Book Review: Why Love Hurts by Eva Illouz

Here a sociologist and feminist deconstructs why so many people are so obsessed with romantic love, and so depressed and insecure when disappointment ensues. Illouz contrasts the social structure of Jane Austen with Internet forum talk of today (she has a gift for zeroing in on telling online snippets and a soft spot for the New York Times's Modern Love column). She concludes that, for all we've gained, we've lost a lot as well. What's particularly interesting to me is how Illouz's conclusions line up with those of other critics of modernity who start from very different points. It seems like a case of convergent evolution to me. Illouz concludes that modern structures hurt women more than men and create incentives for men to hold back from commitment. Her case is rooted in biology (but don't worry, not in a hand-waving ev-psych way). She's right that, at some point, our most important personal question has changed from Rene Decartes's "Do I exist?" to Bridget Jones's "Will anybody love me?". Illouz suggests that an ethical reformation will protect women from this bruising, technocratic economy of radical choice. The closest parallel I can come up with is another book that impacted me deeply with its wide-ranging secular critique of modernity: David Bosworth's The Demise of Virtue in Virtual America. When all these different authors from all these different vantage points come together in a critique of libertarian reductionism and modern malaise, I'm left asking the authors, well, we're all here. Now what? I have some ideas if anyone's interested.