Passion for Ignorance : What We Choose Not to Know and Why (9780691202020) by Salecl Renata

Author:Salecl, Renata
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr
Published: 2020-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

New Forms of Ignorance in Love

In online dating, image plays a powerful role. In their dating profiles, people often use images of themselves that have been significantly altered or old photos that make them look younger and more attractive. Given that online dating platforms focus primarily on looks, it is hardly surprising that people are incentivized to lie and present misleading and idealized images of themselves. Equally important to the way these platforms work are the deceptions and ignorance related to people’s desires. People are encouraged to think there are set criteria they can stipulate that are guaranteed to help them find their desired potential partner. Relying on these self-stated criteria, online dating sites match people with the help of algorithms, which create their own types of ignorance. Dating sites that allow users to filter matches by race could be argued to reinforce racial bias, and those that generate recommendations on the basis of “collaborative filtering,” where people are sent profiles of potential matches on the basis of what other users are choosing, are further disadvantaging those whose profiles are less popular.12 Research into how dating sites work has shown that the suggestions people receive through the workings of the algorithms significantly affect users’ behavior. If a dating site predicts that two people are incompatible, they are likely to have a less successful interaction than when they are predicted to be compatible. So in many cases, rather than helping people find a good match, they are often limiting their options. Researchers of online dating have also observed that people’s desires are unconscious, and while they may be influenced by what is presented to them, they can be even more excited by the unexpected.13 While the algorithms on conventional dating sites make surprising but positive encounters hard to experience, they are even more unlikely on dating sites like Chemistry, which use pseudo-psychological testing to predict how compatible one’s hormones and neurotransmitters will be with potential partners.

If algorithms on dating apps are trying to predict people’s desires, a new class of apps hopes to make it easier for people to understand each other’s romantic intentions by using artificial intelligence to analyze people’s text messages.14 This is designed to give people the sense that they can predict and control their own and other’s emotions, even if this does not reflect reality. In addition to the apps that are supposed to make love easier to find, there are self-help gurus who teach people how to feign ignorance in order to attract love, how not to appear overeager, and how to keep one’s emotions in check when pursuing a potential partner. As we will see in the next chapter in the case of pickup artists, ignorance and self-mastery are often cherished as the ultimate skills a lover needs to perfect.

Yet despite all the apps, the self-help advice, and the multiple ways of communicating, relationships are not becoming easier, perhaps partly because of this emphasis on ignoring others as a means of emotional control. One obvious

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