Is pleasure respected in our society?

[Ksa]

Debate topic. Clearly state your argument and refrain from using pornographic insults, if you can, otherwise pornographic insults will be interpreted as a general disagreement.

I was having a conversation with my branch manager and she mentioned her teenage son who did fuckall during summer and who later on failed to qualify for some non sense hockey contest because he didn't train 24/7 during summer instead of going out and having a good time. She even said that that was an eye-opener for him because he realized that if he does not work hard every moment of his life, he...won't qualify...for anything.

So I was sitting there trying to understand the mindstate that she was in to say and firmly believe these things. My view is that life is like a garden where you can plant anything you want. If you only plant vegetables, your garden will be productive and you will always have something to eat, but you won't enjoy any beauty, any perfume and the excitement you get from planting flowers.

So she was upset that her son planted a flower and basically said that if he had planted a potato...next year he would have had 5 potatos which replanted would have given him 25 potatos. So she was in a mindset where life is like a potato farm and you just gotta spend all your energy into dynamic work, productively resulting in a material output and not a spiritual output. She couldn't care less if her son fell in love with a beautiful girlfriend that summer when I asked...she wanted him to strive and struggle to achieve things.

Even the things that they achieve have little meaning, so it doesn't really matter what you're trying to achieve, as long as you fight to achieve something and not just internalize your energy in a non-productive manner, aka. feeling pleasure, which is seen as selfish and horrible! An abomination. Comment.

 

[maggells]

I'm a complete hedonist so people that are only focused on productivity and achievements are a mystery to me. I'm all for working to better your future for yourself and your family but if I didn't have to work, even though I enjoy what I do, I would absolutely be at home sleeping, doing drugs, and having sex 90% of the time. We as a society are definitely too work oriented. 60-80hr work weeks, poor benefits, minimal family/maternity leave options, expensive benefits that cover little, etc. No wonder so many of us use recreational substances to escape the pressure of our careers and the constant push from everyone around us to work harder, longer, and with little reward for our sacrifices. But then again if we all pursued a life of pleasure over success little would be accomplished. A healthy balance seems to be the right way to go about it.

 

[belligerent drunk]

If we could support current quality of life without actually doing any work, then well... nobody would work. But we can't, and we always want more and more (in terms of quality of life), so we force ourselves and our peers to work towards that. However, I agree with the general idea of your thoughts, Ksa. People often do not see things for what they really are, and this work thing is no exception. There is no absolute or universal "need" to work, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing nothing but enjoying yourself as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. But our society has been shaped so that people think it really is the absolute meaning of life to pursue a career or some other form of success.

I'm also a hedonist, but I acknowledge why other people may be so inclined on worrying about shit like productivity and achievement. They just don't know any better. And well, I don't mind as long as I can be myself and nobody is screaming at me to go to work each morning. After all, the more work other people do, the less I would have to do *wink wink*. But no, seriously, I still work and I enjoy what I do, I just know it's not the meaning of life and I also enjoy other things.

 

[Foreigner]

Nope it's not. Our society is very guilt ridden when it comes to pleasure. Euphoria is a side effect to be avoided, not something that you are meant to relish.

One caveat is that you're permitted to enjoy pleasure if it's in ways sanctioned by capitalism, i.e. ways that money can be made off of you. Things like sex and human contact - the original pleasure - have so many moral hangups.

It's also a cultural value that life has to be hard work and grit. Taking the easy, pleasurable route is seen as sloth. If you're not suffering then you're doing something wrong. It relates to original sin and Christian guilt... at least in the west.

 

[Ninae]

I guess it depends what you mean by pleasure.

Someone who spends all his time partying rather than getting a good education might enjoy himself at the time, but in 10 years when his friends have better jobs and lives maybe not so much. I think there is something to be said for considering what your situation will be in the future, aswell.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I don't think you'll find many societies that condemn joy in all its forms. What you will find a lot of, however, are societies that condemn the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of one's obligations to other people or the greater community. Each society defines the individual's obligations to others in a different way, depending on what has been needed to keep the society running. When a source of pleasure has developed a reputation in a given society for causing the pursuer to shirk his obligations to others, members of that society will naturally become wary of it, and discourage it.

I think someone who seeks a lot of pleasure, but never burdens or exploits anyone to get it, won't be condemned except by the jealous. It's another whole matter if the person is seeking pleasure, but at the same time isn't doing some important thing(s) they're supposed to do, regardless of whether these two things are causally related.

Where this gets kind of hairy is when two people who come from two different social contexts, that differ widely in what obligations they place on individual members, compare themselves to each other. If I come from a family and a social stratum that places obligations on me that demand nearly all of my time and energy in return for good standing, then I'm going look with a curious mixture of envy and disrespect at those peers of mine who are bound by fewer obligations, and take full advantage of that freedom to have fun. If I feel a strong affinity for the group to which I belong, it'll be much more disrespect than envy, out of necessity. After all, if I didn't look down on people who weren't under the pressures I am to put aside gratification, then I'd be forced to question whether the cost of good standing within my social group was even worth it, and I might just opt out.

Also, chew on this. There are definitely places on Earth where competition for resources is so fierce that forgoing most pleasure-for-its-own-sake and buckling down to nearly endless hard work is simply the ante for survival. I've lived in China, where busting your ass nonstop is a way of life, and the only way to stand a chance of earning a living wage. You slack off even once, you're surrounded by people who won't. So somebody who'd rather play than work, even temporarily, is seen (quite understandably) as an utter fool, who is letting down the family who has invested so much in him.

I could be wrong, but I sense the USA is becoming more China-like in this regard. We have a large population, and fewer and fewer jobs that can't be shipped overseas and/or done by a machine. Competition for these jobs is only getting keener, such that those who aren't willing or able to pour all their time, money, and energy into vying for one, are probably going to be outcompeted, and will likely be doomed to subsistence-level wages doing bleak work.

There is another way (at least in the West), and that way is dropping out of society completely. I've known people who've lived very simply, doing just the minimum to get by, without a lot of the comforts of modern society. If you can do it without mooching off the system or any other people, then it seems to me you've done no wrong to anyone, at least in individualist cultures. If you choose to live that way and raise children, however, then you're entering ethically dicey territory. One could argue that not equipping children to enter and participate in mainstream society (if they so choose as adults), and imposing on them a markedly lower standard of living than you could potentially afford them, is doing them a grave disservice.

 

[Ksa]

People get pleasure from different things. Seems this woman finds pleasure in working hard and being ambitious and having something to show for yourself. For you this stuff might be overrated or shallow. I don't think there's a right answer here because it really just depends on your character.

Great point, I thought about that, however, like pain, pleasure also has an intensity scale. Intensity is measured on a scale from 1 to 10, where 8 would cause a loss of functionality and 9-10 a severe loss of functionality, whether it's pain or pleasure

If the pleasure that woman feels would be intense to the point where it would prevent her from doing her job properly, I would be doing exactly what she does, mindlessly, and yesterday. But naturally, God's honest truth is that her pleasure is small, and if she finds it big it is only due to her lack of pleasurable experiences.

Her fingers are not shaking, her mind isn't turned to mush. It's just a background noise.

 

[Ksa]

@ MyDoorsAreOpen You'll love my other post:

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/788767-Survival-A-sign-that-Life-went-bad

 

[infectedmushroom]

I don't think you'll find many societies that condemn joy in all its forms. What you will find a lot of, however, are societies that condemn the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of one's obligations to other people or the greater community. Each society defines the individual's obligations to others in a different way, depending on what has been needed to keep the society running. When a source of pleasure has developed a reputation in a given society for causing the pursuer to shirk his obligations to others, members of that society will naturally become wary of it, and discourage it.

I think someone who seeks a lot of pleasure, but never burdens or exploits anyone to get it, won't be condemned except by the jealous. It's another whole matter if the person is seeking pleasure, but at the same time isn't doing some important thing(s) they're supposed to do, regardless of whether these two things are causally related.

Where this gets kind of hairy is when two people who come from two different social contexts, that differ widely in what obligations they place on individual members, compare themselves to each other. If I come from a family and a social stratum that places obligations on me that demand nearly all of my time and energy in return for good standing, then I'm going look with a curious mixture of envy and disrespect at those peers of mine who are bound by fewer obligations, and take full advantage of that freedom to have fun. If I feel a strong affinity for the group to which I belong, it'll be much more disrespect than envy, out of necessity. After all, if I didn't look down on people who weren't under the pressures I am to put aside gratification, then I'd be forced to question whether the cost of good standing within my social group was even worth it, and I might just opt out.

Also, chew on this. There are definitely places on Earth where competition for resources is so fierce that forgoing most pleasure-for-its-own-sake and buckling down to nearly endless hard work is simply the ante for survival. I've lived in China, where busting your ass nonstop is a way of life, and the only way to stand a chance of earning a living wage. You slack off even once, you're surrounded by people who won't. So somebody who'd rather play than work, even temporarily, is seen (quite understandably) as an utter fool, who is letting down the family who has invested so much in him.

I could be wrong, but I sense the USA is becoming more China-like in this regard. We have a large population, and fewer and fewer jobs that can't be shipped overseas and/or done by a machine. Competition for these jobs is only getting keener, such that those who aren't willing or able to pour all their time, money, and energy into vying for one, are probably going to be outcompeted, and will likely be doomed to subsistence-level wages doing bleak work.

There is another way (at least in the West), and that way is dropping out of society completely. I've known people who've lived very simply, doing just the minimum to get by, without a lot of the comforts of modern society. If you can do it without mooching off the system or any other people, then it seems to me you've done no wrong to anyone, at least in individualist cultures. If you choose to live that way and raise children, however, then you're entering ethically dicey territory. One could argue that not equipping children to enter and participate in mainstream society (if they so choose as adults), and imposing on them a markedly lower standard of living than you could potentially afford them, is doing them a grave disservice.

Fascinating thread topic, and a brilliant response I had to quote in full because it sums up so much so nicely.