Lest We Lose Love

Lest We Lose Love

Rediscovering the Core of Western Culture

By Scherto Gill

Lest We Lose Love is a most timely book that helps the reader to resume confidence in humanity’s future in the light of the present complex global crises. It enables people to find hope in our collective capacity to value what truly matters to our common life, sustain congenial relationships amongst all, and extend our caring to self, other people, and other beings on the planet.

Paperback, 280 Pages

ISBN:9781839987618

April 2023

£19.99, $24.95

  • About This Book
  • Reviews
  • Author Information
  • Series
  • Table of Contents
  • Links
  • Podcasts

About This Book

Few are aware that since antiquity, there has always been the philosophy of love at the core of Western culture. It articulates what makes life meaningful and worthwhile, and how we can live a good life together through an ethic of love. This book fills this significant gap, not only reconnecting the reader with such important wisdom, and more crucially, also reorienting our socio-economic institutions and collective actions towards more loving and caring, and more concerned with the qualities of our lived experiences. 

By re(dis)covering the gifts of love, we may challenge the existing systemic dehumanisation, and draw from knowledge and understanding already present in our culture. This is timely because the global crises we are facing are catastrophic, especially when it comes to climate change. Therefore we must respond from a place of love rather than fear. Whether it is reducing the use of fossil fuels, lowering greenhouse emission, choosing the right food to eat, or advocating for structural transformation, our concerted endeavours start with an appropriate appreciation of the nature of our well-being which includes the planet’s well-ness. This book highlights a clear pathway forward: to ensure collective healing and co-flourishing with nature, we must practise the art of loving. 

Although introducing conceptions of love developed throughout Western history of thought, this book is not a book of philosophy. Instead, it makes philosophical ideas of love more accessible to anyone who is interested in developing a better understanding of love and its evolution. It intends to awaken the reader to such claims about love that have been quietly speaking to humanity from the depth of the Western culture. In doing so, this book invites the reader to become curious about how and why love has been side-lined if not almost forgotten in the contemporary Western socio-economic systems and national and international politics. Ultimately, by re-familiarising ourselves with these articulations of love, this book urges us to embark on the paths of love and engage in those activities, processes, experiences and relationships that constitute the good life, and embrace the practices of love.

Reviews

“Professor Gill addresses the global crisis of hope by combining the rich wellsprings of historic philosophy with today’s wavefront of systems and complexity science. She gives new life to the immortal concept of love, impoverished by excessive rationalism and enfeebled by romanticism. Her presentation of love as the doing of relationships, of caring and valuing people for themselves, is an inspiring foundation for living well and finding meaning today and tomorrow.” —John, Lord Alderdice FRCPsych, Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford.

Lest We Lose Love is a passionately informed and deeply layered work, which succeeds in both excavating and rewilding the landscape of love. Illuminating in its content and meticulously researched, this book reaches the core of what it means to be human and is a profound act of service. Vital as well as vitalizing I’m reminded on every page of William Blake’s words: ‘We are put on earth that we may learn to bear the beam of love.’” —Marina Cantacuzino MBE, Journalist, author, broadcaster and founder of The Forgiveness Project.

“Drawing on the rich resources of the Western tradition, this important book gives us a powerful framework for thinking about the fundamental connection between love and human flourishing. In a world in which we are ever more powerful and ever less able to use that power for the common good, Scherto invites us to consider the possibility that love may be the only way forward.” — Robert Boisture, President, The Fetzer Institute.

“Drawing on the rich resources of the Western tradition, this important book gives us a powerful framework for thinking about the fundamental connection between love and human flourishing. In a world in which we are ever more powerful and ever less able to use that power for the common good, Scherto invites us to consider the possibility that love may be the only way forward.” — Robert Boisture, President, The Fetzer Institute.

“Fortunately for all of us, Scherto Gill’s careful investigation into love in Western culture brings to the fore a matter that has been hidden away – the matter of love. We must all read it.” —David Cadman, Harmony Professor of Practice, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

The book focuses on Western culture, including Greek, Christian, modernist, and postmodernist perspectives. The author views love as an important part of what it means to live a good life, and she organizes the book around a triadic framework—love as valuing, love as “relationing,” and love as caring. She provides brief summary accounts of numerous thinkers on love, from Plato and Augustine to less-known figures such as Tullia d’Aragona and Dietrich von Hildebrand. The chapter on “love in practice” offers information on more recent developments, including Martin Luther King’s vision of Beloved Community, the UK-based organization Compassion in Politics, and the Catholic Church's Focolare movement. Because there is a lot of information here, the book is difficult to read straight through, but it could be useful as a compact reference work on the philosophy of love—CHOICE

Author Information

Scherto Gill is Professor of Research and Director of the Global Humanity for Peace Institute. Her books cover subjects including collective healing, well-being and education.

Series

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Table of Contents

Preface; Acknowledgements; 1 Time for a New Narrative; 2 A Threefold Framework for Understanding Love; 3 Love as Valuing; 4 Love as Relationing; 5 Love as Caring; 6 Love in Practice; 7 Towards a Paradigm of Love; Bibliography; Index

Links

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