As far back as I can remember, people of all stripes have boasted about how much better they are at loving than others. The religious say that they love people more because they have a better understanding of god. Intellectuals claim to love people more because they have graphs and charts that prove their love. Nature lovers state that they love the planet more than anyone else. People without children say that they love life more than people who have children and vice versa. But all through this vast noise of people shouting at each other about their superior ability to display love, very little real love is actually demonstrated. Take the environmentalist who shouts at people for eating animals; neither the person nor the animal feels any love in this situation, yet there is a kind of moral superiority felt by the environmentalist for no good reason. The intellectual argues that they have a deep love of knowledge and that this love of knowledge helps people, yet a conspiracy theorist who spreads misinformation has the exact same love of knowledge that the intellectual has; further, constant education, like anything else, becomes extremely boring, eventually leading to people loathing knowledge in general. Thus, it could easily be argued that the person who goes around proclaiming their love of knowledge does practically nothing to encourage a love of knowledge in others. Religious people state that god is love, but they also have very strict requirements in order for a person to receive this love; thus, the religious encourage people who disagree with them to flee godly love, not to seek it. Parents are often times too harsh with their children, which leads to a child feeling unloved. However, people who don't have children are no better; many of them are on twitter as we speak bitching and moaning about mask mandates and stating that they should be allowed to go around maskless and that the "parents need to take care of their own children" even after the CDC just reinstated the mask mandates. I personally, have met very few people who know how to love others. They believe love is some sort of game where each member of the team either puts in as much effort as the other or the person gets cut from the team. This notion that it is not up to individuals to help maintain society is actually quite Machiavellian. There is no love in it. There is no empathy in it. Perhaps the love we often hear spoken of is really not love at all. When I grew up the people in my life were not always kind to me, but I was always kind to them because I knew if I became like that then society would fall apart. Most people today are selfish and refuse to recognize this simple fact. If you cannot be bothered to wear a mask or get a vaccine to protect a child, how can you be trusted to do anything in society? How can you be trusted in a relationship? How can you be trusted to love anyone or anything? Perhaps these anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers understand love as little as they understand science. Perhaps they are only using the word "love" to further their agenda of death and despair, just like the good little self-absorbed, Machiavellian peons they know they really are.