In response to Karl’s post, or maybe as an echo to it:
« Profoundly committed to the better life, the promiscuous, like the monogamous, are idealists. Both are deranged by hope, in awe of reassurance, impressed by their pleasures. We should not be too quick to set them against each other. At their best, they are both the enemies of cynicism. It is the cynical who are dispiriting because they are always getting their disappointment in first. »
And also:
« Once we know the rules of a game we can think about our performance, we don’t have to worry about the game. We take some things for granted so that we can take other things for something else.
Infidelity is such a problem because we take monogamy for granted; we treat it as the norm. Perhaps we should take infidelity for granted, assume it with unharrassed ease. Then we would be able to think about monogamy. »
From Monogamy, by Adam Phillips.
