 It is this romantic view of natural human sociability—rather than some exaggerated zeal or effusiveness—that explains and is explained by the centrality of love in romanticism. In contrast to many a modern thinker, the romantics regarded love rather than self-interest as a basic condition of human nature (“Love is…the core of ourselves” (F. Schlegel, TPL II: 151)), and as the proper basis for a genuine sociable but pluralistic community: