperious, haughty, intolerant, conceited, lordly, entitled, disdainful, bored, dismissive, excessively critical and with exaggerated bragging.

True and False Arrogance

There is true and fake arrogance.  True arrogance is when someone consciously really believes they inherently are superior to others.  Fake arrogance is when someone acts superior but consciously knows or suspects they are engaged in a phony act.  In both cases, it is thought that subconsciously those manifesting arrogance secretly suspect and strongly fear they are actually inferior.  A lack of true, healthy self-love is suspected as being at the root of all that.  Arrogance actually may be a compensating defense mechanism trying to counterbalance the lack of self-love (see “Self-Love -- What Is It?”).

The Why of Arrogance

Arrogance probably exists because it works.  At least it works in shallow, not close, pragmatic relationships but it does not work well in real love relating.  Some people use arrogance to show they are powerful, as a way to dominate in social situations, as a support mechanism giving permission to rudely vent anger, be negatively critical and openly show disapproval, etc., to fend off would-be challengers, avoid being vulnerable and to escape more real and emotionally close, personal interactions which they secretly fear and feel inadequate about.

Arrogance may have evolved from primitive blustering behaviors which helped scare off competition and assisted in keeping underlings compliant and submissive.

The Destructive Effect of Arrogance in Love Relationships

Frequently arrogance tends to have a distancing effect in couples, families and friendships.  That especially is true if the demeaning put down component in arrogance is strong.  There are people who admire what they think is arrogance but often it really is okay pride, playful showing off or just self-confidence they are perceiving.

Healthy, real love is strongly affirmational rather than demeaning and disrespectful as is arrogance.  In some relationships, arrogance is demonstrated through disguised constructive criticism, teasing and other subtly dominating actions.  It also can show up as for your own good manipulative behavior.  All that tends to erode love and frequently results in passive aggressive counterattacks and sometimes eventual relational abandonment.  Sometimes these negative effects are hidden and suppressed but secretly they are accumulating internally.  Then eventually there is a big, destructive eruption and maybe a relational dissolution.

The participants in Love Relationships benefit from healthy self-pride, self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-love partly because none of that needs to have any put down or demeaning component as does arrogance.

Acting arrogant to a loved one tends to decrease rather than increase their respect for you and it is no help at all in growing emotionally closer and more loving with one another.  Emotional distancing that sometimes occurs with arrogance treatment has been cited as increasing the likelihood of an affair occurring.  Arrogance also is thought to help demote democratic teamwork development in couples and families, as it promotes resentment and resistance in the same arenas.  None that can be good for, or part of growing healthy, real love.

Paul’s Inspired Inclusion of Arrogance

Arrogance interweaves with Paul’s tenet of love not being boastful/pretentious but it also presents a whole array of additional components to consider as we already have seen.  Paul’s anti-Arrogance message is one of the more surprising inclusions in Paul’s list of what love is and what love is not.  Not many have addressed the arrogance and love issue but on close analysis there are those who find it insightful, inspired and an essential understanding about love.

Paul wrote love is not “ou phusioutai” which in Paul’s Greek is literally translated as “not puffed up” but then, as now, it is interpreted to mean not arrogant.  Some think it is better translated as love is “not conceited” or “puffed up with false pride” or a “with sense of superiority”.  Perhaps Paul understood that when one person in a love relationship, or a love network has an arrogant sense of superiority over one, or more, others in the relationship, that has a poisonous effect on the love relationship.  This was and still seems to be a rather under-dealt-with understanding of how love does and does not work (see “How Love Works -- Seven Basics”).

One More Thing

Who do you know that might enjoy talking about what you have just read?  Might not doing such talking be expansive and enriching?  If you do it, please mention this site and our many free mini-love-lessons as well as our free subscription service where you automatically, every month receive intriguing, recent and useful information about love, arguably the most important of all topics.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question:  If I love you and treat you arrogantly, have I not just shown you I have deficiencies?