As mentality affects our understanding of love
Relations / / December 19, 2019
The culture in which we grew up, has a strong influence on our concept of love and relationships.
Pauline Aronson
Journalist, sociologist and lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences named Alice Salomon in Berlin. She graduated from Saint Petersburg State University.
In 1996, when I was 16, I first went abroad. Within a year I was in one of the schools in the US. My parents were delighted with the prospects opening up before me. And all I could think of only one thing: to find a boyfriend-American.
In the school library I found a stack of magazines for Seventeen girls. I wanted to understand what was going on between the American girls and boys when they like each other. I've studied a lot of articles on how to choose the guy passed various tests in magazines and learned new and unusual words. Even Russian voluminous novels can not compete in the complexity of romantic Seventeen magazine system.
I was struck by the difference between the concept of love in the environment in which I grew up, and one exotic and frankness with which I encountered in America. In Russia, a boy and girl fall in love with each other and meet, and the rest was shrouded in mystery.
To understand our idea of loveSociologists analyze the language of popular magazines, television programs and self-help books, as well as interviewing the men and women from different countries. According to them, our understanding of love influence political, economic and social factors. Together, they lead to the establishment of romantic modes that determine how we talk about their feelings, our normal behavior, and those we are willing to give their love.
American Girl, for which it was designed for Seventeen, was brought up in the selection mode. It keeps emotions in their needs and rights, choosing a better party. Russian girl brought up on classical literature, which explains the love as a kind of supernatural force generated by magic, and sometimes destructive to life. In other words, I, like any Russian girl, was brought up in the fate mode.
However, in today's Russia, as in Western countries often prevails selection. We have entered an era selfishness. Loving deposed favorite from the first plan. We are going through is not an object of love, but for ourselves. The main purpose of selection mode - defend and protect its fragile 'I'. To this aim, many modern books on self-development and psychological training.
The modern ideal of relations can be characterized as follows: two independent person moving in toward a healthy relationship, meeting the emotional needs of each other until they find someone else.
In selection mode, to love someone too much, too soon, too passionately - a sign of infantilism. This mode does not allow us to love at the expense of their own interests.
However, the greatest gift of love - the unconditional recognition of the value of the other person. Despite the prevailing mode in Russia the choice for many Russian love is still the fate of which is impossible to resist.
We believe the maturity of the ability to overcome pain and suffering for the sake of love. And sometimes it can reach the point of absurdity. For example, an American who fell in love with a married woman, will advise as soon as possible to break off relations with it and to pass a course of therapy. Russian is in a similar situation vorvotsya into the house of the woman, and it would lead straight from the plate past the crying children and solidified with remote control in hand of her husband.
Both modes have their pros and cons. fate mode sometimes causes us to act contrary to common sense, relying solely on emotion. A selection mode does not allow us to go beyond their own interests and trust another.
We must regain the love of her former appearance: unpredictable force that zastaot us by surprise. We must dare to cross the border and move towards your loved one. We should not be afraid to suffer for love. After all, for the happiness of man needs the other person.