On the first-person plural Part I.

Julia Kristeva writes:

What follows, then, will be an autobiography in the first person plural, a”we” of complicity, friendship, love. This “we” is the setting commonly recommended by the social contract for illusions, idealizations, errors, constructions. To write the autobiography of this “we” is surely a paradox that combines the passion for truth of the “I” with the absolute logical necessity of being able to share this truth only in part. To share it, first of all, between “us,” so that this “we” survives. To share it also with you, so that an account, a report, a scheme remains...rather than have speech fall into the fervor of dreams or poetry. Being hyperbolic, this “we” will retain from the problem-ridden paths of “I”s only the densest image, the most schematic, the one closest to a cliche. Should I shy away from it?...Common sense notwithstanding, this hyperbolic “we” is, in effect, only a part of “me.” It is merely a temporary stability in which projections and identifications are settled among some and allow the history of a perpetually changing whole to be written. A “we” is alive only if it is never the same. As the chief locus of the image, it thrives only on the change of images. What the “I” loses in delegating itself to the group is partially regained in the metamorphoses of the “we.” It is by transforming itself, by changing itself totally that the collective image, the group portrait, proves it is a momentarily fixed passion. To speak of “us” is not an analysis; it is a history that analyzes itself. But isn’t any autobiography, even if it doesn’t involve “us,” a desire to make a collective public image exist, for “you,” for “us”? (from “My Memory’s Hyperbole”)

My copy of Endangered Pleasures, along with a book about the magical powers of good digestion, is, I’m informed, in transit. And so I tiptoe here to begin with the desire to sketch out a connection between pleasure endangered and our own need to embrace the first-person plural. But, too, I am pulled by Michelle’s response not only to consider the “momentarily fixed passion” of a never-fixed “we,”--champagne, cold and fluted, but also the ‘temporary stability’ of commodity as a type of witnessing vis-a-vis pleasure through cultural grungification and, I suppose, counter-grungification.

“Endangered Pleasures:” a quarter into it

The first response:

Snobbery. A bit of snobbery is oozing from this book—I partially enjoy it, and I partially despise it. The notion of pleasure being related to class and financial stability is a little too bourgeois—and because of that feels a little dated.
Additionally, thinking back to the mid-90’s (its date of publication), pop culture was going through a grungification (NEW WORD): Nirvana; Pearl Jam; MTV’s “The Real World” and “House of Style;” movies such as “Reality Bites” and “Singles” were all canons of less-flash-recycled-trash-apathetic-coolness. Was Endangered Pleasures Holland’s call to stop the cultural progression? Part of me thinks it worked, we are back to the flashy-glam-over consumption-live beyond your means kind of lifestyle. But, that lifestyle is shifting due to the inability to sustain it financially.

With all that aside, in between the snobbery are some golden nuggets of sage wisdom from a woman who writes with a female voice that aches for independence and feminism but falls flat with a quiet female ego.

Let us strive to be merry. Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending. Pleasure itself is endangered (from the preface).

Very Virginia Wolf—I have a feeling they are chain smoking together in the afterlife.

I do enjoy the notion of communal delights, and the need to experience life with others to really fill a moment. But, Holland is unable to associate such an experience free of her smugness. “Pleasures shared are pleasures heightened—not to mention the happiness of showing others that ours are more refined than theirs” (Coffee). BURNED again with snobbery. However, I will state (and you all are my witness) that I firmly agree: “the ideal breakfast is probably a glass of cold champagne and a perfectly ripe pear, perhaps with a spoonful of caviar eaten straight from the jar” (Breakfast). And these delights all come with a price. They are delightful in the fact that they are commodity, rooting back to the notion of I have and you have not.

Holland admits “smugness is one of life’s basic joys” (Exercise), but I have a hard time of accepting complacency as a basic joy. I prefer happiness, acceptance, and humor. And she revisits this smugness time and time again: “Clothes, on the other hand, always come along to explain your wealth and power and social importance to strangers” (Clothes). Furthermore, her smugness is far from being eco-cheek, “Buy at retail, use hundred-watt bulbs, and leave the thermostat at seventy” (Saving Money). All these statement bring me back to a single image: a sad, insolent individual who lives without consideration of reactions, fellow humans, and simple, free, natural pleasures that are accessible to all and have been proven by scientific investigation to lift spirits and lighten stress: nature walks, meditation, laughter.