"What Love Is"

(and what it could be)
-by carrie jenkins
2017
A philosopher's take on our evolving attitudes toward love. Jenkins does a sterling job of synthesizing the history of love philosophy (a branch that's disparaged and disregarded within the field), and argues that elevated attention be paid, for what could be more essential than our feelings about our feelings?
If you're a philosopher, you'll love this book. If academic incursions cause you to drift, read chapter 3 and the coda, for the history of our most prominent philosophers' attitudes on love (and jenkins' recommendations). The giant of the field, bertrand russell, was advocating open marriage almost a century ago. Though russell didn't disparage homosexuality, and believed in premarital sex for all, he also had an unspoken heteronormative assumption - that love, marriage, and parenting are about one man and one womyn. He also bought into amatonormativity, the notion that a life without romantic love (and offspring) is meaningless. Jenkins touches upon nietzsche's misogyny and schopenhauer's double standards, then delves into writers from de beauvoir to the present who are trying to give love a more humynistic bent. She's unafraid to criticize the hyper-progressives, as when she takes "Sex at Dawn" to task for trying to replace a monogamous paradigm with its opposite, ignoring the possibility that the truth may lie in the middle. Hmmm.
The main divide jenkins focuses on is the gap between love as biological imperative and cultural construct. She tries to reconcile those views. How much freedom is really coming? As conservative voices defend "one true love forever", jenkins is guardedly optimistic. Will jealousy lose the sanction of the moralists (and screen/song writers)? Will temporary marriage become the norm? Will marriage disappear? Whither polyamory?? Will the paradigm of romantic love (which has propped up classism, racism, and homophobia) be replaced by one based on biology? Will the connection between love and private property be severed? Will private property itself (whether over a love partner or material resources) fade away???
All (save that last, which is just me) are wonderful questions to which carrie directs her keen eye. Her writing is fluid, and she has skin in the game, as she talks openly about her life and what it means to be unconventional (she certainly is - don't take my word for it). Her humynistic, scientific analysis is unerringly spot-on. A delightful read.