strange headache
Banned
As the philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they know only their own side of the question”.
With this adage, Mill wanted to convey that human beings who dedicate their whole lives to the pursuit of corporal pleasure and materialistic delights will never find true happiness, because doing so would mean to betray human nature. After all, we are reasonable animals and as such, we cannot find meaning in materialistic goods. Mill's utilitarian philosophy is a direct refutation of the hedonistic nature of modern society that promises happiness through the means of consumption.
Living the life of a pig may sound enticing, but ultimately it means to deny ones own true nature. No, a human being can only find happiness by staying true to his nature or as Aristotle would say, his function. So in order to determine human nature, we need to find out what we are made to perform. We human beings tend to define things according to their function, so it would be silly to assume that the human being itself serves no purpose that is exclusive to its existence. The function of a knife is to cut, so by definition a good knife is a knife that performs its function of cutting admirably. A pen is a good pen if it allows you to write well, a chair is a good chair if it allows you to sit comfortably and so on...
The same of course is true for human craft. A carpenter is a good carpenter if he produces good furniture, a strategist is a good strategist if he obtains victory and a doctor is a good doctor if he heals others well. Even our organs follow the same principle. An eye is good if it has good eyesight, a leg is good if it allows you to run fast and a nose is a good nose if it can pick up scents accurately. Following this line of thinking, there's really no reason why it should be any different for us humans. So in order to find out our function as human beings, we only need to compare use to other living beings.
Plants can grow, multiply and take up nutrients. Compared to plants, animals can do something that plants cannot, that is to feel emotions. Now, compared to plants and animals, what is it that humans can perform that other living organisms can't? Well, according to Aristotle, what makes humans unique is their ability to reason. In other words, a human being is a good human being if it performs its true function which is to live a life according to reason. Therefore, happiness can only be found in our ability to think
Considering all of the above, can we truly say that our modern societies live up to that ideal? Let's face it, we live in a pleasure-oriented world that reveres corporal and materialistic hedonism, rather than intellectual significance. The things we buy, the stuff we consume, the entertainment media we watch and the people we make famous are, for the most part, a celebration of corporal hedonism. Youth, external beauty, expensive clothes and apparel, a lifestyle in luxury, these are the values we tend to dignify with our utmost attention. The Hollywood celebrity, the rich corporate start-up trust fund kid, the social media opinion monger, these are the people we listen to while the intellectuals who seek meaning and understanding are shunned by society at large.
The media we consume, are mostly puddle deep with a thick veneer of emotionally laden pseudo-morality, filled to the brim with tits, asses and explosions. Our society has long since stopped to seek meaning in the movies we watch, the songs we listen to, the games we play and the books we read. What we want is digital escapism from the burdens of reality, a reality that cannot be shaped so easily by our capricious whims and desires. No, what we have cultivated is not a generation of enlightened human beings capable of rational thought, instead we created a generation of people who define themselves through the things they consume. You can see it everywhere, our entertainment has become religion, our new iPhone a sacred cow, the lifestyle and media starlets our prophets.
And there is a simple reason for that: You cannot package and sell intellectual pleasure.
Intellectual pleasure is what you intimately derive from a good through the capacity of your own reason. As such it is purely dependent on your capacity to think about, to rationalize and to understand the things of the world. It is not an instant gratification in the sense that it can easily appeal to your bodily desires. As Leo Strauss would say, it requires the "cultivation of your reason". Only a beautiful mind can appreciate intellectual beauty that doesn't come with a price tag.
As John Stuart Mill would say, the higher pleasures of the mind are vastly superior to the lower pleasures of the body. As such he greatly values pleasures of the intellect, of contemplation, of imagination, and of moral sentiments. Today's society cares very little about these values as it equates happiness with pleasure and material wealth. Coincidentally these are the people we tend to admire, not the free thinkers, the knowledgeable and the intellectuals, but the business moguls and the pop and movie stars. We don't value these people for their beautiful minds, but their beautiful smiles, their economic prowess and their pricey possessions. We give them expensive designer clothes, pompous villas and shiny golden trophies. Worse yet, we listen to their words because they are rich and famous and when you are rich and famous you must be right.
But the thing with money is that it doesn't make you happy, you can be the richest person in the world and still be depressingly empty and vacuous. Money isn't happiness and never can be, simply because it's not a value in and of itself, it is merely a means to an end. Or as Aristotle would describe it, it's an intermediate goal through which we promise ourselves joy. No, true happiness can only be found through ataraxia, the tranquility of the soul which is a commodity that has become rare these days as most people are busy enviously eyeing the possessions of their fellow human beings. What our materialistic society has plenty of, is jealousy.
We've cultivated a whole generation of young people who get their worldviews from social media by following some vacuous pompous starlet that's merely parroting words without understanding their meaning. I don't admire these famous people, in fact, I pity them. Despite their golden tongue, they stand for everything that I learned to despise about this society. They keep repeating all these shiny buzzwords, not because they know what they actually mean, but because they think it's expected of them. And so they keep tweeting and messaging these grandiose words and hashtags, without respecting them themselves.
Just try it for yourself, and go sit someplace (an empty room, a lonely bench, beneath a tree, whatever...) without your mobile, without a book or piece of entertainment, without internet or any other distracting piece of commodity of the modern world. Just sit there, you and yourself and wait... just wait and see what happens. Will you be fine, will your thoughts creep up on you, will your regrets haunt you? If that thought alone makes you shudder, if it sounds boring or pointless, you might be far away from your own ataraxy. Sitting there contemplating, letting your thoughts flow through you, keeping yourself company, not in the sense of meditation, but in an ontological sense, to simply exist. Why is it that we have become so frightened of that? Being busy is not enough. It’s what we are busy with that counts, or as Socrates would say, “beware the barrenness of a busy life".
Popular entertainment has not only become religion, but also an escape from ourselves, as more and more people become unable to spend time just being by and with themselves. Contemplation of the self has largely fallen out of fashion, instead we've become too busy watching others, finding their faults and pointing fingers. The world, we'd like to think, is a bad place not because of our own stupidity but because of others. Now what I'm saying is nothing new. When Socrates faced the 501-member jury in his apologia, this is what he had to say to those charged with deciding his innocence or guilt: "As long as I draw breath… I shall… exhort you… Are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?"
It is an age old problem, but none that has become irrelevant, on the contrary. Gone are the days of intellectual moralism, what we've got now is a simplified version of social justice. A purely materialistic view on morality, defined by skin color, race, gender and perceived privilege. Our current notion of justice is popular not because it is right, but because it is easy. Just use your eyes, no need for careful consideration, visual confirmation is sufficient. It's the ultimate morality of a generation the grew up with social media and permanent visual stimulation that vastly prefers appearance over substance.
In the end, pleasure is a poor substitute for happiness, it is fleeting and ephemeral. Thus we fall from one pleasure to another, never really satisfied with what we have because once we've gotten one thing we're already looking forward to another. Our society promises pleasure, because pain and misery have no value anymore. Thus we have subjugated ourselves under the soft tyranny of the promise of numb corporal pleasure that renders us fragile against the harshness of reality. Our very own pleasure utopia has become a golden cage that leaves no room for the beauty of misery anymore.
By doing so, we've engrossed ourselves with first world problems without significance and let me tell you, there is nothing worse than suffering without meaning. I say no to that, I'll take the sweet suffering that life has bestowed upon me over dull corporal pleasure anytime, because to bravely bear the harshness of existence that is to become a better human. To find true happiness is not to look forwards to the things you don't have, but to the thing you do have and your ability to endure and reflect upon yourself.
Weather the storm dear Gaffers and stay afloat.
With this adage, Mill wanted to convey that human beings who dedicate their whole lives to the pursuit of corporal pleasure and materialistic delights will never find true happiness, because doing so would mean to betray human nature. After all, we are reasonable animals and as such, we cannot find meaning in materialistic goods. Mill's utilitarian philosophy is a direct refutation of the hedonistic nature of modern society that promises happiness through the means of consumption.
Living the life of a pig may sound enticing, but ultimately it means to deny ones own true nature. No, a human being can only find happiness by staying true to his nature or as Aristotle would say, his function. So in order to determine human nature, we need to find out what we are made to perform. We human beings tend to define things according to their function, so it would be silly to assume that the human being itself serves no purpose that is exclusive to its existence. The function of a knife is to cut, so by definition a good knife is a knife that performs its function of cutting admirably. A pen is a good pen if it allows you to write well, a chair is a good chair if it allows you to sit comfortably and so on...
The same of course is true for human craft. A carpenter is a good carpenter if he produces good furniture, a strategist is a good strategist if he obtains victory and a doctor is a good doctor if he heals others well. Even our organs follow the same principle. An eye is good if it has good eyesight, a leg is good if it allows you to run fast and a nose is a good nose if it can pick up scents accurately. Following this line of thinking, there's really no reason why it should be any different for us humans. So in order to find out our function as human beings, we only need to compare use to other living beings.
Plants can grow, multiply and take up nutrients. Compared to plants, animals can do something that plants cannot, that is to feel emotions. Now, compared to plants and animals, what is it that humans can perform that other living organisms can't? Well, according to Aristotle, what makes humans unique is their ability to reason. In other words, a human being is a good human being if it performs its true function which is to live a life according to reason. Therefore, happiness can only be found in our ability to think
Considering all of the above, can we truly say that our modern societies live up to that ideal? Let's face it, we live in a pleasure-oriented world that reveres corporal and materialistic hedonism, rather than intellectual significance. The things we buy, the stuff we consume, the entertainment media we watch and the people we make famous are, for the most part, a celebration of corporal hedonism. Youth, external beauty, expensive clothes and apparel, a lifestyle in luxury, these are the values we tend to dignify with our utmost attention. The Hollywood celebrity, the rich corporate start-up trust fund kid, the social media opinion monger, these are the people we listen to while the intellectuals who seek meaning and understanding are shunned by society at large.
The media we consume, are mostly puddle deep with a thick veneer of emotionally laden pseudo-morality, filled to the brim with tits, asses and explosions. Our society has long since stopped to seek meaning in the movies we watch, the songs we listen to, the games we play and the books we read. What we want is digital escapism from the burdens of reality, a reality that cannot be shaped so easily by our capricious whims and desires. No, what we have cultivated is not a generation of enlightened human beings capable of rational thought, instead we created a generation of people who define themselves through the things they consume. You can see it everywhere, our entertainment has become religion, our new iPhone a sacred cow, the lifestyle and media starlets our prophets.
And there is a simple reason for that: You cannot package and sell intellectual pleasure.
Intellectual pleasure is what you intimately derive from a good through the capacity of your own reason. As such it is purely dependent on your capacity to think about, to rationalize and to understand the things of the world. It is not an instant gratification in the sense that it can easily appeal to your bodily desires. As Leo Strauss would say, it requires the "cultivation of your reason". Only a beautiful mind can appreciate intellectual beauty that doesn't come with a price tag.
As John Stuart Mill would say, the higher pleasures of the mind are vastly superior to the lower pleasures of the body. As such he greatly values pleasures of the intellect, of contemplation, of imagination, and of moral sentiments. Today's society cares very little about these values as it equates happiness with pleasure and material wealth. Coincidentally these are the people we tend to admire, not the free thinkers, the knowledgeable and the intellectuals, but the business moguls and the pop and movie stars. We don't value these people for their beautiful minds, but their beautiful smiles, their economic prowess and their pricey possessions. We give them expensive designer clothes, pompous villas and shiny golden trophies. Worse yet, we listen to their words because they are rich and famous and when you are rich and famous you must be right.
But the thing with money is that it doesn't make you happy, you can be the richest person in the world and still be depressingly empty and vacuous. Money isn't happiness and never can be, simply because it's not a value in and of itself, it is merely a means to an end. Or as Aristotle would describe it, it's an intermediate goal through which we promise ourselves joy. No, true happiness can only be found through ataraxia, the tranquility of the soul which is a commodity that has become rare these days as most people are busy enviously eyeing the possessions of their fellow human beings. What our materialistic society has plenty of, is jealousy.
We've cultivated a whole generation of young people who get their worldviews from social media by following some vacuous pompous starlet that's merely parroting words without understanding their meaning. I don't admire these famous people, in fact, I pity them. Despite their golden tongue, they stand for everything that I learned to despise about this society. They keep repeating all these shiny buzzwords, not because they know what they actually mean, but because they think it's expected of them. And so they keep tweeting and messaging these grandiose words and hashtags, without respecting them themselves.
Just try it for yourself, and go sit someplace (an empty room, a lonely bench, beneath a tree, whatever...) without your mobile, without a book or piece of entertainment, without internet or any other distracting piece of commodity of the modern world. Just sit there, you and yourself and wait... just wait and see what happens. Will you be fine, will your thoughts creep up on you, will your regrets haunt you? If that thought alone makes you shudder, if it sounds boring or pointless, you might be far away from your own ataraxy. Sitting there contemplating, letting your thoughts flow through you, keeping yourself company, not in the sense of meditation, but in an ontological sense, to simply exist. Why is it that we have become so frightened of that? Being busy is not enough. It’s what we are busy with that counts, or as Socrates would say, “beware the barrenness of a busy life".
Popular entertainment has not only become religion, but also an escape from ourselves, as more and more people become unable to spend time just being by and with themselves. Contemplation of the self has largely fallen out of fashion, instead we've become too busy watching others, finding their faults and pointing fingers. The world, we'd like to think, is a bad place not because of our own stupidity but because of others. Now what I'm saying is nothing new. When Socrates faced the 501-member jury in his apologia, this is what he had to say to those charged with deciding his innocence or guilt: "As long as I draw breath… I shall… exhort you… Are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?"
It is an age old problem, but none that has become irrelevant, on the contrary. Gone are the days of intellectual moralism, what we've got now is a simplified version of social justice. A purely materialistic view on morality, defined by skin color, race, gender and perceived privilege. Our current notion of justice is popular not because it is right, but because it is easy. Just use your eyes, no need for careful consideration, visual confirmation is sufficient. It's the ultimate morality of a generation the grew up with social media and permanent visual stimulation that vastly prefers appearance over substance.
In the end, pleasure is a poor substitute for happiness, it is fleeting and ephemeral. Thus we fall from one pleasure to another, never really satisfied with what we have because once we've gotten one thing we're already looking forward to another. Our society promises pleasure, because pain and misery have no value anymore. Thus we have subjugated ourselves under the soft tyranny of the promise of numb corporal pleasure that renders us fragile against the harshness of reality. Our very own pleasure utopia has become a golden cage that leaves no room for the beauty of misery anymore.
By doing so, we've engrossed ourselves with first world problems without significance and let me tell you, there is nothing worse than suffering without meaning. I say no to that, I'll take the sweet suffering that life has bestowed upon me over dull corporal pleasure anytime, because to bravely bear the harshness of existence that is to become a better human. To find true happiness is not to look forwards to the things you don't have, but to the thing you do have and your ability to endure and reflect upon yourself.
Weather the storm dear Gaffers and stay afloat.
