An interesting formulation from Eva Illouz in Why Love Hurts. I’m certainly a ‘sobered modernist’ in this sense. From loc 375-393:
While my analysis of love in the conditions of modernity is critical , it is critical from the standpoint of a sobered modernist perspective: that is, a perspective which recognizes that while Western modernity has brought about a vast amount of destruction and misery, its key values (political emancipation, secularism, rationality, individualism, moral pluralism, equality) remain with no superior alternative currently in sight. Yet, endorsing modernity must be a sobered enterprise because this Western cultural form of modernity has brought about its own forms of emotional misery and destruction of traditional life-worlds, has made ontological insecurity a chronic feature of modern lives, and increasingly impinges on the organization of identity and desire. 24
Mark Carrigan 