Rebalancing
Would you hire a "want-ologist"? How about a love coach? Can money really buy happiness?
These are just some of the questions Arlie Hochschild, a University of California at Berkeley sociologist, is exploring as she interviews people across the United States and around the world.
She talked about her research in her presentation "Commercialization of Intimate Life."
Hochschild spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at the ILR School's 5th Distinguished Lecture in Honor of Alice Hanson Cook Sept. 3. Cook was a long-time ILR professor and labor educator renowned for her scholarship and activism in support of working women.
The stories Hochschild shared about the lengths people will go to in an effort to find balance and feel human connection prompted laughter, as well as surprise.
Take, for instance, her story about the "want-ologist," who helps her clients de-commercialize their wants.
The client wanted a bigger house, but when the want-ologist probed with her client and asked what the client really wanted, she said "peace."
When the want-ologist learned that walking by the water gave her client peace, she ultimately steered her from wanting a new house by adding more plants and the sound of running water to her existing living space.
Use of market services, with people hiring want-ologists and others, is happening partly in response to what Hochschild calls a "growing care deficit," especially for women. With women now comprising half of the total labor force, there are increasing family needs and more pressure to balance good work and home lives.
"The bigger effect of the rise of a market culture is that it directs attention away from the means to the ends. It's not the planning of the party, but that it needs to be the perfect party. It's not about the search for the partner, but about finding your soul mate."
People draw different lines in their use of these services, Hochschild said.
She interviewed a man who decided against hiring a party planner for his child's birthday party and planned the party himself.
While the party did not go so well, and other parents criticized him for not hiring an expert, he made the decision to do it himself in an attempt to move closer to his family.
Contrast that with a man she spoke who joined a dating service, but hired an assistant to screen the replies and manage that process for him.
Hochschild said that a main focus of her work is to examine the question of how this growing commodity frontier is potentially leading to estrangement and isolation.
Some people, she has learned, use these services to avoid feeling detached. She shared a story about a woman who didn't really see herself having a baby. She went ahead with surrogacy because her husband wanted it, and this step would help keep the relationship strong.
Early in her presentation, Hochschild spoke of Cook as a "feminist and a trailblazer who fought for public solutions to private problems" such as childcare. As she concluded, Hochschild said that her current work brings her back to Cook's ideals.
"We need to rebalance society, put community back in the picture, put labor unions back in the picture, to create a more balanced human society, and to come closer to the society envisioned by Alice Cook."
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