At a conference dedicated to the proposition that trust makes the world go round and yet has everywhere been lost–between leaders and their people, between businessmen and investors, between countries and cultures–what topic could be better? So it was that a young woman in jeans and bangles arose from a sea of pinstripes to pose a question at the opening plenum of the World Economic Forum: “If your lover lies to you, how do you ever trust him again? Can you even love him?” To which Mahathir bin Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia, gently replied: “Perhaps we should not be so harsh. It is possible to make amends, and to regain trust, so long as one is sincere”
This slightly bizarre exchange took place before an audience of several thousand CEOs, heads of state and lofty media mavens, but it was a taste of things to come. Over dinner and drinks at the swanky Hotel Belvedere, the debate was joined more vigorously, albeit in a smaller forum. The scheduled speaker was the famous French philosopher and social historian Theodore Zeldin, a professor at Oxford and author of the best-selling “An Intimate History of Humanity.” The idea that recommended him to Davos’ organizers can be summed up as Love Conquers All–especially fear and lack of trust.
As Zeldin sees it, the world is experiencing a transformation of love, a “new romantic revolution.” Men and women for the first time in modern history lead increasingly parallel lives, he says. They have largely become professional and social equals. And this, he suggests, opens new possibilities of “friendship” between the sexes that hitherto in history have not existed. Never have we as persons been more conscious of ourselves and our place in the world, he says. Add the new “Renaissance man” to today’s “Renaissance woman,” and you get the “Millennium Person.” Through love, each can discover the limitless possibilities in themselves through the love, encouragement and trust of the other.
Zeldin was unable to elaborate on this intriguing theory, however. He slipped in Davos’ snowy streets, we were told, twisting his knee or perhaps his elbow, leaving him mum, and the flummoxed delegates were left to argue life’s eternal question among themselves.
What is this mystery known as love?
A stand-in offered a historical perspective. There is Eros, the Greek concept of physical love. Then there is Agape (also Greek), the divine unconditional love as given by a god. For the Indians, there was the Bhagavad-Gita, where love is the Janus-face of hatred, much as it is in the Chinese Tao. In more modern times, we found Freudian love by considering its opposite, as well as the love of being loved. And then there is Buddhism and the transcendence of love–not the indifference of not caring, but rather the desire to be free of desire (contradictory as that seems) and not be held captive by love.
Baroness Susan Greenfield, a prominent British neurochemist, put forward a scientific explanation of love. “Everything you feel has a physical base,” she said. “Love is not an emotion. It is a set of circumstances,” a sort of “corralling of chemicals and activators that can be empirically measured on a brain scan.” Nonsense, replied a self-described “social engineer” from South Africa. “Love is sharing–giving yourself to another,” she said, mentioning her Ithuteng Institute in Cape Town as an example. There, she said, children who have been raped teach and take care of one another, no adults allowed, the older looking after the younger, and so on. Violence in the world comes from being unloved in youth, she concluded. If only Hitler had been hugged.
That thought made Ravi Shankar happy. “Love is a trust in the goodness of others,” said the founder of the Art of Living Foundation in India, resplendent in billowy white robes and turban, his smile dazzling amid his flowing black beard. For him, everything in the world exists in harmony and love. “Gravity is the love of the earth, keeping all things close.” Even terrorism is a love of sorts, he adds. Terrorists love by strapping explosives to their waist or flying planes into buildings? Such is the mysterious way of the universe.
Thus the conversation took its course. “Love is sex!” exclaimed one woman brightly, hoisting her champagne glass. “Do animals love?” someone else asked. “Dogs, yes. Cats, no,” another replied. “My mother loved her dogs more than her children,” said an aristocratic elderly British gentlemen, swirling his wine glass lugubriously before abruptly changing his mood and proposing a lusty toast to “passion and l’amour.” “What you love is being in love,” said his wife, acidly. “Do you think we grow tired of love,” asked another woman, breaking the awkward silence.
This being Davos, business had to have its say. A software tycoon, along with a few others, took up the challenge. If love is trust, and trust is the basis of the “win-win” mantra of successful commercial dealings, then business can be likened to love, he said. The same is true for trade, which breaks down barriers between people and cultures. Ravi Shankar would have none of that, however. “Business and love are incompatible,” he said, a bit stiffly.
The assembled went on to list great lovers of yore. No Casanovas here. All the talk was of Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Jesus Christ–and Lady Di. “Now there’s a cold fish,” said one woman, excusing the princess’s wanderings by trashing her prince. “No, no,” said the Brit, half to himself. “There’s no love like a dog’s love.”
In the end, we resolved little. Love is not sex, everyone agreed. But beyond that? The bottles emptied, the assembly dissolved and wandered out of the hotel into a softly falling snow. Colin Powell brushed by oblivious, surrounded by a phalanx of grim-faced guards. “You know?” said the British gentleman, looking up at the stars. “When I stole chocolates as a boy, my mother’s dog loved me, too….”
