Christian Lorentzen writes:
Oh, the glory of "having it all" (career, spouse, spawn), a curious mantra whereby life is conceived as a series of choices: make the proper choices in the appropriate order, and you will have it all. Failure is a matter of faulty decision making, mismanagement of options, turning down the job offer (or record contract), dumping the girlfriend you should have clung to. On this view the only adversary an individual faces (besides, implicitly, himself) is time. Years pass, and the options dwindle until only two remain: seeking and settling. Seeking for the aged means running the risk of total failure; settling brings a decorous end to risk. The dichotomy affords the settled the privilege of gloating. More important, it denies the agonistic nature of life in a market economy. Individuals don't simply choose, they compete against practically all friends, foes, and strangers, buffeted by the tides of history, and mostly they are defeated. The lie that goes by the name of "settling" disguises this defeat as a matter of choice.
Grow up, shut up, and settle; the only alternative is insanity (Greenberg, I so far neglected to mention, has recently been discharged from a mental ward). That is the moral of Greenberg. It is a romantic comedy designed to prove that the romantic comedy is moribund, because romance is impossible except in its grimmest form: mutual consolation.
I have nothing to add.
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