Bersani identifies family as a “psychoanalytic haven to which we regress.” While I agree with this claim, I believe that family, along with the corresponding ideology of monogamy, enables political and economic progression. Such practices have sustained society’s gendered mentality, in turn, maintaining the complementary functions of men and women in society. This social uniformity has remained fundamental to an operational government and thriving economy. In essence, by rejecting our promiscuous humanity, we stabilize society. I feel that this trade off, however, has ultimately led to our moral decay, as we are unable to freely express our instinctive desires and embrace the "oceanic textually" of human nature. Such ethics would only be truly normalized in an anarchist state, in which personal liberty outweighs collective values. Therefore, by sexually regressing we sustain and defend society’s distorted conception of progression.
I also found the “extraordinary mobility of childhood” to be an interesting notion. According to Adam Phillip, the best thing we can learn from children is “the primitive art of losing interest in things and people.” Phillip claims that the ruthless promiscuity of children is in fact the most pure and untainted form of human desire. I feel this notion is well represented in the media, as movies often glorify the freedom and simplicity of childhood. Such positive representation embodies society’s envy of childhood mobility, despite our ongoing pursuit of unity and order. Once again, it is evident that our collective values as a society (social stability) overshadow innate human rights (social mobility).
Good points, Luke. I would just note that it doesn't have to be extremes -- either a thriving economy backed by contained desire or a hedonistic chaos. There is probably a way in which pleasure, of all kinds, can be let into a non-chaotic order?
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