A universal and timeless saying is “things are not the same as before”. That nostalgia for the past, that syndrome of the golden age, was told by our great-great-grandparents to our great-grandparents who told our grandparents and so on until today they tell us that values have been lost and that there is no longer any respect. Undoubtedly longing is a topic to analyze in depth, but for now we will focus on love, relationships and the impossibility of maintaining them as was done in the past.
For the Polish sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman (1925 -2017), Western culture was in a liquid stage. According to him, human, social and institutional relations are more fragile than ever; We live in a time of superficial relationships because since we entered postmodernity and the paradigms were broken, everyone lives under their own truth.
Thus, what meant freeing ourselves from a tyranny turned us into people who became disconnected from reality and fragmented. This became complicated with the advent of the Internet and the digital world. If we were already making excuses to avoid people, we are now entering a digital world where you can completely isolate yourself from the real world and even be someone else online.
How many people are not communicative, confident and relaxed if you talk to them on chat, but in person they get nervous and anxious to the point of seeming the complete opposite?
“In a life of continual emergency, virtual relationships easily trump the real. Although it is above all the offline world that drives young people to be constantly on the move, such pressures would be useless without the electronic capacity to multiply interpersonal encounters, which gives them a fleeting, disposable and superficial nature. Virtual relationships are provided with delete and spam keys that protect against the heavy consequences (above all, the loss of time) of in-depth interaction. -Zygmunt Bauman
Liquid love is that inability to have a serious and committed relationship. We live with one foot in and one foot out of the relationship. The fear of falling deeply in love is channeled into conversations with other potential partners, a cloistering of being hurt and thus never really expressing feelings.
We want less responsibility but more freedom and individualism. This equation results in hedonism and narcissism, which is why over time we can ignore sentimental relationships or use them as a disposable toy, but there is also the possibility that, despite going from relationship to relationship seeking only pleasure, we end up finding a deep loneliness.
“Living together – for example – acquires the attraction that bonds of affinity lack. Their intentions are modest, no promises are made, and declarations, when they exist, are not solemn, accompanied by string music or clasped hands. There is almost never a congregation as a witness and neither is there any plenipotentiary from heaven to consecrate the union. One asks for less, settles for less and, therefore, there is a smaller mortgage to pay, and the payment term is less daunting”. -Zygmunt Bauman
Bauman received criticism for his liquid love theory. Some say that his postmodern message lacks seriousness and that he only recycles theories that he then delivers to a mass audience, while others say that his theory should be seen from a broader point of view, since men have been centuries if not that millennia living under liquid love, but that recent changes have caused women, who “loved in solid”, now have the facility to discard relationships with the same ease. And you, how is it that you love?