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What is wrong with being a hedonist? Why doesn't everyone, at the very least intelligent, rational people indulge in it often?
Why don't you lie next to a swimming pool in full, bright sunshine while getting an occasional massage at the end of every day? The ancients had mastered this art(public salt baths anyone).
2. Human nature seems to dictate than unless we have a contrast to our pleasures they soon pale.
3. Then there's that pesky old thing called moral responsibility that suggests to us that we do something for someone else now and then. For many that is combined with a superstition that if they aren't productive, caring people they will be punished in some way.
Define "hedonism". As it was originally postulated, it was far more about avoiding suffering than about indulging in all sorts of wanton pleasure. Hedonism has become a dirty word equated with extreme self-indulgence, but in reality, most people don't engage in such behavior. Ironically they don't do so because of something science calls hedonic tone which is that our emotional and physiological response to pleasure / happiness cannot long rise above our personal baseline anyway. Hedonism as the bogeyman in between the ears of people who consider themselves moral and upright, is a self-limiting problem; you can't get any sustained "juice" out of 24/7 orgies or the like. And someone who truly studies hedonism as a philosophy of life will not be inclined to try stuff like that anyway.
What is wrong with being a hedonist? Why doesn't everyone, at the very least intelligent, rational people indulge in it often?
Why don't you lie next to a swimming pool in full, bright sunshine while getting an occasional massage at the end of every day? The ancients had mastered this art(public salt baths anyone).
Well, it was determined that if everybody did this, there would be nobody to massage them since they'd all be doing what they prefer to do (which, ironically was NOT massaging fat hairy dudes all day).
So, the first solution was to capture & enslave large groups of people to do all that bull**** work. This worked quite well for a time. But this slavery required whippings, beatings, and generally physical oversight to be effective. And then some of the greedier fortunate ones ruined things for the rest of them and eventually uprisings occurred.
So the next idea was to create a universal way to barter for services & goods. Hence the monetary system was born. The nice thing about that is you create a dependency on monetary bartering so that when you subsequently consolidate industries, and dictate all value of all goods & services, you can now enslave people much more cleanly. And this doesn't require nearly as much of the messy physical oversight & beatings that the previous system required.
So the answer is that, yes hedonism (in its more pure definition) is practiced but only by those who can control the will of others, since others must suppress their own hedonistic desires for the greater good.
...you can't get any sustained "juice" out of 24/7 orgies or the like.
Exactly. Hedonism gets old, and the more you indulge, the faster you run through the pleasures, constantly looking for the next thing...and the next...
As the Hindus say, "Frosted cakes do not satisfy hunger."
Exactly. Hedonism gets old, and the more you indulge, the faster you run through the pleasures, constantly looking for the next thing...and the next...
As the Hindus say, "Frosted cakes do not satisfy hunger."
But weren't the ancient Greeks, Romans, Indians indulging in it their whole lives? They made it a part of their existence....public steam baths to gather and talk intellectual or just banter is one such example. Ancient baths have been found in all ancient history, regardless of geography or timeline.
Perhaps to me hedonism is a very streamlined term for a certain pace of lifestyle and indulgences that go with it.
But it became a came more and more the motive for life and more and more they loss control of Empire and even governing the citizens. One only has to know it history to see what Elite did to control public by distraction. Much as we have seen with food over time in this country once we were not hungary much. The public became Fat with pleasure seeking.
As a teenager I was a self proclaimed Satanist, very into the books of LaVey. The core concept I liked at the time was self-worship, living for my own pleasure, sacrificing my own needs and wants for no one. I lived as hedonistic a life as I could manage. A few years of this...by the time I reached my age of majority this had become very hollow. I found myself restless always, never satisfied and feeling like I was searching but didn't know what for. Nothing in my life seemed to have any particular purpose or importance.
When I had my first child I realized that in being needed by another and giving care and love to another, in living for someone/something outside of myself, I was really finding that purpose. It felt wonderful, and I loved myself far more after that than I did before, despite the seeming contradiction, that previously I was attempting to live only for myself. I felt that my life had value.
So I concur that hedonistic behavior isn't satisfying. I think that most people need something more. If this were not the case, then why would very wealthy people engage in philanthropy, or do anything besides lying in the sun and getting massages? We can accept that not everyone can afford to do this...but those who can, still often don't. And many who can afford to be hedonistic and maybe try to be, wind up miserable wretches who destroy themselves.
Why do you equate steam baths with hedonism? Back then, it was what the upper classes did rather than go out for coffee or drinks at a bar after a long day. Networking, hanging out with friends and relaxing a bit. Not hedonism.
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