How Romanticism Has Destroyed Love | Alain de Botton | Google Zeitgeist

Alain de Botton explains why soul mates are a disastrous idea, how to communicate with your significant other, and why romantic ideas set us up for failure in love.

Google Zeitgeist is a collection of talks by people who are changing the world. Hear entrepreneurs, CEOs, storytellers, scientists, and dreamers share their visions of how we can shape tomorrow.

Alain is a philosopher and founder of a global educational organisation, The School of Life, which teaches emotional education via YouTube, through books and classes in 10 campuses from London to Melbourne. His latest book, The Course of Love, was published in April 2016. Alain writes regularly for The Book of Life, the online brain and library of the ideas of The School of Life.

[jashtailor]

This is definitely one of the best videos i have seen on youtube

[dawnemile]

"Two crazies getting together" so true. I find that one crazy person is enough for me to handle and anyone else in small doses.

[adriancioroianu]

Romanticism basically transformes love into an unreacheble delusion that never existed in reality. Shifting all the meaning of life towards a romantic relationship is absolutely impossible to handle thus is creates so much suffering and emotional pain.

[dogan_yasar]

"Not all of us can afford to be romantic."

[cyborgyume]

I like this way of thinking and the way of criticizing romanticism

[DrPinarS]

I totally agree- romantic love is a childish fantasy. Love is familial love and that's all about it. Unconditional love and support for someone else. Leave the princess and prince fairytales aside and the soul mate fantasies.

[monicalatvenas]

Too bad he got cut off. I know it’s a thing making shorter sound bite videos but there was def more to Alain’s message here

[ravindertalwar]

Life is to love and to be loved ❤️ Love alone can Conquer the World

[paulstuart]

Mutual attraction does not require impractical notions of idealised romanticism, it requires enthusiastic loyalty & discussion about feelings & misunderstandings. Without mutual attraction there is only a contract of convenience.

[joe-yoy]

I wish Alain de Botton had studied Proust, or at least read his books.

[SwampCityRadio]

Didn't the Romantic era refer to ideas around a sort of nobility and grandeur that had been lost in the transition to modernity, specifically, a "Roman" kind of nobility, the sort of nobility found in Medieval knights and castles, and to conflate the term "Romantic" as it relates to the Romantic era with the way the word Romantic is used in casual conversation today is an error that needs pointing out.