How does Kipnis reevaluate the meaning of adultery and midlife crisis? What kind of evidence are these phenomena, in your opinion? As we all know, love is known to be one of the most powerful and important forces in our very existence. Achieving love has become such an important aspect of our lives that we consider ourselves failures if we don't achieve it. Society as a whole has so many romantic expectations towards love that it has almost become so overwhelming for us in a relationship to reach or sometimes even exceed those expectations. However, according to some historians, this romanticized version of today's love was learned only after the 18th century. In fact, most of what we see in love came to us thanks to the romantic era of the 18th century along with our passion for reading novels. This fictionalized version has created a notion of expectations that are impossible to achieve but still expected to be achieved. Thus, Kipnis sees adultery and midlife crises as a rebellious escape from the domestic confinement that these expectations have made love become. They have become evidence of the reality of the sustainability of monogamy and the impact that society's ideology has had on it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Kipnis likes to express today's ideology of love as something unsustainable and impossible to achieve to the extent expected. He argues that the search for love has become such a necessity in today's society that if we listed the anxieties we have “at the top of our list would be diagnoses such as “inability to settle down” or “immaturity” (Kipnis). He explains that this was not the case with the Greeks and suggests that this was learned behavior after the 18th century. Kipnis begins to note that after the 18th century society had “the expectation that romance and sexual attraction could last a lifetime of union despite much hard evidence to the contrary” (Kipnis). The expectation that love lasts a lifetime puts enormous pressure on the individual to remain faithful to their partner throughout their life, which is extremely unrealistic. He then explains that for this reason "we feel like failures when love dies" and when love dies "[we experience] it as a crisis and inadequacy even if such failures are more the norm than the expectation" (Kipnis). This causes a lot of anxiety about getting love and how long it will last according to Kipnis, which then causes higher rates of separation as demands and expectations arise. This has led to love becoming both a “beacon of hope” and later “your worst nightmare” as you struggle to meet every single expectation that society's love led you to believe was true (Kipnis). This immense pressure according to Kipnis is what leads many people to commit adultery or enter a midlife crisis because they begin to realize that they cannot meet the expectation of love that they have been taught. Furthermore, Kipnis sees adultery as an escape. for the modern idea of love and its boundaries. People who commit adultery are seen as failures and people who should be ashamed of themselves. However, Kipnis explains that these are people who simply “want to change,” “want to start over,” or “want more satisfaction than [they] have” (Kipnis). For this reason they are punished and sometimes shunned by society because the expectations of love they have have not been met by these individuals. He argues that they are not shameful people but rather individuals who are examples of how expectations of love have caused this.
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