The Love perspective as a sociological framework

This chapter presents social love as a central concept for the social sciences, challenging the common assumption that love is solely a private matter confined to intimacy, friendship, or religiosity, and highlighting its crucial role in understanding society and promoting social and political emancipation. Contrary to the prevalent pessimism in contemporary sociology, love is shown to permeate human experience, rooted in everyday life and in the condition of suffering, and expressed through acts of gratuitousness, overabundance, care, and creativity. Historical examples—such as the rise of marriage for love, the recognition of childhood, the abolition of slavery, and the growing care for the environment—demonstrate how social love has shaped communities and driven social change. Drawing on classical sociologists and non-Western philosophical traditions, the chapter develops and reaches a definition of the concept of social love. Finally, inspired by Sorokin’s pioneering attempt to “measure the unmeasurable,” the chapter underlines the importance of operationalizing social love for empirical research, a process the research team has applied in an original manner.