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Understanding Hedonism Part 3: Anhedonia and Utilitarianism
August 7, 2008
Have you come to believe that pleasure and joy are for small children and simpletons? Have you ever met anyone who thought so?
I used carry the opinion that any activity which primarily tapped into the human instinctual “reptilian brain”, or sometimes even the “emotional brain”, was a complete and utter waste of time.
I used to think that just because things like dancing, getting lost in the beat, putting love above all else in life, paying close attention to how everything tastes, and partying in general were all “beneath me”…beneath all of us actually… and just excuses the masses give themselves for being lazy and not doing anything with their lives.
Later, I came to realize my thoughts had been firmly rooted in the concepts of “anhedonia” and a strong sense of utilitarianism.
Since you’re most likely a normal, sensible, level-headed human being reading this, you probably aren’t familiar with any of this. And that’s good thing. But allow me to take you into the mind of these people, briefly… because part of understanding hedonism to gain more pleasure out of life is to understand its opposites.
Anhedonia is derived from Greek, meaning “without pleasure”… it was first identified in the 1890s but throughout much of the 20th century, fell back into the shadows as the concept of “depression” took center stage in the grand theater of woes and maladies.
But unlike depression, anhedonism is not characterized by extreme highs and lows, but rather a consistently low mood and the prolonged sense that life is really no more than a flat balloon.
Anhedonia is often stress-induced. Even lab rats lose interest in the pleasure of the food pellet when subjected to undue stress, so is it any wonder that a frantic lifestyle and frenzied pace should jangle the nerves to the point of numbness?
For me, the problem was not so much stress, but, in my opinion, acquiring too much knowledge for my own good… which I guess in a round-about way caused me a great deal of stress. In the relentless pursuit of knowledge and understanding, there are a few subjects which will disappoint you once you discover their not-so-appetizing secrets. At least they did for me.
One was discovering (and more importantly, ACCEPTING) that biology, reproduction, and “love” interpretations in the brain really are no more than a cocktail of chemical signals shot around, controlled by dictatorial genes in the hopes that one of these days you’ll strike genetic gold and get as many women pregnant as humanly possible.
Following on this idea was the realization that literally everything we posess… everything we do instinctually is 100% based on the genetic goals of survival and replication. And since replication is a form of survival, I guess you could say the only real goal is survival.
An old girlfriend of mine, Courtney, used to try and tell me things like this all the time. But I wouldn’t listen. Comments like hers made me angry, and I would hear no part of it. I was too rooted misconceptions essentially amounting to “specialness” and “magic” when it came to how the genders interact. I thought certain things were “meant” to happen and that there was an overall “purpose” to the grand scheme.
Well, there’s not. She was right all along. We’ve been broken up for many years now but somehow I think the Greg of today would get along much better with the Courtney of a few years ago. Oh well.
Anyway, the mere existence of such a tragic affliction of anhedonia makes it perfectly clear that leisure and pleasure are essential to ensure stability of mind and sanity in general. If you fear you are exhibiting even the mildest of anhedonic tendencies, now is the time to take action, to rejoin the living and step onto the sunny path of recovery, as I have.
The other thing is what I call utilitarianism. It supports anhedonia when the utilitarian sees objects in the world only for their practical and immediate utility = what they can be used for, or used to obtain. This includes how the utilitarian views people.
For example, when the utilitarian walks into a restaurant to be seated for a meal, the greeter at the door is merely an unnecessary distraction from the main goal of taking a seat (which he could find perfectly well himself), so he returns her chipper “Hello sir, how are you today?” with a cold stare, says “Fine” and then immediately looks away into the next room where all the seats are located.
When the waitress comes to take the utilitarian’s drink order, he blurts out not only what he wants to drink, but his actual entire order, start to finish. See, he already knows what he wants. He already has this place “figured out” just by looking at the menu for a moment and taking a quick glance around the room. To take time out to try something new, something he is unfamiliar with, would be to waste a lot of time, and maybe (if he was unsatisfied with the new food) some money too; both deadly crimes to the utilitarian. He hates to lose.
Also, during this order taking process, he does not see the waitress as a unique human being, as you might. No, instead he sees her as a task robot hired by the restaurant to figure out what you want, and go get the food, bring it back, and make sure the drink is always filled. That’s it; merely a means to an end. And only because someone is paying her to do it, not because she wants to. (And I might add, the pay will not come from him… for the utilitarian does not believe in paying robots for menial tasks they should be doing regardless of the tip. In other words, to him they are not providing a service worthy of his ferociously guarded money.) He does not feel that everyday encounters with random people necessitate a “relationship” of any kind, even if temporary. To him, she has no name, and most likely no face.
And after the meal, he pays, leaves, and goes about the rest of his day in a similar fashion - viewing the world and its inhabitants only for what he can get from them, or what they produce for everyone else. No one has any intrinsic value unless proven. Everything is always a means to an end, never an end in and of itself - not even life. He lives in a supposed ideal state of perfection of his own creation. (And in his own mind)
As you can imagine, this is a terrible way to live. But I’ve actually lived it before. It’s a realization that was a long time in the making, but eventually this statement pushed me over the edge back among the living:
Hard as the utilitarian may try, he can not rise above his own humanity.
It took me a long time to realize this, and in fact I’m still in the process of fully coming around to it. A lot has been cleaned out of my mind, but some of the old ideas persist; they are very difficult to get rid of after being burned so firmly into the brain.
The perfection and efficiency the utilitarian strives for only results in a void and meaningless existence. The winners circle he strives for does not really exist. Once he climbs the mountain he strived so hard to summit, all that awaits is solitude perched in his Ivory Tower overlooking the commoners below, proving to himself it is indeed “lonely at the top.”
Someone looking in on the situation from the outside might say “of course this will happen, isn’t it obvious?” But you must understand that for the utilitarian, he is so deeply rooted in his beliefs and behavior, he cannot see the forest for the trees. (Another way of saying this would be, when you’re truly in “bad basis”, you are never aware of it.)
Examining hedonism, admiring the idealism of fashion advertisements in magazines, and observing the way people conduct themselves in general has given me more insight into what it really means to “live life.”
In my view, the only duties we truly have are the ones we agree to consciously. The only default duty we all have is to keep our word and follow through on what we agreed to do (with a few possible exceptions, like say, if the other person fails to hold up their agreement to you.)
This is where leisure comes into play. Webster says leisure is “freedom provided by the cessation of activities; especially time free from work or duties.” It is a simple definition for a simple concept. But in today’s hyperkinetic world, leisure is considered by many to be an indulgence or even a decadent extravagance. What was once an integral part of life has been sidelined in favor of hyperproductivity and perpetual motion.
For those racing toward success and the imaginary winners circle, the mere idea of slowing down and luxuriating in a blissful state of relaxation is terrifying. Thoughts of “falling out of the loop”, missing important communications, or “wasting time” are simply unbearable.
Of course, these people are the dream customers of the major pharmaceutical companies that dispense antidepressants and mood elevators like candy to children on Halloween. Each year billions of dollars are made on the misguided premise that happiness and relaxation can be prescribed and purchased in pill form. Get the pills, get happy, and keep running. That’s where America is today.
Besides anhedonic depression, the adverse side effects of an overachieving lifestyle are many; high blood pressure, insomnia, irritability, mood swings, ulcers, spastic colons, burnout, and heart attacks, just to name a few.
The modern hedonist knows that by living life at a comfortable and leisurely pace, keeping the heart rate down, and mood swings to a minimum, he wins. And by “winning” I mean he accomplishes what he wants in life, enjoying the process, seeing all the sights and feeling all the feelings along the way.
After all, you’ll notice a lot more beauty during a leisurely stroll than you will from the window of a bullet train.
A good hedonist knows that leisure is not a luxury or an indulgence, but a true necessity of life, and it is during leisure time that all the best things in life take place. Meaningful conversation, thoughtful reflection, spontaneous laughter, and human connections rarely occur on a treadmill.
Work, exercise and achievement, when practiced in moderation, have their place in the bigger picture, but life is also made up of small moments of joy - periods of unbridled freedom and daily pleasures that must be carefully selected and savored.
Some girls I’ve dated in the past have tried to teach me something like this, each in their own way, but I am only just now beginning to fully understand.
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Tags: anhedonism, anhedonist, duty, freedom, girls, hedonism, hedonist, humanity, leisure, life lessons, lifestyle, living life, perfection, Philosophy, pressure, relaxing, the good life, utilitarianism, utilityTopics: Philosophy |
August 9th, 2008 at 3:22 am
Depth of thought, thorough streams of analysis and perception going on here. Brother, how is it that you are not getting comments? Why is it that no one else talking?
Perhaps they are too busy tinkering in their own scatterbrains?
Since you appear to not be feeble minded I highly suggest you read a book called “The Zelator” & once finished(including working over the footnotes), re-watch the original Forbidden Planet.
Your case for hedonism may be flawed here. It seems your objectivity is poisoned by your own perception of pleasure. Most of us in the trenches do not have time to take time as you may well know.
I learned everything I ever needed to know about hedonism from a lady wearing a rainbow headwrap at vintage haberdashery
http://www.vintagehab.com/ about 12 years ago.
I have lived in near-complete stasis ever since.
My concept of sweet-ism is to profound to explain here, as current nomenclature simply doesn’t suffice.
-The Captain
p.s. Like it or not you are meant to be a philologist.
August 9th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
“Having the time to take time” is merely a choice. By choosing your job or duties to some other thing or person, you’re making a choice essentially saying “This one thing is more important than the other.”
And if it isn’t more important, then the choice is being made for some other reason (fear, most often - sometimes fear of what others might think, sometimes fear of what might happen if you took a risk and did precisely what you desired)
If you wanted to, you could abandon everything.
I recently talked to a guy at St. Louis Bread who wanted to live in Tokyo, if he could live anywhere in the world. There’s nothing stopping him. Nothing. If money is an issue, and even if he had no marketable skills at all, he could still save up enough over a summer’s time to break away from the U.S. and go to Tokyo.
But he doesn’t. And I don’t think he will, either.
Being born into the trenches may not be a choice. But getting out of them certainly is.
August 11th, 2008 at 6:26 am
I don’t dispute the latter part of your statement in the slightest. Assuming a person is conscious of their own will, almost anything is possible.
Regards your opening:
I’d like to hear the responses you get when you tell a single mother of two ““NOT Having the time to take time” is merely a choice.”
For what is “now”?
Initially her “now” is affected by a choice she made in the past to have children. And let us say the father died early of cancer.
The current circumstance was not what she chose. It is what she was given. Hence her future ability to choose what she will take pleasure in, will be dictated by the self sacrifices she will make for her children.
The point here is that a person’s time is not always theirs to choose.
http://www.nature.com/nature/v.....tikythera/
The poet says: Let us banish Time!
The philosopher says: For how long?
-The Captain
August 11th, 2008 at 10:02 am
As I said in the previous post before this one:
“Your life consists of much more than that, and your foremost responsibility is to YOURSELF (unless of course, you made the decision to have kids, in which case your nirvana may be temporarily compromised.)”
I’ve dated single moms before and they made a decision (or in some cases perhaps a sloppy unprotected decision, but still a decision nonetheless) to have a kid or two. That’s fine. But there are consequences, and right now their decision is to either care for the child or do something else. Obviously the child is more important to them than anything else they could be doing so that’s why they choose to remain in the same situation.
Kids are always the killer X-factor. Once you make that decision, you’re bound for at least 18 years… unless of course you’re a real bastard… then I guess it could be argued against
As for me, I make the choice not to have kids, and therefore a whole universe of consequences are never, ever thrust upon me.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:23 am
But yes, I agree that when someone dies, not a whole lot can be done about that.
Still I would think even in that situation, the girl could still find her own set of daily pleasures. Maybe not extravagant ones like traveling, but ones of her own creation.