Love and Society by Swen Seebach

Author:Swen Seebach [Seebach, Swen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9781317621485
Google: hBC9DgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-04-21T03:25:36+00:00

3.6 A brief review: a third balance

This chapter should have shown that second-order forms deeply shape how we weave durable bonds in our society. They organise the structures that enable that societies to be organised and held together. Whilst other social forms shape in a more direct form the facets of the governance of society, second-order forms shape the form of governance of society, via a specific form of socialisation, by shaping collective and individual memories, by creating respective second-order form rituals, and by shaping the forms to the relations that are stabilised and held together so that they can endure. Second-order forms, thereby, work together with other special social forms such as the three apriorities.

These special forms are subject to social transformation. In fact, being in a constant interrelationship86 with society and the social relationships they engage with, second-order forms change their appearance and form of engagement when this society and the relationships within society can no longer be held together by a specific type of second-order form. Second-order forms as special social forms change in very special moments when socio-historical processes transform crucially and profoundly.

The historicity of second-order forms and their bonds with a respective type of society have been shown in terms of the two second-order forms faithfulness and gratitude. Predominating in a specific type of society, second-order forms shape and build upon social and material processes; they embrace and their appearance depends on those social and material relationships. Consequently, the predominance of a specific second-order form is correlated with a specific type and form of organisation of society.

I sketched the development of second-order forms and their repercussions in a social context using the examples of gratitude, faithfulness and authenticity. In most communities and societies in Europe, the shift from symmetrically organised societies of gratitude to hierarchical societies of faithfulness dates back many hundreds of years. The late eighteenth century appeared as a moment of change in which faithfulness was (slowly) redirected from a shared social centre to the selves of the subjects. Here, we argued, faithfulness started to lose its social character, and therefore could no longer provide the glue that holds society together. The first consequences were experienced by the middle of the nineteenth century, when faithfulness started to turn into authenticity and love started to grow into the centre of the social organisation of time and the creation of durable social bonds. As already discussed in the first chapter, why and how two individuals freely engage in a relationship that emphasises individuality, freedom and authenticity can only be understood in relation to the specific socio-historical conditions that we are about to discover and that justify our argument that love is today’s predominant second-order form.

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