Friendship
To turn to friendship, we can ask why in addition to the view of friendship in
the Victorian period, as almost love-like, there emerged a very different, less
intense form of friendship called "friendliness" in American culture? Again, the
causes are numerous and we can't go into all of them. One of them, however, is
that there were demands for a "new emotionology" from outside the "private
sphere," especially the world of business and large corporations. Again, Stearns
explains:
American language continued to reflect incorporation of a pleasant but
nonintense emotionality. "Niceness" became a watchword for sales clerks and
others in casual contact. "Have a nice day" struck many foreigners—even
neighboring Canadians—as a remarkably insincere phrase. At the same time
though, they noted that Americans did seem "nice," an attribute that includes
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unusual discomfort with emotional outbursts on the part of those raised in different
cultures where displays of temper might be more readily accepted. In American
culture, "nice" did have a meaning—it connoted a genuine effort to be agreeably
disposed but not deeply emotionally involved while expecting pleasant
predictability from others. (1994, pp. 292-293)
Furthermore, the new emotionology considerably "reduced tolerance to other
people's intensity." Although friendship for many Americans is an opportunity to
talk out their problems, "intense emotion was also a sign of immaturity, and it
could be shunned on that basis." (1994, p. 245)
Love
Finally, why did the conception of love change? But even before that
happened, why was romantic love so intense in the Victorian period to begin with?
According to Stearns: "Hypertrophied maternal love increased the need for
strong adult passion to aid products of emotionally intense upbringing in freeing
themselves from maternal ties"(p.66). In addition, "in intense, spiritualized
passion, couples hoped to find some of the same balm to the soul that religion had
once, as they dimly perceived, provided.... more concluded that true love was itself
a religious experience" (p. 69). Now, in the wake of increasingly loosening family
ties and the ever-weakening importance of religion, the intensity of romantic love
also declined. Romantic love ceased to be regarded "as the spiritual merger of two
souls into one" (p. 172). Rationality was emphasized in all walks of life, possibly
due to the influence of business and the rational organization of large corporations.
By 1936, marriage manuals stressed the idea of "rational, cooperative
arrangements between men and women. Soaring ideals and spirituality were
largely absent. .. . Companionship, not emotional intensity, was the goal" (pp. 175-
176). And after the 1960s, relationships were regarded as "exchange arrangements
in which sensible partners would make sure that no great self-sacrifice was
involved" (p. 180).
According to Stearns, the overall result was that "[t]wentieth-century culture
. . . called for management across the board; no emotion should gain control over
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one's thought processes" (p. 184). The rational culture of the computer was in
place, together with the new and highly valued emotional attitude of staying
"cool."
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