Professor Gary Hull on the meaning of Valentine’s day:
To love a person is selfish because it means that you value that particular person, that he or she makes your life better, that he or she is an intense source of joy–to you.
…It is regularly asserted that love should be unconditional, and that we should “love everyone as a brother.” We see this view advocated by the “non-judgmental” grade-school teacher who tells his class that whoever brings a Valentine’s Day card for one student must bring cards for everyone. We see it in the appalling dictum of “Hate the sin, but love the sinner”–which would have us condemn death camps but send Hitler a box of Godiva chocolates. Most people would agree that having sex with a person one despises is debased. Yet somehow, when the same underlying idea is applied to love, people consider it noble.
Love is far too precious to be offered indiscriminately. It is above all in the area of love that egalitarianism ought to be repudiated. Love represents an exalted exchange–a spiritual exchange–between two people, for the purpose of mutual benefit.
You love someone because he or she is a value–a selfish value to you, as determined by your standards–just as you are a value to him or her.
Read the rest in his op-ed, The Meaning of Valentine’s Day.