Daily Times

Interpretation is fairly familiar to the legal fraternity. It is also somewhat known to those who are tasked with explaining meanings of things to young minds. If a ten-year-old asked you about ‘McDonaldisation’, you would have to explain what it means by disaggregating it and arranging its meaning to his/her understanding.Of course, this much is common wisdom but what follows is uncommon. That behind every act of interpretation there ishermeneutics.

Itmeans that whenever we interpret, we use a technique that gives clarity to words.If we want to tell a 10-year-old what McDonaldisationis we might want to start off with a dictionary because that is where its everyday use is found. But if we found the dictionary meaning unhelpful for the understanding of the child, we might decide to use pictures to explain its essence. In either case, we areconcerned with finding themeaning that would improve the child’s understanding of the word.

Words of all languages have a life of their own and an environment in which they exist. It is, therefore, no surprise that linguists such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and JL Austin put great emphasis on the speaker to use words in their appropriate context and befitting to their habitat. By so doing, words are no longer speaking codes;instead,they are an activity in interpretation

To take an example close to home is the multiple usages of the word ‘religion’. One interpretation is the organised institution. Another is the organisation of one’s thoughts and actions to build a relationship of confidence and trust with the creator of the universe. This is the sense John Finnis accords to religion in his checklist of the seven basic values in the Natural Law and Natural Rights.

One other way is to define it as a spiritual exercise through which one mediates one’s external self with one’s internal self. One further dimension is that it is a reflective exercise on the existence of matter and non-matter whereby one is trying to understand the origin of the universe, thetelos of the cosmic order, the purpose behind all creation, and the relation man shares with the eternal order.

There is a skill set behind love known as the hermeneutics of love aimed at better understanding and mastery of love

These constructions are the result of human productivity but there is a skill set that has led to these variant meanings. This skill set is hermeneutics. It allows the interpreter to step back from the words and think about their basis and suggest a meaning keeping in mind the mediums in which they may be used and then pick the one that is apt for the phenomenon at hand.

In a much similar way, there is a skill set behind love known as the hermeneutics of love aimed at better understanding and mastery of love. There is a need to learn thatbecause only a few people are good at it. We need to be smart at it because we all value love and want to love and be loved. In my own experience, there is a particular need to learn it because in its absence we make family choices that we regret later in life.

If you doubt it, try asking a teenager about love;the common response would be ‘to be head over heels in love with another’.Now ask a grown-up, and the answer would be’compassion as opposed to passion’.Incessantly, you would be told that it is an emotion that shapes itself over time through understanding, spending time together and constant effort. But if you ask them if they were happy or content the recurring response would be in the negative. This makes one ponder if people regret desiring love. Orif there is a wrong science applied to it.

Words of all languages have a life of their own and an environment in which they exist

As I see the issue, I think there is a wrong skill set applied to love, and there is a need to describe what logic is applied in love and what needs to be applied as a substitute.To this end, I begin with our common expectations or assumptions about love.These are:Somebody will love me someday; somebody will understand me completely and fully one day; somebody will complete me one bright day, and somebody will gratify my natural passions some beautiful day.

If you look closely at these you will find they have a common ground; that is, they are other-directed,and as such they make love a singular project of the other. And when the other fails to live up to these expectations the love project comes to an end. This mindset needs to be replaced with thinking of love as a project of the self in which one commits oneself to new rules of lovesuch as:I shall love someone someday; I shall understand someone completely and fully one day;I shall complete someone one bright day and;I shall gratify someone’s natural passions some beautiful day.

This shift wouldmake love a commitment to welfare of the other and woulddistance us from the centrality of sporadic urges, wants and passions and allow us to understand the other. In so doing one’s own desire to be loved would be met because the other would also be committed to taking care of your welfare.And love will take the shape of permanence and compassion that is muchdesired in a society like ours where wrong hermeneutics of love have collapsed many families.

The writer is a permanent teaching faculty at ‘Pakistan College of law’