Why relationships in 2026 carry impossible expectations | Alain de Botton — Transcript

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1. 0:00It used to be the case that when people found  partners, they would do so according to fairly
2. 0:05pragmatic considerations. Couples were  formed not by the individuals themselves,
3. 0:10but by the wider society. There were, if you like,  dynastic marriages. There was then a momentous
4. 0:18change that occurs towards the end of the 18th  century that we now know as romanticism. And
5. 0:24one of the central tenets of romanticism is that  each individual should be left to decide on their
6. 0:30partner by their own, the movements of their  own heart. It's a beautiful idea, it's a very
7. 0:37liberating idea. And let's put it plainly, it's  been a disaster. We are not any appreciably
8. 0:45happier now in a romantic culture than we were  in a dynastic culture. And why? Because we live
9. 0:53in a romantic culture that sees something adverse  in planning and thinking and reflecting too hard
10. 1:01on the business of love. And it's been a serious  problem for humanity. My name is Alain de Botton,
11. 1:06I'm a philosopher, psychotherapist and founder of  the School of Life. The unique challenge of modern
12. 1:14dating. We know in theory that love matters a lot.  It's in every pop song, it's the centre of most
13. 1:22religions. We sometimes lose sight of what that  word actually means. It's really about connection.
14. 1:29And it is one of the most beautiful and one of the  most complicated of all phenomena. Even though we
15. 1:36think we've been around on this planet for  a long time trying to figure things out,
16. 1:39I'd say we were still at the dawn, collectively,  of making sense of this phenomenon we call love.
17. 1:46And it's no surprise that most people will go to  their deathbeds thinking, "Not quite sure I've
18. 1:53figured that side of life out. "At least many  of us will still be grappling "with some of the
19. 1:59complexities of love "by the time time runs out  on us." The most central kind of love that people
20. 2:06are obsessed about, concerned about, is romantic  love. That is the intimate connection between two
21. 2:13human beings who have a sexual contact. It's worth  saying that there are other forms of love. We can
22. 2:21love our children, we can love animals, we can  love ideas, we can love tables, chairs, clouds,
23. 2:29all sorts of things. We are capable of many forms  of love. But I'd say that when people sing about
24. 2:34love and when they cry about love, it tends  to be the love of one very special person we
25. 2:41tend to call our soulmate, our partner. It used  to be the case that when people found partners,
26. 2:47they would do so according to fairly pragmatic  considerations. In most nations and most parts
27. 2:53of the world, for most of history, couples  were formed not by the individuals themselves,
28. 2:58but by the wider society, families, the  village, the court. There were, if you like,
29. 3:05dynastic marriages. You would get together with  somebody because they had a plow and you had an
30. 3:11ox and it seemed like a good match, or you were  the Duke of Brabant and they were the Princess
31. 3:16of Naples and that was seen as a wonderful union.  So you got together for reasons that were nothing
32. 3:23to do with emotional compatibility. There were  a lot of tears, there was sadness, there was
33. 3:28loneliness, but it didn't seem to matter because  relationships were seen to be about something
34. 3:33else. There was then a momentous change that  occurs in towards the end of the 18th century,
35. 3:40starting in Britain, France, Germany, parts of  Italy, a revolution in feeling that we now know
36. 3:48as romanticism. And one of the central tenets  of romanticism is that each individual should
37. 3:54be left to decide on their partner by their own,  the movements of their own heart. They should be
38. 4:01left to decide for themselves. It's a beautiful  idea, it's a very liberating idea, it should make
39. 4:08a lot of sense. And we have been in the romantic  age now for, you know, 200 years, perhaps shorter,
40. 4:16perhaps a little longer, that kind of time period.  And let's put it plainly, it's been a disaster.
41. 4:22We are not any appreciably happier now in a  romantic culture than we were in a dynastic
42. 4:30culture where marriages were made for dynastic  reasons. Why? Because we have failed collectively
43. 4:37to focus with enough intent on the difficulties  that couples will have when they choose each
44. 4:43other according to the movements of their own  heart. Look, I think a really key prejudice of
45. 4:50the romantic worldview is that if love is working  well, it should be following instinct. There's
46. 4:57been an enormous veneration, almost a worship of  instinct. Love is described as a special feeling,
47. 5:04not an asset of ideas, not a sense of rationally  observable principles, but a feeling. You either
48. 5:08have the feeling or you don't. You must be guided  by your feeling. There's even a prejudice against
49. 5:13language. You know, true lovers shouldn't talk  too much. They should just feel the flattering
50. 5:18of their own hearts. That's why music has a huge  prestige, higher than, you know, philosophy. When
51. 5:24we're in love, we don't want to read philosophical  tracks, we want to hear love songs. That is to do
52. 5:29with our sense that emotion should be guiding us,  not reason. Reason is the enemy in the romantic
53. 5:35worldview of truly happy relationships. If you  follow reason, that's cold, it may be calculating,
54. 5:42it's unromantic. And, you know, there are so  many things that are considered unromantic. And
55. 5:49I would love to train our audience that every time  something seems unromantic, question it. Is it
56. 5:55truly unromantic if we define romanticism as the  pursuit of a workable relationship? On that basis,
57. 6:04is it unromantic to talk about money? Is it  unromantic to think long and hard about childhood
58. 6:11patterns of psychological development? Is it  anti-romantic to spend a lot of time thinking
59. 6:18about families and friends and compatibility  at that level? All these things, in my view,
60. 6:23belong to a truly adequate way of surveying  whether a couple should be together. But I'm also
61. 6:29aware that nowadays these things are considered  very unromantic. To live in a romantic culture
62. 6:35means to live in a culture that has a set of ideas  about how good couples should form. They should be
63. 6:41formed by instinct, that everybody has a soulmate,  that you'll recognise your soulmate by a special
64. 6:46flattery feeling, that you shouldn't be asked to  account for that feeling. You should simply go
65. 6:51for it and marry in Vegas in two weeks if that's  what seizes you. And that you should be able to
66. 6:57communicate deeply with your partner without using  language through that special medium of the heart,
67. 7:03through the silence. Also that you shouldn't  criticise your partner, that true partners
68. 7:09should love each other for who they really are,  which means no desire to grow or change. You just
69. 7:16accept someone. Couples in romantic culture will  sometimes complain, "You're trying to change me."
70. 7:22And this is seen as really offensive. It's like,  "What? You complain to your friends. My partner is
71. 7:28trying to change me." "Oh, what an awful person.  This must be awful. You must get out immediately."
72. 7:34If you went to an ancient Greek, if you went  to Athens in 400 BC, and you said to an ancient
73. 7:40Greek, "What is love? And where is the role of  criticism?" They would say, "Love is a process
74. 7:46of education. It's the education of emotion. And  lovers should of course be able to pick each other
75. 7:53up for things that they don't spot in one another.  And they should be trying to develop into the best
76. 7:59version of themselves, rather than simply staying  stuck in an admiration for who they are today. The
77. 8:05whole process should be dynamic. Become who  you could be, not worship who you happen to
78. 8:10be right now. All of this sounds very strange in  romantic culture, which is why relationships are
79. 8:17so difficult in our time. Let's remember that  a person's life satisfaction is determined by
80. 8:24up to around 70% by the quality of their personal  relationships. A Martian hearing that statistic,
81. 8:33visiting planet Earth, would think, "Well,  clearly, Earthlings, given the enormous role
82. 8:38of love, will be spending 70% of their money and  70% of their educational time working out how on
83. 8:43Earth this business of love works. Is that true?"  "No. We spend hardly any time rationally thinking
84. 8:50about it. None of us are made to sit through  classes in attachment theory, classes in apology,
85. 8:56classes in listening, classes in communication.  No, physics is important, geography is important.
86. 9:02Don't get me wrong. But is there no time for this,  given its role in our lives? Do we really want to
87. 9:07leave this to chance? And the answer is yes. And  why? Because we live in a romantic culture that
88. 9:14sees something adverse in planning and thinking  and reflecting too hard on the business of love.
89. 9:21It's very deleterious and it's been a serious  problem for humanity. One of the most powerful
90. 9:27disseminators of romantic culture is art. And by  art, I mean all the leading artistic media. Film,
91. 9:33definitely. You know, if you were learning about  love from films, you would be very confused. And
92. 9:39that's why many of us are confused, because films,  and I include that television shows and other,
93. 9:44you know, narrative forms, these things are hugely  misleading. They simply do not show what a real
94. 9:52relationship is like. I mean, probably you can  count on one hand that the number of films that
95. 9:58have accurately shown love, I think one of the  most accurate representations of love is Richard
96. 10:02Linklater's "Before Trilogy", which ended up with  "Before Midnight". It's a wonderful reckoning,
97. 10:08really, with the real complexities of love. But,  you know, most films are not that. Most films are
98. 10:13blithe, are superficial, are not modest enough  in showing us what's really going on between
99. 10:19couples. It's also intimidated through music. And  music constantly gives us little miniature stories
100. 10:26about, you know, how love works. And, you know,  the music is terrific, but it's not accurate to
101. 10:31what's going on. And it presses the wrong buttons.  Poetry, no one really reads poetry nowadays. If
102. 10:38they did, the problem exists in poetry too. So we  have so much media around, and yet we're still so
103. 10:45much strangers to ourselves. I would say that the  single greatest, most misleading disseminator of
104. 10:50ideas on love is culture and art. The problem is  very heavily located there. - Want to support the
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