![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[Book Review] Why Love Hurts
Jul. 10th, 2012 11:39 amHey,
So I finished up a great new book called Why Love Hurts by Eva Illouz. I’m encouraging people to get out there and read it because it’s thought-provoking and I want to have some conversations about it.
Ms. Illouz is a sociologist and she uses that lens to try and describe how modern love and romance differs from love and romance in the past and ways in which it causes heartache for people. She’s pretty clear up-front that her book mostly focuses on how it affects heterosexual women, but the overall implications for everybody are interesting. She’s also quite clear that modernity is better than prior ways of living, but that it comes with its own set of problems that should be addressed.
She covers a lot of ground, but the main thrust of her book boils down to the following points:
I’m probably simplifying these a bit much. I do encourage people to pick up a copy and check out what she has to say. Like I say, it’s a fascinating discussion-starter.
Oh, and naturally, someone asked Ms. Illouz about Fifty Shades of Grey. You’ll have to run the page through Google translate, but her interview in De Spiegel is worth the effort for some of you on my friends list.
later
Tom
So I finished up a great new book called Why Love Hurts by Eva Illouz. I’m encouraging people to get out there and read it because it’s thought-provoking and I want to have some conversations about it.
Ms. Illouz is a sociologist and she uses that lens to try and describe how modern love and romance differs from love and romance in the past and ways in which it causes heartache for people. She’s pretty clear up-front that her book mostly focuses on how it affects heterosexual women, but the overall implications for everybody are interesting. She’s also quite clear that modernity is better than prior ways of living, but that it comes with its own set of problems that should be addressed.
She covers a lot of ground, but the main thrust of her book boils down to the following points:
- Because we’re free to love and marry people unrestrained by class or race, our potential pool of partners is huge and we run into “analysis paralysis” -- we can’t easily make up our minds.
- Because modernity puts a greater focus on self, we are expected to live autonomously, but at the same time our sense of self is largely validated by other people setting up a tension that can be difficult to resolve.
- Consumer culture has pervaded our sense of love and romance and it can set us up for anticipation being better than fulfillment -- similar to how an ad may make us want something and when we get it we’re less than thrilled.
- Crucially, in a rational age we want to rationally evaluate our love choices and love is an emotional state that doesn’t stand up well to rational consideration.
I’m probably simplifying these a bit much. I do encourage people to pick up a copy and check out what she has to say. Like I say, it’s a fascinating discussion-starter.
Oh, and naturally, someone asked Ms. Illouz about Fifty Shades of Grey. You’ll have to run the page through Google translate, but her interview in De Spiegel is worth the effort for some of you on my friends list.
later
Tom
