« Relationships have changed, and we need to ask ourselves what kind of commitment might replace them. »
DAS ENDE DES ROMANTIKDIKTATS
(The End of Romance)
by Andrea Newerla
Kösel/PRH Germany, June 2023
Our relationship with other people, closeness and intimacy has fundamentally changed. This is due not only to the « safe distances » and lockdowns of the past couple of years or so, but to a social trend that has merely been intensified by the pandemic – as evidenced by rising divorce rates, an increase in polyamorous relationships, the rising number of single households and political discussions around « responsible communities ».
The concept of the romantic couple – our current gold standard for closeness and connection – is showing its cracks. Now more than ever, we ask ourselves: what kind of a relationship would make me truly happy? Sociologist Andrea Newerla examines the emergence of new relationship models, and shows how the monetisation and digitisation of the dating market is chipping away at existing norms. Yet she also reveals the opportunities that are emerging in the realm of friendship, ethics of care and chosen families.
Using original research as well as her personal experiences, Newerla inspires us to reflect more deeply on our relationships, and to ask whether there are different kinds of commitments we could be making.
Andrea Newerla is one of the best known voices in the field of intimacy research. She has a PhD in sociology and is a senior researcher at the Paris Lodron University in Salzburg, specialising in non-heteronormative intimacy, online dating and relationship patterns. Her study of intimacy behaviours during the pandemic prompted her to take a new approach to intimacy research, and her observations of changing social currents provide the basis of this book.
Pacemakers, running blades, stem cell research, life-prolonging medicine: these achievements might sound normal, but they are all part of what is called transhumanism. Transhumanism stipulates that humanity’s next evolutionary step will come about through the use of modern science and technology, but many people see it as a dangerous endeavour. They fear that it will dehumanise us, that we’ll become « cyborgised » and open ourselves up to ethically questionable genetic experiments and state-sponsored eugenics.
Foregoing motherhood has traditionally marked a woman as “other.” With no official place setting for her in our society, she has hovered on the sidelines: the quirky girl, the neurotic career obsessive, the “eccentric” aunt. Instead of continuing to paint women without kids as sad, self-obsessed, or somehow dysfunctional, what if we saw them as boldly forging a first-in-a-civilization vision for a fully autonomous womankind? Or as journalist and thought leader Ruby Warrington asks, What if being a woman without kids were in fact its own kind of legacy?
For the past four years before Covid hit, Eliot Stein has been traveling all around the planet profiling remarkable people who are producing or preserving a distinct cultural wonder that exists nowhere else for a column he created for BBC Travel called Custom Made. In Italy, Eliot learned the secrets of the world’s rarest pasta from one of only three women alive who knows how to make it. In Taiwan, he shadowed the island’s last film poster painter, a man who’s now partially blind but still hangs his giant brushstroke canvases on the theater marquee. In Sardinia, Eliot meets a 24th generation diver who is the only person left on Earth who still knows how to harvest and embroider an incredibly rare fiber known as sea silk, into elaborate patterns that glisten like gold. 
In Noah Rothman’s view, the Left used to be the party of the hippies and the free spirits. Now it’s home to woke scolds and humorless idealogues. The New Puritans can judge a person’s moral character by their clothes, Netflix queue, fast food favorites, the sports they watch, and the company they keep. No choice is neutral, no sphere is private.