Against Love, By Laura Kipnis
Laura Kipnis wrote "Against Love: A Polemic" last year. It's a book about marriage and more...
Laura Kipnis starts this book with a rapid fire series of observations that are amazingly accurate. The sheer brilliance of these observations is undeniable. She also places some truly provocative frames before us and immediately denies their core validity by saying that they are only argumentative devices.
Where the book disappoints is failing to synthesize a coherent viewpoint after such great deconstruction.
In other words, OK, you got us in the mode of questioning whether a love relationship should be "work," and that therapeutic approaches may fail because of that wrong assumption. But, when we're miserable, suicidal, aching, isn't a mechanistic band-aid better than standing over the sufferer and shrugging?
In other words, after her indictment of conventional therapy, she offers no replacement or alternative: If your car breaks down, you should walk.
I want to know whether Laura has played "the Sims 2," the brand new issue of the most popular computer game ever released. In this more sophisticated version, the synthetic people are made (by you) with"aspirations." They can be money, popularity - and romance.The Romance sim craves multiple intense romantic interludes.
TheRomance sim is born to pursue intimacy, consummate it, and even marry.
The Romance sim can marry a sim with a Family aspiration and havechildren. But, often, the Romance sim cannot remain satisfied with this arrangement and is rewarded if they succeed in flirting with, seducing and having sexual intimacy with another Sim.
The more such relationships, the better the Romance sim's aspirations are met and the higher his or her satisfaction score.
What's the point? A very simple one: the wise designers of this game acknowledged that everyone has differing aspirations. There will be people who will never be satisfied with monogamous, stable relationships, and will endlessly pursue outside parties. And, strangely enough, this is how they are satisfied.
Not reckoned, though, is the damage wrought to the partners who haveother aspirations. In the Sims 2, you can discern what other Sims'aspirations are. If only we could do that as easily in life...
Laura Kipnis starts this book with a rapid fire series of observations that are amazingly accurate. The sheer brilliance of these observations is undeniable. She also places some truly provocative frames before us and immediately denies their core validity by saying that they are only argumentative devices.
Where the book disappoints is failing to synthesize a coherent viewpoint after such great deconstruction.
In other words, OK, you got us in the mode of questioning whether a love relationship should be "work," and that therapeutic approaches may fail because of that wrong assumption. But, when we're miserable, suicidal, aching, isn't a mechanistic band-aid better than standing over the sufferer and shrugging?
In other words, after her indictment of conventional therapy, she offers no replacement or alternative: If your car breaks down, you should walk.
I want to know whether Laura has played "the Sims 2," the brand new issue of the most popular computer game ever released. In this more sophisticated version, the synthetic people are made (by you) with"aspirations." They can be money, popularity - and romance.The Romance sim craves multiple intense romantic interludes.
TheRomance sim is born to pursue intimacy, consummate it, and even marry.
The Romance sim can marry a sim with a Family aspiration and havechildren. But, often, the Romance sim cannot remain satisfied with this arrangement and is rewarded if they succeed in flirting with, seducing and having sexual intimacy with another Sim.
The more such relationships, the better the Romance sim's aspirations are met and the higher his or her satisfaction score.
What's the point? A very simple one: the wise designers of this game acknowledged that everyone has differing aspirations. There will be people who will never be satisfied with monogamous, stable relationships, and will endlessly pursue outside parties. And, strangely enough, this is how they are satisfied.
Not reckoned, though, is the damage wrought to the partners who haveother aspirations. In the Sims 2, you can discern what other Sims'aspirations are. If only we could do that as easily in life...
posted by John Bernat @ 4:36 PM
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