In The Pursuit of Love, Then and Now
- July 4, 2019
- Posted by: RSIS
- Category: Social Science
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue VI, June 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186
In The Pursuit of Love, Then and Now
Nicole Cullinan
The University of Melbourne World University Ranking 32, Melbourne, Australia
Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud… (The Holy Bible, 1986). The condition of love and all its romantic imaginings, a normative narrative for life being complete, we all desire love. Let us focus on the genesis of love, defined by its beginning, the meeting, and the unlimited possibilities. Looking through the lens of the me and I to regard individualisation in the pursuit of love. Discovering the generational difference and sameness between a girl born in the 1970s, me; and a girl born in the 1990s, her, my daughter. Investigating the role of reflexivity, symbolic interactionism and Cooley’s looking glass self with specific examples about love. Looking at Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘Liquid Love’ in relation to freedom and love. Discovering the intersection between agency and society and where truth and love reside in post modernity.
The year was 1989. I had just been deposited at a religious youth camp, a worse way to spend the weekend impossible to conceive. I felt despondent about life and frustrated by my complete lack of agency. But this was to be the weekend I met my love. Giddens explanation for reflexivity played a role in my presence at this weekend, organised religion being an important part of my family life and the main social group to which we belonged (Willis, 2011). The circular nature of this arrangement followed many generations, my parents and grandparents having met through religion.
‘Across time’ in the year 2015 my daughter sat at home on her computer all weekend having refused to come away on a family camping trip (no Wi-fi) in favour of online dating, it appeared she had complete agency over her life, or did she? The perception of truth and freedom being central to the story, we shall return to that later. Margaret Archer’s account of modern reflexivity portrays the actions of my daughter as a reaction, not simply a circular movement that just keeps repeating over generations. Archer would surmise that my daughter is on the computer attempting to meet someone because the routine forms of meeting have failed (Caetano, 2014). One could speculate this is in part due to the breakdown of structures such as the church.
