Emotions in capitalism (and the emergence of homo sentimentalis)

Review of the book "Frozen Intimacies. Emotions in Capitalism" by Eva Illouz.

Intimidades Congeladas (2007) is the title of the work in which sociologist Eva Illouz analyzes emotions in the instrumentalization that capitalism has made of them during the last century..

A student of the impact of psychology in the development of an "emotional capitalism" in which economic relations parasitize and end up transforming the culture of affections, the author composes the aforementioned work by means of the three lectures that will be reviewed. The first of the lectures is entitled The emergence of homo sentimentalis.

What are emotions (and their role in capitalism)?

Illouz starts from considering emotions as an intersection between "cultural meanings and social relations" which, by simultaneously engaging "cognition, affect, evaluation, motivation and body", entail a condensation of energy capable of making human action possible.

Likewise, the author considers that emotions have a "pre-reflective and often semi-conscious" character, since they are the result of social elements. given that they are the result of social and cultural elements that escape the conscious decision of the subjects.

A new emotional style

At the beginning of the 20th century, and through the diffusion of the therapeutic discourse promoted by clinical psychology, "a new emotional style" spread, consisting of "a new way of thinking about the relationship of the self with others". The main elements to be considered by this "new interpersonal imagination" of psychoanalytic type were:

From the 1920s onwards, this new emotional style spread mainly through what Illouz calls the "literature of advice". But while the psychoanalytic style provided "the vocabularies through which the self understands itself" in a manifestly omnipresent vocation, it ended up being particularly functional to the business sphere, contributing both to the emotional management of workers' lives and to the systematization and rationalization of their activities during the productive process.

The role of psychology in business management

The author argues that "the language of psychology was very successful in shaping the discourse of entrepreneurial individuality" insofar as it contributed to neutralizing the class struggle by shifting labor conflict to the emotional framework related to the worker's personality"..

In any case, the uses of psychology in the business sphere should not be understood only as a subtle mechanism of control by management, since they also established "assumptions of equality and cooperation" in the relations "between workers and managers". Such contributions would not have been possible without the development of a "linguistic model of communication", the basis of which lies in the search for empathy on the part of the interlocutors.

Thus, the communicative skill that enables social recognition eventually turned out to be a strategy through which to achieve business objectives in such a way that knowledge of the emotions of the other through communication would facilitate professional competence practices, while mitigating the uncertainties related to the advent of a flexible mode of production. Illouz summarizes it this way: "emotional capitalism reorganized emotional cultures and made the economic individual emotional and linked emotions more closely to instrumental action".

The role of psychology in the family environment

After "promoting efficiency and social harmony in business", psychology penetrated the family sphere in order to extend "the market for therapeutic services" to a middle class which, from the second half of the 20th century onwards, increased considerably in advanced capitalist countries. Likewise, therapeutic psychology found itself supported by the rise of feminism from the 1970s onwards.The main concerns of feminist psychology revolved around the family and sexuality.

Both psychology and feminism contributed to making public, and therefore political, what had hitherto been experienced as personal and private.

This attitude shared by the therapeutic and feminist discourse with respect to the "ideal of intimacy" was given on the basis of equality between the members of an affective relationship, so that "pleasure and sexuality [were] founded on the instrumentation of just conduct and on the affirmation and preservation of the fundamental rights of women".

The rationalization of emotional relationships

As a consequence of a new egalitarian paradigm in intimate relations, there was a tendency to systematize in a methodical and rational way the values and beliefs of the members of the couple. Consequently, "intimate life and emotions [became] measurable and calculable objects, which can be translated into quantitative statements".

The rationalization of intimate relationships based on the questioning of the emotional bonds on which they are based led to the transformation of such relationships "into cognitive objects that can be compared with each other and be susceptible to a cost-benefit analysis". Subtracted from their particularity, depersonalized and subjected to a process of commensuration, the relationships assumed a condition of indivisibility, relations assumed a condition of indeterminacy and transience..

• The importance of everyday life events in the configuration of the normal and the pathological. and pathological.
• The centrality of sexThe centrality of sex, sexual pleasure and sexuality in a linguistically structured imagination.