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Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Book by Eva Illouz · 6 quotes · Love, Self, Freedom

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All Love Self Freedom Introspection Modernity Romance Love Search For Love Self Contemplation Society

Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation Quotes

“Love is more than a cultural ideal; it is a social foundation for the self. Yet, the cultural resources that make it constitutive of the self have been depleted.”

Book:Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Source: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

“Never really either private or public, the modern self establishes its value through processes that are at once psychological and sociological, private and public, emotional and ritualistic. Clearly, then, in modern erotic/romantic relationships what is at stake are the self, its emotions, interiority, and, mostly, the way these are recognized (or fail to be recognized) by others.”

Love Self Romance Love

Book:Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Source: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

“Freedom has been the quintessential trademark of modernity, the rallying cry of oppressed groups, the glory of democracies, the pride of capitalist economic markets, and the reproof to authoritative regimes. It has been and remains the great accomplishment of modern political institutions.”

Book:Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Source: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

“Even the sociologists who conceded that modernity meant progress over ignorance, chronic poverty, and pervasive subjection still viewed it as an impoverishment of our capacities to tell beautiful stories and to live in richly textured cultures. Modernity sobered people up from the powerful but sweet delusions and illusions that had made the misery of their lives bearable. Devoid of these fantasies, we would lead our lives without commitment to higher principles and values, without the fervor and ecstasy of the sacred, without the heroism of saints, without the certainty and orderliness of divine commandments, but most of all without those fictions that console and beautify.”

Society Modernity

Book:Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Source: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

“If the sociologist could hear the voices of men and women searching for love, s/he would hear a long and loud litany of moans and groans.”

Love Search For Love

Book:Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Source: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

“This is reminiscent of the words by the poet Theodore Roethke, quoted by psychologist Timothy Wilson: “[S]elf-contemplation is a curse/ That makes an old confusion worse.”112 Eugene is waiting for an emotional self-revelation which he cannot achieve through rational introspection because the self is not a “hard,” fixed, knowable entity with clear edges, and with content. The social self is in fact a pragmatic entity, ongoingly shaped by circumstances and others' actions. In engaging in introspection, we try to discover fixed needs or wants, but these needs or wants are being shaped in response to situations. For this reason, introspection interferes with the capacity to feel strong and unmitigated emotions, activated through non-rational cognitive circuits.”

Introspection Self Contemplation

Book:Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Source: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation