Love Is Not Blind

One of the most prominent excuses for irrational claims and contradictory behaviors on the part of infatuated lovers is familiar to many: "Love is blind."  The fact that romantic and sexual attraction never have to overpower someone in the first place aside, anyone who unironically uses this phrase almost certainly does not understand what love and psychological blindness are.  Moreover, they almost certainly do not understand rationality and free will.

It is certainly true that someone might not be able to control who they harbor romantic affection or interest towards, as logical reflection or painful experience can teach.  However, that person can still decide how to act despite whatever they feel--romantic attraction likewise does not have the ability to remove a person's ability to grasp the laws of logic and act accordingly.  Because reason is accessible to all people, regardless of their emotional circumstances, one can experience deep romantic or sexual emotions without ignoring reason.

This is the power that autonomy and personal volition imbue every person with.  Free will does not mean that everyone is able to choose exactly what they feel and to what intensity they feel it; it means that self-control is possible, whether or not one is experiencing strong romantic, sexual, or other kinds of feelings.  No one is a helpless slave to their emotions, even to something as powerful as genuine love.

Short of someone being physically blind, there is no such thing as a spot that cannot be at least hypothetically seen with the eyes.  Similarly, there is no such thing as a helpless, emotion-fueled psychological blindness to logical truths.  Love, real or imagined, cannot make someone blind to a fact because all they have to do to see it to begin with is simply choose to introspectively look in the right direction.

It follows that love itself is not and cannot be blind.  Even so, individual people can submit themselves to a voluntary, avoidable blindness by refusing to think and act rationally, but the problem is not the emotion or pleasure of romantic or sexual attraction.  No matter how intense that attraction is, excusing stupidity by appealing to the "fog" of love is never a legitimate action.  The problem solely lies in the resolve of the individuals who blame their feelings for their own behaviors.