Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Paul Hollander, the author or editor of fourteen books in political sociology and cultural-intellectual history. Born in Budapest, he studied at the London School of Economics, the University of Illinois, and Princeton, before teaching at Harvard and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His books include Political Pilgrims, The End of Commitment, Political Will and Personal Belief, and Anti-Americanism. His new book is, _Extravagant Expectations: New Ways To Find Romantic Love In America._
FP: Paul Hollander, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Tell us what inspired you to write Extravagant Expectations and what it is primarily about.
Hollander: As I discussed in the Preface, several interests led to this book. On the one hand I have had a longstanding interest in the discrepancies between illusion and reality and arguably romantic love is often illusory. (In my earlier writings I examined these discrepancies in political propaganda and advertising). I also published an article several years ago about the “personals” in the New York Review of Books which I found morbidly fascinating, and I was impressed by what struck me as remarkable misrepresentations of the self. I have also been interested in the human capacity for self-deception that can find political as well as romantic expressions. I also found the reflection of left-over sixties values notable in these personals and a fine example of the connection between the social and personal realm.
This book expands my earlier discussion of the printed personals in the New York Review of Books; I added extensive discussion of internet dating messages as well as a discussion of self-help or “relationship books.”
FP: What is original about Extravagant Expectations?
Hollander: I start with an analysis of the romantic ideals as expressed in some 19th century classical novels and compare these ideals, both with their present day literary reflections as well as with what people say in the personals, on dating sites and with the wisdom of “experts” who write the self help books. I think the combination and comparison of these diverse sources is fairly original.
FP: What is the main thesis?
Hollander: That in contemporary American society, individualism, high expectations, and various social-cultural influences make it difficult to establish and maintain long-term, intimate personal relationships, romantic or not. Also, that mass culture and especially advertising has considerable influence on the ideals of individual Americans; that Americans tend to believe that all good things are compatible e.g. a passionate, varied emotional and sexual life with stability and security, or the preoccupation with self-realization with a long term relationship (such as the marital) that requires endless compromise; that the entertainment orientation of American society also has considerable influence on individual choices and preferences.
FP: Can you expand a bit on the cultural phenomena in the United States that have made it difficult for people to find lasting and intimate personal relationships?
Hollander: Well, add social and physical mobility to what I have said. The proverbial American rootlessness finds expression both in the decline of community and the growing expectations people place on personal relationships which are supposed to compensate for the generally weakened social bonds.
Competitiveness is another factor that does not help to create and maintain close friendships or communal ties. A “soulmate” might compensate for all this.
FP: Your insight on the cultural contradictions in the American pursuit of happiness?
Hollander: I think the whole idea of a self-conscious pursuit of happiness is very American and modern (of course it goes back to the Founders and the 18th century and the French Enlightenment as well).
The very idea that human beings have a capacity for happiness, combined with the fuzziness of what happiness entails, is very American and it creates difficulties. The belief that we all have this capacity to be happy is highly dubious. It would be far more realistic to propose – and American society and culture provide endless examples – that human wants endlessly expand, that we have a huge capacity for dissatisfaction.
Internet dating both reflects and contributes to this disposition: it suggests that there is an endless supply of fantastic, compatible, loving people out there to be met and there is always the possibility that we find someone better in some ways.
FP: What are some of the consequences of our extravagant expectations?
Hollander: Disappointment, floundering relationships, marital instability, confusion.
Mind you, I am not suggesting that people were happier in the highly unromantic traditional societies where their families made the choices for them. Of course in those societies life for most people in general was far more difficult and survival itself was an accomplishment – ideas of happiness cannot flourish under such conditions.
FP: Your advice about our extravagant expectations?
Hollander: I don’t think I can offer anything very original by way of advice. People looking for a durable and emotionally satisfactory relationship ought to know themselves, including their own limitations. Also, people should try to determine what human qualities really matter in the long run. I would not rank looks, money and popularity too high, not that these things are unimportant. The love life of celebrities ought to give us a pause.
Romantic love is a very good thing while it lasts but by definition it involves the idealization of one’s partner. It is not realistic to expect one person to meet all our emotional, psychological needs but it sometimes may happen. Intimacy and compatibility are certainly worthy ideals but difficult to combine with the mundane, routinized aspects of daily life.
Also, individualistic impulses have to be curbed; fantasies of self-realization are often dubious as are conceptions in our uniqueness.
FP: Paul Hollander, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview. And congratulations on yet another brilliant masterpiece.
Your book Political Pilgrims had an indelible impact on me in my youth and it paved the foundation for my journey in investigating the psychology of the Left. If It were not for your work, I am not sure I would have been inspired to take certain routes in my life and, therefore, to be where I am today. And so I am profoundly grateful to you.
I can, therefore, say with great confidence to our readers here at Frontpage: Extravagant Expectations is a fascinating and vitally important read! Buy It!
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