Roman Polanski, Rosemary’s Baby (film still), 1968.
Quick thought(s):
I was provoked to think about political monogamy by an excerpt of Josh Marshall’s recent blog about “the media’s” thirst for the Democratic Party’s “honeymoon” with Kamala Harris to end. Political “honeymoonism” (at least the Democratic variety), or so we are told, must end with the Democratic National Convention (so on August 22, 2024).
Is the honeymoon over?
“The media” asserts the honeymoon must end. You know, the joy must end; electing Harris must get miserable, nasty, awful, etc. That is, if we are serious Harris supporters, serious about our future, serious about defeating Trump, then from now until election day we must embrace negativity . . .
Why? It’s just obvious.
Think about that for a moment.
The entire idea that political misery must follow political promise is, you will notice from the specter of “honeymoon,” built on the idea that marriage (i.e., monogamy) must inevitably slide from thrilling, fun, exciting, surprising, wonderful, pleasureable, promising . . . into a slog, into suffering, hypervigilance, draining work, misery, doubt, (self-)loathing (, into Rosemary’s baby?).
But why is that so? What is so obvious about that?
In his book, Monogamy,1 Adam Phillips writes:
No one is willing to make too great a claim for the wish to be praised, or indeed, for that talent for praising oneself that is called boasting.
But what if our strongest wish was to be praised–and so to praise–not to be loved, or understood, or desired, or punished? What would our lives be like? Or rather, what would our relationships be like? How long would they last? What would people be doing together?
We might find ourselves saying things like: the cruelest thing one can do to one’s partner is to be good at fidelity but bad at celebration. Or, people have affairs because they’re not praised in the way they like most. Or it’s not difficult to sustain a relationship but it’s impossible to keep a celebration going. The long applause becomes baffling (#43).
“It’s not difficult to sustain a relationship but it’s impossible to keep a celebration going. The long applause becomes baffling.”
Indeed.
Why, I am inspired to think, must fidelity be(come) the opposite of celebration, of keeping the celebration, THE JOY, going? Why, in other words, must fidelity become the opposite of infidelity?
Let’s keep going.
Why do we believe that the opposite of monogamy is openness or aliveness rather than death, deadness, numbness?
Why do we believe that the opposite of monogamy is change rather than the status quo?
Why do we believe monogamy is 1 thing rather than 1 + 1, more than 1 thing?
Perhaps our beliefs are wrong. Perhaps belief is the problem.
- See this awesome interview with Phillips about Monogamy for (a) more (thrilling, shocking, hopeful) context: https://www.amazon.com/Monogamy-Adam-Phillips/dp/0679776176 ↩︎