Has the young people’s view of love become conservative this year?

  【News Essay】

  In a discussion about the "985 Dating Bureau" that the author participated in before, the founder of a marriage and love platform believed that the matching of academic qualifications is the basis of love, and that members who graduated from 211 colleges should be excluded from the membership matching of 985 colleges and universities. Very puzzled.

  Later, the author initiated a call for topics on "Do you think marriage and love are the same thing?" on some social platforms. Among thousands of messages and comments, 5/6 commenters thought that love and marriage are two different things. Some people even make it clear that marriage has nothing to do with love. Most people think that love is a beautiful ideal and marriage is the reality of rational choice.

  This is roughly in line with the trend that the author's research team has found in recent years on the young people’s view of love: young people are still willing to believe in the existence of love, but they feel that they have nothing to do with themselves, and “match” (can they live together rather than love? Do not love) has become the primary factor when young people consider marriage.

The author does not want to make a value judgment on this kind of rational choice, but I believe no one will deny that this kind of rational choice runs counter to the passion of love itself and the appeal of transcending the mediocre life.

Because of this, there is a voice that thinks that the young people's outlook on love has become conservative?

  Human emotions have social and cultural significance, so the meaning of love is constantly changing and has different meanings in different periods.

In all, love has become an important emotion in daily life, but it has only a history of about 100 years.

From the May Fourth Movement to the present, love has undergone a process of dimensionality reduction: from a force that challenges social isolation to a confirmation of self-uniqueness and self-worth today, the original appeal for liberation of love no longer exists.

On the one hand, this change makes love closer to the "pure relationship" (relationship without power hierarchy and equal negotiation) described by British sociologist Giddens. On the other hand, it also makes today's love more difficult.

  The scholar Han Bingzhe expounded the most basic condition of pure love in "Death of Eros": it requires a person to have the courage to eliminate oneself in order to be able to discover the existence of the other.

However, it is not easy to find the other, and to form a connection with the other, requires the individual to remove the self-centered defense, no longer require the love of others to prove the uniqueness of the self, but learn to give and give.

And can such efforts and giving be rewarded?

The answer is uncertain.

The occurrence of love requires the individual to accept this uncertainty and the feeling of insecurity first.

This feeling of insecurity occurs not only in the relationship with others, but also in the relationship with the self.

Love brings huge uncertainty, such as not sure whether your partner will always love yourself, not sure whether you are worthy of being loved, not sure whether two people can continue to go on, etc.

In the past, the "matchmaker's words, parents' order" marriage rejected love, and it has also become an obstacle to people's consideration of love and marriage.

  In the "slow age" of the past, people's lives were very stable, and the pursuit of love was mostly regarded as a way and experience to obtain uncertainty and an extraordinary life.

However, in modern society, uncertainty itself is an inherent feature, society changes all the time, and plans can never keep up with changes.

In a highly uncertain environment, young people, especially young people in big cities, have to face the sudden increase in work pressure and worries about the future, which makes them no longer want to challenge this uncertainty in their private lives Sex, I only hope to grasp certain certain things in daily life to gain a sense of security.

  Choosing to be single or to quantify indicators in marriage and love seems to be their way to combat uncertainty.

Young friends who choose to be single emphasize "no marriage, infertility and safety", and try to obtain their own uniqueness through consumption, so as to solve the problem of self-identity.

Some young people choose to use virtual dating, such as star chasing, CP (matching), paper sex (and the virtual characters in the second dimension) and other "meal replacements", to avoid self-evaluation and feel the joy of love at the same time .

  At the same time, people who still want to enter a real relationship or are already in a relationship are also trying to increase the certainty of marriage and love through some quantitative indicators.

For example, during a blind date, they exchange each other's academic qualifications, household registration, and property status to ensure the quality of their future married life, and lovers prefer to use ceremonial methods such as transfers to measure each other's love.

"Emotions" may be very uncertain, but these quantitative indicators are certain. Since feelings cannot be guaranteed, first ensure these certain things.

The love that was originally uncertain is thus turned into a certain thing.

  It must be pointed out that the author does not intend to criticize the current young people's view of marriage and love tends to be conservative or retrogressive, but rather tends to regard the choice of certainty conditions as a response to the pressures of modern society.

In this era, love seems to be becoming more and more "untimely": it has a lot of uncertainty, it is difficult to pursue efficiency, and it is even impossible to use "success or failure" as a hero.

Therefore, today, love is increasingly becoming a game for the brave.

Even so, you still have to try to be such a brave.

  In an uncertain society, there is only one way to pursue certainty, and that is your world becomes increasingly narrow and single.

When you are absolutely safe, it also means that there are no more challenges or opportunities, including love.

In an era full of uncertainty, let love take you on the journey of finding your true self, continuously shape yourself through collisions, establish connections with others, and then open your world, open your imagination to life, and experience interesting life.

  (Author: Shen Yifei, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Fudan University)