Martin Luther King's Three Types Of Love

King’s three types of Love What is love and how we distinguish between various levels of love? The answer might indeterminate since “Love” interprets differently by unlike people in different level. In another word, “love is not just one thing; love for God, country, parents, partners, children, neighbor, and so forth all have different qualities”(Guardian). The denotation of love differs between levels of action and feeling, and a definition of each level must be discovered in order to understand its varying power. Nevertheless, I’m not discussing the love we normally know in our day to day life; instead I’ll discuss the loves that Martin Luther King Jr. identifies during civil rights movement. He distinguishes three particular levels
describes each level of love in unique ways. According to King, “Eros” can be explained as an attractive type of love, it’s an aesthetic love (400). Eros is a romantic love, the form of love one would have towards a beautiful object, or person. Eros has sexual drive that is utmost obvious in the early stages of a relationship. In other words, eros has sexual passion and desire. This could be considered to be the first definition people would consider when questioned regarding to the meaning of love. King said, “It has come to us to be a sort of romantic love, and so in a sense, we have read about it and experienced it” (King, 400). Eros love will injure itself if it is not satisfied with its need as mentioned by Shakespeare in the text, “‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove” (King, 400). Eros love depends on intimacy relation and this relation or love could weaken sooner or later naturally; for instance, Eros is the physical love and affection between a man and a woman which is part of the way mankind is physically fruitful and multiplies. However, unfortunately, the selfishness and perversion of people turn Eros to evil and the connection could become
However, agapic love doesn’t believe or seek gain for self even though the love isn’t depending on any quality of personal love. I think, that’s why his goal was to take one of these three levels and use it as the definitive quality of the non-violent movement. He might want to use the words of God that said, “love your enemies” (King, 401) or “Be kind to one another,” Ephesians 4:32 to avoid the loss of human life. King said, “His social-justice movement would not use violence. Instead, it would use agape, a classical Greek word that means unconditional love. In Christian terms, that should extend to all humankind” (Ireland). When God creates his creature doesn’t discrete them by color or race, all human beings are uniform in God’s eyes and should not be excluded from anything. So that, King wants liquefies the drawback that colored people encounter with peace instead of using rage and fight. As a matter of fact, he wants to use “Agape Love” to win the issue that produces by the racial inequality. King said to his fellows or colored people in particular “‘there is a way to win your freedom and not lose your soul’” (Ireland). He doesn’t want to use hatred and revenge against