{"id":672,"date":"2015-02-11T19:07:27","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T19:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=672"},"modified":"2017-02-14T08:44:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T14:44:43","slug":"justifying-our-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2015\/02\/11\/justifying-our-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Justifying Our Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To understand the way Americans feel about and experience this \u201c<a href=\"mailto:https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch%3Fv=zO6D_BAuYCI\">Crazy Little Thing Called Love<\/a>,\u201d music is probably the first\u2014but worst\u2014place to look. A quick search for \u201cAmerican songs about love\u201d results in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=soDZBW-1P04\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-0\">Love Hurts<\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">,<\/span>\u201d but also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1i45qDsId1E\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-1\">Love Will Conquer All<\/a>.\u201d Further, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FkDpwF6-QiA\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-2\">Love Takes Time<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0OWj0CiM8WU\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-3\">Love Runs Out<\/a>,\u201d but \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=i1n4Zb9hu4s\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-4\">Love Is Forever<\/a>.\u201d How to untangle this mixtape? Sociologists and their research show some of the reasons Americans are so \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ViwtNLUqkMY\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-5\">Crazy in Love<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<h5>Some sociologists have pointed to a somewhat linear evolution in the way love is experienced in America. They argue there\u2019s been a move away from love as a permanent obligation to love as an individual choice that only lasts as long as it is beneficial for everyone involved.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/sociology\/whoswho\/academic\/Giddens.aspx\">Anthony Giddens<\/a>. 1992. <em><a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books\/about\/The_Transformation_of_Intimacy.html?id=ibsjC8DtgpgC\">The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies.<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.francescacancian.com\/\">Francesca Cancian<\/a>. 1987. <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=_JoyDjEilFoC&amp;pg=PP1&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;dq=Love+in+America:+Gender+and+Self+Development&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=eZkvZ5cETb&amp;sig=_96N4x9-ZsmDLntf2gkiuYHNmsI&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=HdnYVI2hDpevyATahoHQDA&amp;ved=0CD0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&amp;q=Love%20in%20America%3A%20Gender%20and%20Self%20Development&amp;f=false\"><em>Love in America: Gender and Self Development<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Others argue a more complicated evolution. Ann Swidler finds that people go back and forth between the romance of \u201clove at first sight\u201d and love as permanence to seeing love as fragile and requiring hard work. Swidler proposes this tension is largely due to the demands of marriage as an institution: the ideals of marriage fit the romanticized version, but the realities of a relationship fit better with more realistic conceptions. So, most Americans hold both views at the same time.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/sociology.berkeley.edu\/faculty\/ann-swidler\">Ann Swidler<\/a>. 2001. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/T\/bo3637950.html\"><em>Talk of Love: How Culture Matters<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Modern Americans\u2019 increasingly individualized form of love fosters more democratic relationships and increased gender egalitarianism, though it can also lead to increased anxiety about love and relationships. Eva Illouz believes American culture promotes love as \u201cdifficult and painful,\u201d offering advice from Cosmo quizzes to sex therapists to self-help books. Combined with the rise in for-profit online dating sites and the ubiquity of advertisements encouraging us to demonstrate love through consumption, Illouz says we\u2019ve come to a \u201ccommodification of love,\u201d where you have to work, and often pay, to find and keep romance.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/sociology.huji.ac.il\/academic%20staff-eng.html\">Eva Illouz<\/a>. 1997. <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book.php?isbn=9780520205710\">Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<li>Eva Illouz. 2012. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.polity.co.uk\/book.asp?ref=9780745661520\"><em>Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>For more on the sociology of love (and whether <em>sociologists<\/em> can fall in love), check out <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologylens\/2014\/02\/17\/valentines-day-and-the-sociological-power-of-love\/\">this great piece<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologylens\/\">Sociology Lens<\/a>.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To understand the way Americans feel about and experience this \u201cCrazy Little Thing Called Love,\u201d music is probably the first\u2014but worst\u2014place to look. A quick search for \u201cAmerican songs about love\u201d results in \u201cLove Hurts,\u201d but also \u201cLove Will Conquer All.\u201d Further, \u201cLove Takes Time\u201d and \u201cLove Runs Out,\u201d but \u201cLove Is Forever.\u201d How to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1681,38543,588,269,28775,21903],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-consumerism","tag-culture","tag-individualism","tag-love","tag-romantic-love","tag-valentines-day"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2015\/02\/Endless-Love-cover.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1289,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/1289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}