Whitney Houston’s anthem to narcissism, “The Greatest Love of All,” begins with the absolutely banal statement “I believe the children are our future” and goes downhill from there:
The greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
You’re right; being self-centered is “easy to achieve” ? learning to love others, especially when they’re unloveable, now that’s hard. Just for sake of argument, if we were to grant for a moment that teaching love of self is a way to preserve “the future,” it’s still incredible hyperbole to declare it the greatest love of all. (Jesus declared that there was no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for his friends.)
The song’s conclusion tells the logical end result of this navel-gazing philosophy ? and makes it seem like a good thing:
And if by chance, that special place
That you’ve been dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
Find your strength in love
Loneliness, being the only one left to love yourself ? that’s the goal? The songwriter’s ideal sounds like the pre-Christmas-Eve Ebenezer Scrooge!
