Love is considered to be one of the purest and most fundamental emotions of humanity. Its manifestations may vary greatly—from a mother’s affection towards her child to cheap and shallow pop romances. However, there is pretty much a consensus in public discourse regarding love being something positive and even necessary.
Within modern pop culture (such as in cinema, music, etc.), love is often employed as a tool in order to make and increase sales.
But does the possibility of love really even exist with modernity?
Modern Love: Is It Even Real Love?
Denis de Rougemont (1906-1985) was a Swiss essayist, and despite him not really being well-known in the English-speaking world, he was quite influential in France from the ’30s onwards. This is also the period when he wrote his most famous book, Love in the Western World.He says that what is widely considered today as being “love” actually has its roots in medieval Europe; specifically among the troubadours (a kind of wandering public poets) of France, Italy and Spain. These troubadours themselves were influenced by the Cathars—a Gnostic sect deemed heretical by the Catholic Church—and eventually eradicated during the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229).
Denis de Rougement shows that the idea of love espoused by the troubadours and Cathars was not Christian in nature. Their conception of it was essentially pagan in essence, with love equating eros or “boundless passion” whereas Christianity puts more emphasis on agape (a Greek word which basically refers to love as selfless charity).
We could see it as a sort of Shirk-grounded “love” devoid of modesty and without restraint in its expression. The objective is purely carnal and not religious.
In order to prove his thesis, Denis de Rougement carries out a detailed examination of the history of Western literature, from the popular medieval Tristan and Iseult romance (based on some Celtic legends of the Arthurian cycle) to more recent authors such as Cervantes, Wagner, etc.
The later passages of the book are more relevant to our discussion, as this is where he makes a connection between such “passional” love and the crisis of our modern world.
For instance, how passion being equated with love basically led to the legitimization and normalization of zina (pp. 276-277):
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This is typical of cultural-liberalism. Just take a look at the multitude of movies and TV series that portray adulterers and adulteresses as being some sort of heroes.
Netflix utilizes such psychological tricks in an attempt to normalize obviously abnormal behaviors, employing clever and emotional characterization.
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After all, if love is merely just passion, then what value does the “patriarchal institution” of marriage entail anyway? Why restrain two “free” individuals whose only desire is to express their love for one another?
According to Denis de Rougement, this passional concept of love had a certain easily anticipated and short-term consequence for society: the breakdown of marriage (also the title of an entire chapter in his book).
When someone grows up watching “romantic” movies and TV series, they’d naturally expect to have a daily dose of romance.
This is obviously impossible even from a purely neurobiological perspective, as this person’s dopamine receptors have intentionally been messed up by the mass-media in order to transform them into a consumerist junkie. It is for this reason that they’re always craving more.
Nobody would ever be “happy” or content within a marriage if happiness is synonymous with a constant stream of daily outings, flowers, poetry, and whatnot.
Besides this love-passion notion, Denis de Rougement says the other reasons behind the implosion of the institution of marriage are feminism and psychologization (note how he was writing this in the ’30s).
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We read on p. 294:
Love During Times of Individualism, Materialism and Secularism
We now understand how people’s understanding of love has become skewed, so let’s also take a deeper look at how modernity shaped such an understanding.Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was a Polish sociologist of ethnic Jewish origins who conceptualized the idea of “liquid modernity.”
Bauman refused to embrace the idea of “postmodernity” as, according to him, we were still in the process of modernization or late modernization and that solid modernity was being replaced by liquid modernity.
As detailed in his book, Liquid Love, he uses “liquid” to denote the frail and transitory nature of modernity as a whole, including human relationships.
In Bauman’s view, maintaining bonds within liquid modernity is an arduous task. For example, this is the reason why he thinks many don’t wish to “create a family,” i.e., have children (p. 43):
No one will love you unconditionally except your blood. Marriage always has some kind of transaction/ conditions on both ends. There might be affection/ fondness in the mix, but not unconditional love. That's only your parents and your kids.
you never miss!! These men attach so much value to the material success of this man... the cars, the house, the ego, the fame, the women. They admire it all, even before he "became Muslim". They think we cant see right through it.
