
A practitioner’s guide to hedonism (2007) - tormeh
https://www.1843magazine.com/story/a-practitioners-guide-to-hedonism
======
kcorbitt
I understand how hedonism could seem appealing. But when I consider my own
life experiences, I find that the happiest people I know are all motivated by
some "higher calling," although the callings in question vary widely, and may
seem distasteful or simply trivial to a third party. By contrast, I don't know
that I've ever met someone who pursued pleasure for pleasure's sake and felt
truly satisfied with their life. Others may have different experiences, so
take from that what you will.

~~~
freeflight
While I agree that growth can happen trough struggle (which does not equate
suffering!), I have a very hard time believing that most living things are
actively looking for suffering or pain.

What living things do you know that go actively out of their way to experience
pain and suffering? Such a behavior would be highly disadvantageous to any
species and would run counter to the most basic instincts of all things
living. We have pain receptors for a reason, that reason ain't that we just
gotta learn to "enjoy the pain". As such I would argue that all living things
live their lives on a rather hedonistic basis.

Equally, it could be argued that if "having a calling" makes you "suffer
less", because you've found a purpose for your life while a lack of purpose
can lead to suffering, then having a calling might just as well be considered
a hedonistic lifestyle choice.

The notion that pain and suffering are something that needs to happen to "pull
trough" is trough and trough a human invention among the same lines as proper
"working virtues".

~~~
pjc50
"Through" and "trough" are different words.

~~~
jbrown
I've heard an accent that has trouble pronouncing the English "th" sound,
instead approximating it with more of a "t" sound that misses the tongue
thrust. Maybe that is what's happening here?

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EvanMiller
This Economist article's a bit chatty and superficial (surprise), but in an
age of mass anxiety and digital distraction, I think the goal of the
Epicureans is as important as ever: How does one go about producing a _calm
mind_? It's not a simple task, and I think correctly has to analyze the mind
in relation to everything else.

The atomic hypothesis of the Epicureans seems like a side quest into physics,
but the fruit of the journey is that everything's just combinations of atoms
and the mind must be made of atoms too, so let's think of it as a physical
system with inputs and outputs, and forget about any grander god-narratives.
With this perspective comes some very practical advice; Lucretius for instance
has an extended passage on how to deal with a "crush". I'll paraphrase but he
points out that your crush exists purely as an image in your head, and you
really have no idea what the person behind the image is like, and if you
finally get together the sex will probably be very awkward, so it's better to
direct your mind and amorous intentions elsewhere. I believe the phrase he
used was to find smaller pleasures that carry no penalty -- because seeking
the larger rewards almost always leads to misery.

Lucretius is a good read and the Latham translation has some felicitous turns
of phrase. It's fun imagining arguing with the ancient philosophers about
their physical theories, which they support (as best they can) with the
available evidence about what wind, liquids, lightning, thunder, earthquakes,
smells, tastes, sights, etc. are made of. It's a shame philosophy got
distracted with "higher things" for so long (i.e. 2,000 years) because here we
are realizing again that everything is made of atoms, and it sure would be
nice to have more advice on living life in the face of this fact.

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vivekd
Am I missing something about the title - because I've never seen Epicurus
associated with hedonism until I read this article. In fact, I don't think
anything about his philosophy or lifestyle can be associated with the term
hedonism as it is commonly used.

He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see any
evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like
that.

He simply believed that the good life is the absence of suffering and that
ethics means minimizing suffering for both oneself and society at large. There
is nothing hedonistic about that.

I think there might be a little bit of clickbate going on in the title. The
article itself doesn't really elaborate on why Epicurus was criticized by
medieval christian philosophers or where their differences were. In fact I
think it does more to misrepresent Epicurus than it does to actually edify
about him. I think this is just a really bad article.

~~~
freeflight
>He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see
any evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like
that.

What definition of hedonism are you using that necessarily involves marriage,
eating meat or being a sex maniac? The very basic definition of hedonism is
this:

>He simply believed that the good life is the absence of suffering

Nothing more and nothing less because "suffering" and "good" can actually be
quite subjective. A masochist might enjoy being degraded and hurt, it's
his/her part of the definition of "good", while non-masochists would probably
put many SM practices into the category of "I wouldn't want to suffer trough
that".

If not eating meat makes you suffer less, on account of empathy for the
animals that didn't need to be slaughtered for your nutritious needs, then
that fits pretty perfectly into decreasing the suffering around you and for
yourself.

~~~
vivekd
>What definition of hedonism are you using that necessarily involves marriage,
eating meat or being a sex maniac?

the google definition:

the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence. The sex maniac part was from
the article.

~~~
narag
Unfortunately those ancient greeks didn't have Google to know better ;)

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mcguire
Epicurus' 4-part cure:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos)

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z3t4
> "Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website."

And it's just a bunch of text and an image ... When a web page tells me to
activate JavaScript I expect some cool webgGL or canvas demo or the like.

