“THE ANATOMY OF LOVE”
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday,
All
I
can recall the uneasy feeling I had some years ago when I first heard that
scientists were trying to discover the biological source and explanation for “love”
in human beings. I’m not quite sure
where that uneasy feeling came from, except for the fact that, being a card-carrying
Unitarian Universalist – or at least I would be if such cards were issued – I
look askance at any efforts to diminish the wonder of human nature, and turn
people into programmable automatons. In
other words, if everything about what a person thinks and does can be
explained, then how are we different from a clock? If everything a person thinks or does can be
explained, then presumably it can be predicted, and how can we be thought to
have choices?
The humanist within me joined forces
with the spiritual side of my being and cried out in protest against any effort
to reduce me or anyone else to the mere product of my genes or the neurological
wiring of my brain. If they can identify a biological explanation
for the astonishing mechanism of human love, then is there anything left for
me? When behaviors are mapped out
according to biology, is there anything left for personal choice or personal
responsibility? Is there anything left
for the mystery of life? Is there
anything left to respect a person’s individuality?
The prospect of locating the biology
of love felt especially threatening. Some
biological determinism I can live with.
Maybe a person’s genes make him or her disinclined toward
athletics. That’s O.K. because they can
define themselves by some other skill to be honed. Or maybe a person’s genes created someone who
looks like a nerd. All right, they can’t
change what nature gave them in looks, but they can, if they make the right
choices in life, become Bill Gates. Maybe
biology can explain genius or musical ability or even being an introvert or an
extravert. But please don’t tell me that
my ability to love is a decision made by my genes and not by me!
After all, biological qualities are
programmed by physiology, and therefore are, in theory at least, programmable
by something outside of our thoughts. It
is conceivable, in theory, that we can program through biology for someone to
be an accomplished piano player or be a better swimmer or a Venus or an
Adonis. But love? Can this most personal of all human
experiences be dismissed simply as another programmable piece of the human
machine?
What is more human than the concept
of love? What higher aspiration can we
pursue than to be loving toward others?
Love is the inspiration for the greatest of human endeavors – countless
musical compositions, poems, works of art, theatrical plays, literary works,
and – may I say so – sermons. Emerson
once said of Love: it “is our highest
word and a synonym for God.”
Given all that, can this supreme and
incomparable human quality be accounted for by physiological descriptions? I can still feel the resistance I felt when I
first faced the suggestion that science can, and will, provide a biological
explanation for love. It felt
threatening to the very core of human nature.
And in spite of everything I’m about say in the next few minutes, some
of which will be accommodating toward this idea, I still feel that
resistance. Maybe that just means that
resistance to the idea of biological determinism is simply programmed into my
particular genes!
Anyway, the threat has not yet been
fully realized. It cannot yet be said
that science has isolated the biological quality of love and reduced it to mere
physiological or neurological programming.
But this prospect is coming closer and closer to reality. And as it continues to unfold, it occurs to
me that we are challenged, now, to re-think the nature of love – if not also
the entire nature of what it means to be human.
Studies have been and are continuing
to be done concerning the biological basis of love. Some of the most prominent work has been done
by Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at
They were able to locate the brain
activity associated with thinking about the one they love. The most obvious activity came from the
production of chemicals known as dopamine and norpenephrine. This was a consistent observation. Fisher summarized it this way: When you fall in love,
“those things that happen, that giddiness, that elation, that euphoria,
that sleeplessness, that loss of appetite, is associated with high levels of
dopamine and norpenephrine. These are
natural stimulants in the brain that give you a feeling of elation. It’s my hypothesis that when you feel that
elation for somebody, and you’re in the middle of the night lying in bed,
running over the conversation you had at work today, or in the gym, what’s
happening in the brain is your high levels of dopamine and norpenephrine, and
probably low levels of serotonin, which gives you that obsessive thinking.”
So there you have it, though that’s just the beginning. Love is associated with a particular chemical
activity in the brain. And there are a
few surprises about that discovery. For
one thing, the notion that love is a human emotion is brought into question. The activity of these chemicals is not
located in the part of the brain that seems to monitor our emotions. Rather, it is found in that part of the brain
that is related to anticipating reward.
The dopamine activity, for example, is similar to that which happens to
drug addicts when they anticipate a fix.
A writer in the New York Times pointed out that this activity parallels
what brain scans find in other circumstances:
“In studies of gamblers, cocaine users, and even people playing computer
games for small amounts of money, these dopamine sites become extremely active
as people score and win, according to neuroscientists.”
So the M.R.I. picture of a brain in love resembles a cocaine user more
than it resembles someone in an emotional state. Dr. Fisher said it this way:
“The parts of the brain that lit up were not emotion centers. The most important part seems to be the
reward system – the part of the brain that lets you focus your attention, gives
you elation and gives you the ability to get what you want, in this case, a
beloved…. Romantic love is really a
need. It is a craving for emotional
unity with another human being.”
Dr. Fisher’s study focused primarily
on people who were in the early stages of falling in love. Such brain activity doesn’t seem to vary
according to age or sexual orientation. Other
studies have confirmed her findings, and another study in
“(Another) chemical system in the brain… is attachment, that sense of
calm and peace that people have with a long-term partner. And other scientists have begun to think
that the feeling of attachment is associated with vasopressin and oxytocin,
which are different chemicals of the brain.”
So it seems that the brain chemistry
of love is becoming fairly well established.
It turns out that there are other interesting findings concerning the
biology of love. Human beings are among
the three percent of species of mammals that are primarily monogamous. The other ninety-seven percent of mammals do
not become socially attached to their mates and are, by human standards,
promiscuous.
Among the other species that fall
into the three percent of mammals that are monogamous is a rat-like rodent
known as a prairie vole. Unlike other
rodents in the vole family, prairie voles mate for life and display a social
attachment to their mating partner. It
was found that these prairie voles produce significantly more oxytocin and
vasopressin, brain chemicals associated in other studies with long-term human
love relationships. Dr. Larry Young of
Again, we seem to be finding in the
genes and in brain chemistry a key to understanding love. It explains the feelings of infatuation, it
explains the reason for attachments, and it explains the proclivity toward
monogamy.
So given all that, what do we have
left? How close are we to the dire
circumstances I feared when I heard that love had a biological explanation? Does this leave us in a place where we are
slaves to our genes and the wiring in our brains? Is biology all we need to know about
love?
In an article in The Economist
that reviewed some of these findings, it concluded with a somewhat whimsical observation:
“So love, in all its glory, is just, it seems, a chemical state with
genetic roots and environmental influences.
But all this work leads to other questions. If scientists can make a more sociable mouse,
might it be possible to create a more sociable human? And what about a more loving one? . . . Progress in predicting the outcome of
relationships, and information on the genetic roots of fidelity, might also
make proposing marriage more like a job application – with associated medical,
genetic, and psychological checks. If it
were reliable enough, would insurers cover you for divorce? And as brain scanners become cheaper and more
widely available, they might go from being research tools to something that
anyone could use to find out how well they were loved. Will the future bring answers to questions
such as, ‘Does your partner really
love you?’”
In spite of such speculations, I am
convinced that there is more to the picture of that can be observed through an
M.R.I. or computed in a DNA lab. The
biology of love is a starting point, but each person has quite a bit more to
say about it than can be found solely in their biological resources.
For one thing, like any other human
quality resulting from our physiological make-up, the capacity for love is
simply a predisposition toward this or that – like a predisposition, say, for
math more than for literature. A
predisposition simply tells us what we may be inclined to choose or reject – it
does not make our choices for us.
It may be the case that Shakespeare
had an unusually strong gene that inclined him to the ability to write well,
but there can be no doubt that his works were the product of something beyond mere
biology. In addition to whatever
predisposed talents he had in that area he also had tremendous commitment and
motivation and intellectual insights into human stories. Hamlet was not written by his genes – it came
from Shakespeare’s whole person and spirit.
We often talk about a “maternal
instinct,” as if every mother receives from nature the biological
predisposition toward nurturing and protecting her child. That may be true as far as it goes, but if
true, it doesn’t go very far. There is
an enormous range of aptitude all of us can observe in how the “maternal
instinct” is used by different mothers.
Some mothers devote intense study to the project of raising children,
and others play it all by ear. Some make
parenting the central and even exclusive focus of their lives, and others feel
their life needs more balance than just parenting. Biology may provide a predisposition for
maternal instinct, but that is just the starting point, and there is much more
needed by each person involved.
I mention predisposition because at
best, I think this is where the biology of love brings us, and then leaves us
there. Just as there is an infinite
number of ways for a mother to parent her child, and there is an infinite
number of things Shakespeare could have produced with his gifts, there is also
an infinite number of ways for one who loves another person to express that
love. Biology tells us only that we
love; it does not give us a handbook for success.
In fact, it seems obvious to me that
successful love relationships rely far more on our own input than on biology
alone. I say this is obvious because for
most of us, love takes a great deal of effort to be successful. If genetic predisposition were all we needed
for success, then why do so many people have so much trouble making love work?
And “work” may just be the right
word in this context. One part of love
that these studies confirm biologically is that love is not simply a feeling,
as we most commonly seem to assume.
Recall that all studies report that love is not located in the brain
function for feelings, like anger or jealousy.
Love is not something we feel, it is something we do. As John Roger and Paul McWilliams put in
their popular series called Life 101:
“[The act of] loving includes the action necessary to bring about the
qualities of love…. Loving feels
wonderful, but it’s more than just a feeling; loving is a decision. We chose to be loving towards ourselves and
others. This moment we choose. The next moment, we choose again. We always have a choice.”
There is another reason why the
biological findings about love should not threaten our sense of self or our
sense of autonomy or individuality. When
we speak of love we speak not of a single person who loves but rather of a
relationship between people. Falling in
love may turn out in fact to be just a biological function. But being in a loving relationship requires
reciprocal actions.
It is helpful to know that the
biology of love locates this function in the part of the brain that responds to
reward activity, like responding to pleasant-feeling drugs. This fact seems to suggest that love can work
so long as it provides reward. And
perhaps the greatest reward of love is, in fact, self-directed. Love works when it makes us feel good about
ourselves.
In fact, I would suggest that this
is the bottom-line fact about love. Love
is healthy and strong to the extent it helps us feel good about who we
are. We want to be around this person
because this person makes us feel valued.
We want to support, encourage, and do things for this person because when this other person is happy and
satisfied, it reflects on how we feel and how we feel about ourselves.
There are many clichés that have
been created about love, but one which I find to be most profound along these
lines is that statement “I love you because I love who I am when I am with
you.”
The biology of love does not program
how or what to do to make a loving relationship successful, but it does seem to
help us understand that love is not a feeling, but a need. It is a self-directed need that can only
become satisfied by making someone else feel good about themselves.
Love is not blind, though. It is not that love makes us oblivious to the
flaws and shortcomings of the other person – for we all have our own
shortcomings. But love inclines us to
overlook those flaws and respect and honor the other person in spite of those
flaws. When we are loved we know that
someone respects us, flaws and all. We
can begin to see how this human activity is associated more with the sense of
reward than with mere feeling.
Love is seeking a reward, a reward
of feeling good about who we are, reflected through the eyes of another
person. This is true, I think, not just
about romantic love, but most, if not all, of the myriad kinds of love.
When a parent successfully
encourages and nurtures and respects a child and that child feels good about
who they are – confident and strong –
then the parent is rewarded. When a
teacher nurtures a student into competency and high self-worth, the teacher is
rewarded.
Love is seeking a reward, a reward of feeling good about who we
are. The paradox is that we can have
that reward only to the extent we give it to the other person, helping them
feel good about themselves. We receive
the reward of love through reflections in the other person’s eyes when they
look at us.
It turns out that discovering some
biological source for love does not suggest that our decisions about love, or
how to love, are completely programmed.
Biology is no threat to individuality, because biology only tells us
what can and cannot happen. We are the
ones that make it happen. Whether love
arises from brain chemistry or genes, it still comes from us and makes our
world blessed. It still makes the world
go ‘round.
Shakespeare spoke of the reciprocity
of endless love with these words, with which I close:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep;
the more I give to
thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.