Eva Illouz, author of “Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism” and “Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism” will be speaking at Bruno Kreisky Forum on 26 February.
Here a few sentences from an interview about how internet networks influence our love life:
“Internet networks develop a culture of freedom, which is a culture of “choice”. Everyone can look out for everyone, everybody gets endless possibilities to search for a partner. This technology of choice has a very negative influence on emotions. It leads to high rationality in love life and leaves no space for intuition.
The problem with the idea of consumerist “choice” is that one assumes that consumers know what they want. But that is absolutely not the case. Human beings do not know what they want – there are studies which prove this. Even more so: the more choice they have, the more confused they are about their wishes. They know even less what they want. And when this consumerist behaviour infects love life, it doesn’t make life any easier.
The level of disappointment, especially in the world of internet dating, is very, very high. Even when in relationships, people are on the look-out to test their market value. Because maybe, they could find a more “valuable” partner. They zap like TV channels. Additional to that, the repetition turns them emotionally blunt. Goethe’s Werner wouldn’t commit suicide today, he would just go to the PC and zap himself to the next affair.”
To read the whole (very interesting) interview (in German), go to Robert Misk’s site: www.misik.at
Tags: Capitalism, Consumerism, Love, Relationships
The most common question in internet chatrooms is “ASL?” – “Age, Sex. Location?” If you go to a public chatroom you want to talk. If so many people want to talk, you have to select by criteria to whom. This makes the internet to the Starbucks of Relationships – its everywhere, 100 flavors in 100 sizes, and comfortable like your home. Its only after a long time trying out that people understand that its easier to accept your neighbors faults than to learn about some completely new ones of a complete stranger. Its a hard lesson that love at first sight happens only when you actually see the people and not when you just see them typing.