Family and Love in the Time of Me

Abstract

The theoretical part of this article draws on terminology defined by theorists such as J.C. Kauffman, N. Luhmannn, Ch. Lasch, E. Beck-Gernsheim and U. Beck, A. Giddens, L. Jamienson, E. Illouz, Z. Bauman. The research on partnership relations involved in a culture of narcissism have been published in the book by the author of the article: Ściupider­-Młodkowska M., Love in the time of Me. A sociopedagogical study, Poznań 2018. The article describes the family and love from the perspective of transformations present in a culture of narcissism. The theoretical part of this article draws on terminology defined by theorists such as J.C. Kauffman, N. Luhmannn, Ch. Lasch, E. Beck-Gernsheim and U. Beck, A. Giddens, L. Jamienson, E. Illouz, Z. Bauman and the author’s own research. The research on partnership relations involved in narcissism culture have been published in a book by the author of the article: Ściupider-Młodkowska M., Love in the time of Me. A sociopedagogical study. Its theoretical narrative and methodological conclusions focus principally on partnership relations described in scripts from young people studying at selected universities in Poland and Czechia. The research that led to this article was a qualitative-quantitative study aiming to answer the following question: Which cultural models of partner relations are preferred and practised by young people studying in Poland and Czechia and how do they differ? Such a subject required the construction of several research tools: extended questionnaires for 400 respondents in Polish and Czechia, an understanding interview(J-C. Kauffman) for two hundred heterosexual couples, and live and virtual debates as part of the author’s course ‘Intimacy between being together and separate’. The dynamic picture of partner relations in the lives of Polish and Czech students allowed four categories of relationship history to be distinguished. Most Polish students (of whom more were female) represented the initiating-traditional partnership script, but a highly individualistic form, while the majority of Czech students fell into the category of postmodern partnership scripts. These results do not allow unambiguous theses but propose a constructivist diagnosis of current changes in the Me epoch, whose representatives are entangled in cultural narcissism, and are often unable to form lasting intimate relationships, instead seeking acknowledgement and self-adoration, in essence: Selfie ergo sum.