# "All is fair in love and war",..., (and families!?)



## grahamg (Jul 6, 2021)

Quote:
"The saying "all's fair in love and war" is a little over a century-and-a-half old, but the idea of comparing love and war is a couple centuries older still. Miguel de Cervantes made the comparison in 1604 in _Don Quixote_ when he wrote, "Love and war are all one . . . It is lawful to use sleights and stratagems to attain the wished end.""

"The comparison of love and war appeared in literature numerous times over the next 250 years after _Don Quixote_ became a hit. Not until 1850, though, did we see the exact phrasing that we know today."

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsn.../who-said-alls-fair-in-love-and-war-and-where


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## grahamg (Jul 6, 2021)

Here is  real life case where the phrase arose again:

https://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/all-fair-in-love-and-war

and here is a faith based group:
https://www.catholiceducation.org/e...enting/alls-fair-in-love-war-and-curfews.html


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## grahamg (Jul 6, 2021)

I discovered this on a scientific site when I searched "Ruthlessness in interpersonal relationships:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23025561/
A dose of ruthlessness: interpersonal moral judgment is hardened by the anti-anxiety drug,....​Quote:
"Neuroimaging data suggest that emotional brain systems are more strongly engaged by moral dilemmas in which innocent people are directly harmed than by dilemmas in which harm is remotely inflicted. In order to test the possibility that this emotional engagement involves anxiety,....
(Break)
........ increased the willingness to harm others in dilemmas where harm was inflicted for selfish reasons (dubbed low-conflict dilemmas) as well as responses to dilemmas where others were harmed for utilitarian reasons (i.e., for the greater good, dubbed high-conflict dilemmas). This suggests that anxiety exerts a general inhibitory effect on harmful acts toward other humans regardless of whether the motivation for those harmful acts is selfish or utilitarian."


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## grahamg (Jul 6, 2021)

Here is another scholarly article:
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/230482957.pdf

Quote:
"Gossip as an _interpersonal communication_ phenomenon" (2005). ... _____Would you be prepared to be quite _ruthless_ in order to get ahead in ..."


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## grahamg (Jul 11, 2021)

Is it possible to get someone to have a shot at responding to this thread in whatever way they wish or is it played out before its begun, so a sort of stillborn thread?


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## Sassycakes (Jul 11, 2021)

I don't believe the phrase all's fair in love and war. There are many wrong things in Love and War.


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## grahamg (Jul 12, 2021)

Sassycakes said:


> I don't believe the phrase all's fair in love and war. There are many wrong things in Love and War.


I do agree, though I suspect, as there is so much trickery in the world, and "life isn't fair", (as someone once said!), that in warfare you have to be prepared for the enemy not to behave according to any rules, and maybe there are instances where people do bad things for "love" too(?).


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## grahamg (Jul 15, 2021)

I've been watching another old black and white film, this one set in a London secondary school and Sidney Poitier played the lead as a new teacher trying to educate a group of students who resisted almost everything he did for over half the film until he won them over completely, (the film was called "To sir, with love", and had many other great young actors and actresses in it, including Lulu who also sang the title track).

My reason for mentioning this film follows on from a mother of one of the students came to see Sidney Poitier, and implore him as her teacher to try to communicate with the daughter who was maybe going off the rails a bit, as the mother didn't feel able to do so. She was staying out very late against her mothers wishes, and so on, (the parents being divorced and this being unusual at the time being an aspect of the situation too).

Well, having listened carefully to his students beefs about her mother, and her mother having new boyfriends etc., the teacher then confronted the student with a few very straight thoughts, the first being she knew her mother loved her, (when she'd being saying her mother didn't love her daughter etc.). The other thing he told the student was that she must give her mother another chance, and his reason being that everyone deserves a second chance, it being the human thing to do. This did not suit the young lady very well and she told Sidney Poitier he was taking his mothers side and he was "just like the rest", to which she was told in return to "grow up".

Now my real point raising this, I've tried to discuss whether "all is fair in love and war", and not found much interest or anyone to agree with the proposition, some others may agree with the professional opinion above, but in telling that student to "give her mother a second chance "Sidney Poitier" at least in a fictional setting, following a moral tone or narrative chosen by the author of the script or film makers, wished to see some fairness didnt he in this world.

Who now is to challenge those being unfair in interpersonal relationships, especially following divorce, where so many families, parents and children, become completely estranged and no one wishes to give whoever it might be a second chance?

Would any of us chance rocking the boat if we knew a child of the age of the student mentioned above were being awkward, or one of the parents were the cause of the trouble for the other parent and the child?


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## Aunt Bea (Jul 15, 2021)

I would prefer that people be honest and truthful in love and war.

I don't have room in my life for lying, cheating, devious, conniving, people.

_“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche_


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## oldman (Jul 15, 2021)

I would prefer that people be honest and truthful in love and war.


Aunt Bea said:


> I don't have room in my life for lying, cheating, devious, conniving, people.
> 
> _“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.” - Friedrich Nietzsc_


I agree. There are people out there that enjoy manipulating people to get what they want by any means.


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## grahamg (Jul 16, 2021)

oldman said:


> Aunt Bea wrote:: I would prefer that people be honest and truthful in love and war.





oldman said:


> I agree. There are people out there that enjoy manipulating people to get what they want by any means.


I believe I've met a few people in my life who have taken "manipulation" to the level of an art, (I was married to one of them I believe!).
Was that "fair"?
Of course not, but how much I was responsible because I wore " rose tinted glasses,", or didn't want to see the truth, is another matter, (I can't say I wasn't warned, even on my wedding day, my father giving me a cryptic message concerning his misgivings, and my future wife showed her by saying she wasn't going to turn up at church an hour or so before over a trifling issue!).


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## Leonie (Jul 16, 2021)

It's a cop-out.  I believe that anyone using the phrase 'all's fair in love and war' to defend an action knows full well that said action is just plain wrong.  Unfortunately knowing something is wrong, doesn't stop some people from doing it anyway.


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## grahamg (Jul 16, 2021)

Leonie said:


> It's a cop-out.  I believe that anyone using the phrase 'all's fair in love and war' to defend an action knows full well that said action is just plain wrong.  Unfortunately knowing something is wrong, doesn't stop some people from doing it anyway.


If you take it literally, without taking into account the aspect of whether the phrase could be meant as a warning to the unsuspecting, then you're right at least so far as "love" is concerned, (the real insight the author of the saying meant to focus our attention on I think).


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## grahamg (Jul 17, 2021)

Another one of those quite well worn (or maybe even a bit trite) description of parents:


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## horseless carriage (Jul 17, 2021)

Shakespeare might not have said: "All's Fair In Love & War," but for a perceptive definition of that remark, read: "Much Ado About Nothing." Better still, if you get the chance, go and see the play.


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## grahamg (Jul 17, 2021)

horseless carriage said:


> Shakespeare might not have said: "All's Fair In Love & War," but for a perceptive definition of that remark, read: "Much Ado About Nothing." Better still, if you get the chance, go and see the play.


I'd love to go and see the play, great idea!  
Moving back to this idea of "all's fair in love,......", it seems to me the saying fits in with my own fathers exhortation or warning to his children that "It's every man for himself in this world"!

I mention the campaign for fathers or patents rights quite often, and these days I'm more of an observer than anything else so far as campaigning goes, but I do get notices about the way those fathers having trouble seeing their children in the USA are conducting their campaign.

You could say this is where "love and war become one" not least because I read statement after statement, or campaign slogan after campaign slogan, emphasing everyone should be, or is about the child, (not either of the parents). I know by now most here agree with that viewpoint or argument, but a consequence as I see it, of all this emphasis is almost everyone, or at least both warring parties, are drawn into a dilemma about whether or not they follow my fathers mantra and thinking that its every man, (or woman) for themselves".

Reading the fathers rights slogans it appears to me they're expecting women/mother to behave like saints and not consider what they might want or feel, (ditto the men/fathers are in the same bind, where anything and everything they might do or not do is open to criticism).

Its plain to me this won't work, and a different approach is needed recognising decent fathers/parents deserve rights in the form of a rebuttable presumption of contact with their children if they meet strict criteria, and remember being a "rebuttable right" means if there is good reason, the contact will not be enforced or enforceable.


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