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I wish Eva Illouz had less success. She is mostly a philosopher, that is someone who says what's goes through her head, and a not a social scientist. I think he

I wish Eva Illouz had less success. She is mostly a philosopher, that is someone who says what's goes through her head, and a not a social scientist. I think her idea of the commoditization of love has a lot of success because it seems obvious to our moral oriented minds but the "commodization of {some aspect of life} in the modern society is a commonplace of lazy social analysis, and she is far from alone doing that, and by far not the worst. Marital strategies have always existed, they just adapt to the economic system they are in. So far so good, but she claims it is the source of modern emotional misery and that people before knew how to love. That is I believe totally wrong, maybe they were more romantic types but they still exist today and that is besides the point when studying marital relationships. People did not know how to love better, they had less options, but their strategies varied. Far more interesting is I believe, in "post-indutrialized" societies, the effects on human psychology on the internalization of gender roles that are the remains of an older economic organization clashing with the fact that they are not economically enforced anymore.

twic 5y ago
Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word thrown around by those who claim intellectual descent from Marx, with a meaning something like "corruption". Marx used the term (well, "commodification") with a very specific sociological and economic meaning, where some object with a natural "use value" (you can wear a coat to keep warm) is assigned a somewhat artificial "exchange value" (you can sell a coat for money) by the operation of our economic system. I can't for the life of me see how that applies to any of the usual complaints about love in the 21st century.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word I've never heard this much less entertained the idea, since it makes sense in these contexts. Commoditization still means treating a thing (which can include a relationship) like it has an inherent relative value that can be traded for other things of relative value. Commodity (a raw material that has a market value) + ization (the conversion of).
- cassepipe 5y ago
  Well that echoes my complaint about a big chunk of the left throwing the word "capitalism" around not being really interested in what capitalism is, how it works or having a very moralistic view of what it think it is ("the reign of money", allright, what is money ?) One of the few whom I think is pretty clear about what he thinks it is and is able to explain it in its historical context is Vivek Chibber.
animal_spirits 5y ago
> but she claims it is the source of modern emotional misery and that people before knew how to love Did this come up in the article at all? Or are you just projecting your own thoughts onto it? I didn't see this idea when I was reading
- cassepipe 5y ago
  In her book

twic 5y ago

Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word thrown around by those who claim intellectual descent from Marx, with a meaning something like "corruption". Marx used the term (well, "commodification") with a very specific sociological and economic meaning, where some object with a natural "use value" (you can wear a coat to keep warm) is assigned a somewhat artificial "exchange value" (you can sell a coat for money) by the operation of our economic system. I can't for the life of me see how that applies to any of the usual complaints about love in the 21st century.

Supermancho 5y ago
> Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word I've never heard this much less entertained the idea, since it makes sense in these contexts. Commoditization still means treating a thing (which can include a relationship) like it has an inherent relative value that can be traded for other things of relative value. Commodity (a raw material that has a market value) + ization (the conversion of).
cassepipe 5y ago
Well that echoes my complaint about a big chunk of the left throwing the word "capitalism" around not being really interested in what capitalism is, how it works or having a very moralistic view of what it think it is ("the reign of money", allright, what is money ?) One of the few whom I think is pretty clear about what he thinks it is and is able to explain it in its historical context is Vivek Chibber.

animal_spirits 5y ago

> but she claims it is the source of modern emotional misery and that people before knew how to love Did this come up in the article at all? Or are you just projecting your own thoughts onto it? I didn't see this idea when I was reading

cassepipe 5y ago
In her book