Laura: Okay, Sophia, be honest. Before you read this book, if someone asked you to define “love,” what would you have said? Sophia: Oh, that’s easy. It would have been a terrible, incoherent montage of a Disney movie, a 90s rom-com, and maybe a particularly emotional perfume commercial. You know, that sudden, magical feeling where the world goes into slow motion and a cheesy pop song starts playing. Laura: The slow-motion montage! That is the perfect description of what most of us think love is. And it’s exactly that fantasy that the brilliant cultural critic bell hooks comes to dismantle in her book, All About Love: New Visions. Sophia: Dismantle is a strong word. It sounds like she’s here to ruin the party. Laura: She’s here to show us the party was never real to begin with. What’s so powerful about this book is that it’s not just an academic exercise for her. hooks was a celebrated Black feminist scholar, but she wrote this book from a place of deep personal pain. She talks about her own childhood, feeling cherished and then suddenly experiencing emotional abandonment, which left her with a profound sense of brokenheartedness. Sophia: Wow. So this isn't just theory for her. This is a search for a lifeline. Laura: Exactly. And that personal quest is why she argues so fiercely that we need a real, working definition of love—not a fantasy. Because for many, understanding love is a matter of survival.

Laura: And her starting point is to completely throw out that idea of love as a feeling we passively 'fall into.' Instead, she offers a definition from psychiatrist M. Scott Peck. She defines love as: "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Sophia: Hold on. 'The will to extend one's self'? That sounds less like a passionate romance and more like a line item in a project plan. It feels a little… cold, doesn't it? Where is the chemistry, the spark, the magic? Laura: I get why it sounds that way, but that’s the radical shift she wants us to make. The two most important words in that definition are "will" and "action." Love isn't something that happens to you; it's a choice you make, an action you perform. It’s a verb. Sophia: A verb. Okay, I’m trying to wrap my head around that. So all the butterflies and the heart-pounding stuff, that’s not love? Laura: For hooks, that’s what she might call 'cathexis'—the emotional investment, the infatuation. It’s the spark, but it’s not the fire. The fire is the daily work of nurturing growth. She grounds this in her own life. She remembers being in a family where people would say "I love you" but then act in deeply unloving, even abusive, ways. Sophia: Right, the classic "I'm doing this because I love you" line that comes right before something awful. Laura: Precisely. If love is just a feeling, then that logic holds. But if love is an action meant to nurture spiritual growth, then it leads to her most powerful and clarifying statement, one that has resonated with so many readers: love and abuse cannot coexist. Sophia: Wow. Just saying that out loud feels huge. Because it draws a hard line. It means that if an action is harmful, neglectful, or abusive, it doesn't matter what feeling the person claims to have. It is not love. Laura: It’s the opposite of love. It’s an act of destruction, not nurturance. And that clarity is liberating for so many people who have been confused by relationships where affection and harm were mixed together. Sophia: Okay, I’m starting to see why this is so much more than a self-help book. It’s like she’s rewriting the operating system for our most fundamental emotion. It’s like realizing the 'falling in love' part is just the movie trailer, but real love is the entire, unglamorous, behind-the-scenes documentary of making the film. Laura: That’s a perfect analogy. The trailer is exciting, but the documentary is where the real work and the real meaning happen. It’s a conscious commitment, a daily practice.

Sophia: That idea—that love and abuse are opposites—must have been explosive, especially for how people think about family. It feels like you're walking straight into a cultural minefield there. Laura: Absolutely. And that's exactly where hooks takes us next. She says our first 'school of love' is our family of origin. And in that school, she introduces another radical idea: there can be no love without justice. Sophia: Okay, 'justice' is a word I associate with courtrooms and activism, not family dinner. What does she mean by justice in a family? Parents have to set rules, they discipline their kids. They often say, 'This hurts me more than it hurts you.' Isn't that discipline, even when it’s painful, done out of love? Laura: That’s the exact myth she wants to expose. For hooks, justice is about fairness and respecting the rights and humanity of another person. It’s about power. She tells this incredible story about being at a party with a group of highly educated, successful professionals. The men started talking about how they were beaten as children, and they all agreed it was 'good for them.' Sophia: Oh, I’ve heard that argument a million times. 'I was spanked, and I turned out fine.' Laura: Exactly. Then a young mother at the party proudly says she disciplines her son by pinching him as hard as she can. And hooks is the only one who speaks up. She asks the group: if a husband pinched his wife that hard every time she did something he didn't like, what would we call it? Sophia: We’d call it domestic abuse. And we’d tell her to get out of there. Laura: Right. But because it’s a child, it’s framed as 'discipline' and 'love.' hooks’s point is that this is a lie we tell ourselves to justify domination. When one person has the power to inflict pain on another without consequence, it’s not a relationship of love. It’s a relationship of control. Sophia: That reframes everything. It’s not just about physical punishment, is it? It could be emotional control, neglect, or even overindulgence, where a child isn't taught boundaries. It’s all a failure of justice. Laura: It is. She argues that whether it’s through harsh punishment or the neglect of overindulgence, we are failing to teach children what love actually is. We are teaching them that love is intertwined with power and control. And this is why so many of us grow up and replicate these dysfunctional dynamics in our adult relationships. Sophia: It’s no wonder the book has had such a mixed reception. For people who came from loving, functional homes, this might sound overly harsh or political. But for anyone who grew up with that confusion, hearing someone finally name it must feel like a profound validation. Laura: It’s incredibly validating. She gives people the language to understand their own experiences. She’s saying, 'You weren’t crazy. That feeling of unease you had, that was real. It was the absence of justice, and therefore, the absence of love.'

Laura: So, if our cultural definition of love is a fantasy, and our first school of love—the family—is often a place of injustice, where on earth do we actually learn how to love? Sophia: Let me guess. Not from reality TV dating shows? Laura: Definitely not. For hooks, the real training ground, the place we can truly learn the art of loving, is in community—and specifically, in our friendships. Sophia: That’s such a fascinating idea. We tend to elevate romantic love as the ultimate goal, and family as the foundation, but friendships are often treated as secondary. Why does she put them at the center? Laura: Because friendships are relationships between equals. Unlike the parent-child dynamic, there isn't a built-in power imbalance. And unlike the high-stakes pressure of romance, there's more room to practice. In our friendships, we have to consciously choose to show up, to listen, to be honest, to navigate conflict, and to forgive. We are constantly practicing all the components of love that she identifies: care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust. Sophia: That is so true. When you have a conflict with a friend, you can’t just command them to do what you want. You have to communicate, understand their perspective, and work towards a resolution. It’s a living laboratory for love. Laura: It’s the perfect laboratory! And she says the foundation for being able to show up in that laboratory, for any loving relationship, is self-love. But again, she’s very critical of the shallow, commercialized 'love yourself' culture. Sophia: Right, it’s not about bubble baths and buying yourself a new pair of shoes. Laura: Not at all. For hooks, self-love is also a practice. It’s built on pillars like living consciously, taking self-responsibility, and practicing self-assertiveness. It’s about doing the hard work of giving yourself the unconditional love you often dream of receiving from someone else. It’s about taking responsibility for your own healing and spiritual growth. Sophia: So it’s not selfish. It’s about filling your own cup so you have something to genuinely give to others, rather than coming to them from a place of lack and need. Laura: Exactly. It’s the opposite of narcissism. Narcissism is being empty and demanding the world fill you up. Self-love is about creating your own inner wellspring of care and respect, which then allows you to extend that love outward, to your friends, your community, and the world.

Sophia: When you put all these pieces together—love as an action, the link to justice, and the practice in community—what do you think is the single biggest, most challenging shift this book demands from us? Laura: I think it demands that we stop being passive consumers of love and start taking active responsibility for creating it. hooks is making a deeply political argument. She’s saying that a culture of domination—whether that’s patriarchy, racism, or unchecked capitalism—thrives on our collective lovelessness. It needs us to be isolated, fearful, and competing with one another. Sophia: So choosing to love is an act of defiance. Laura: It's a radical act of resistance. When we choose to practice love, defined by her terms of care, commitment, and justice, we are actively working against those systems of domination. It’s not just about our personal happiness, though that is a beautiful outcome. It’s about healing our communities and, in her vision, healing the world. Love becomes a transformative social and political force. Sophia: That completely changes the stakes. It moves love from a private, personal feeling to a public, ethical commitment. It makes you ask yourself: where in my life am I just passively 'feeling' love, and where am I actively 'doing' the work of love? A really powerful question to sit with. Laura: It really is. And it’s a question that has challenged and inspired so many people since this book was published. We'd love to hear what you think. Does this redefinition of love resonate with you, or does it feel too clinical, too demanding? Let us know your thoughts on our social channels. Sophia: We’re always curious to hear your perspectives. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.