Newsweek Interview-Is Romance Dead? A new book offers advice for sustaining love in an ‘anti-romantic age.’
Newsweek : Selfishness isn’t usually the word we use to describe love.
Of all the nonsense written about love, none is more absurd than the notion that ideal love is selfless. To love is to see myself in you and to wish to celebrate myself with you. What I love is the embodiment of my values in another person. Love is an act of self-assertion, self-expression and a celebration of being alive.
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Nathaniel Branden's Self Esteem & Personal Development Blog 
February 4, 2008 at 3:36 pm
What are your thoughts regarding the existentialism view of Love?
February 6, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Hello Kenny,
I studied Existentialism a long time ago—in the early 1950s to be exact. If you care to summarize its perspective on love, as you understand it, in not more than three sentences, I will give you my reaction. However, I do not think it will be enthusiastic.
February 13, 2008 at 8:09 am
This amazing Newsweek article, ends with your statement “This is my own conviction.”
In the 1959 Mike Wallace Interview with Ayn Rand, Wallace asks Ayn, “You have no faith in anything? Only in your mind?” Ayn’s responds with “That is not faith, it is a conviction.”
After reading your article, I was reminded of her statement. This sprung a curious urge to properly define the word “conviction”. I amusingly had the conviction that I fully grasped the word. My attempt however, as with most literary references, to define it seemed to mirror the definition of faith and belief. Most dictionaries define it in some way as “a firmly/strongly held belief without need for proof or evidence.” This definition did not sit well with me.
The only definition that was somewhat original, was in the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary: “a feeling of certainty about something.” This still didn’t seem to convey the proper emotion for the word.
My interpretation of the definition at the end of the day was: The intrinsic psychological passion for the integrated conceptual sum on a given subject.
How would you objectively define “conviction” without, in some way, mirroring the definitions of belief or faith?
PS: I am new to Your work, Objectivisim and that of Ayn Rand’s, but I am devouring every morsel of knowledge that i can find on the Internet and from the library. It makes me happy, to now know the existence of your blog and website.
February 20, 2008 at 2:32 am
By “conviction” I would mean the inner certainty, grounded in a reliable perception of reality, that some idea, belief or assertion is true.