What is wrong with hedonism?

[Brant Gaede]

You just keep firing arrows into the side of the barn and drawing bullseyes around them.

--Brant

talk about having your hedonism and eating it too!

please don't try to teach Objectivism unless someone pays you to!

[Dglgmut]

I had hoped, Jerry, you'd know enough to figure it out. Of course there are addictions and there are addictions and of course I'm not talking about nicotine and such. I'm talking about grind yourself into the ground and destroy your life stuff with stuff you think is a pleasure to put into your body even though it may only be a relief.

--Brant

the joy of pulling teeth one at a time

Short term pleasure (if it is pleasure), long term suffering. Is that hedonism? Or is that range of the moment hedonism? What's wrong with long term hedonism?

Hedonism: I like it; therefore it is good.

Objectivism: It is good; therefore I like it.

Take music for for example. What is wrong with I like this music; therefore it is good?

According to Ayn Rand, liking some work of music is not a valid reason why it is good. Why?

Has the person considered whether the music is good or bad for his/her psychology? Like eating McDonald's doesn't taste as good if you are constantly thinking about what's in it.

[jts]

Has the person considered whether the music is good or bad for his/her psychology? Like eating McDonald's doesn't taste as good if you are constantly thinking about what's in it.

How many people consider either? The effects of the music or the effects of the food.

Music is usually purely about pleasure, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Even food is mostly about pleasure, and rightly so. Worrying about what is in food is bad for your health. Did you ever see a healthy person who worries about food? And even if you eat something bad for your health, enjoyment of food is more important than health.

One of my favorite meals is 1 head of leafy lettuce, a beet or 2, a whole bunch of tomatoes, all run thru the Omega juicer (pulp and juice together), and a dash of turmeric powder, and distilled water run thru the juicer to half-ass clean it and to add water to the mix. Apart from the turmeric powder, no consideration given to health effects. Pure hedonism. I have 2 refrigerators packed full of lettuce, beets, and tomatoes, and nothing else. Do you think I give a rat's ass about nutrition? Every time I eat a meal with both beets and tomatoes, it feels good. Do you think I care about anything else?

What would Ayn Rand think?

http://facetsofaynrand.com/book/chap7.html

ARI

Anything she didn’t like?

Mary Ann

Salads—lettuce, tomatoes, and so forth. Whenever Eloise prepared dinner, there was never a salad at Ayn’s place. She once referred to salads as “grass”—which I’ve since learned is a Russian way of viewing salad.

Ayn Rand ate rationally, not like me.

[BaalChatzaf]

Apparently, when it comes to food you don't care what Ayn Rand thinks.

Neither do I.

[Peter]

Michael wrote about Hedonism:

The best thing a hedonist can hope for at a fundamental level (in terms of how the brain works) is a life of happiness without meaning.

end quote

Well said. If an institution locked down for the mentally ill were prescribing mind numbing drugs that induced uphoria the outrage would generate an expose book like, “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.”

If the government were supplying drugs or subliminal messages over the internet to make its citizens happy and compliant can you imagine the movies waiting to be made? Move over Area 51! Conspiracy theories would abound.

I think the Hedonism discussion is part of a the wider questions: Can you? Should you? Which is the correct way to vote? How should you live your life?

The Republican Party has several factions, some of which are the conservative faction, the Tea Party faction, the upper class establishment faction that favors the rich, the religious / social faction, the old guard (like John Boehner and Karl Rove) and the new guard (with Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan and Rand Paul.) Some of these factions overlap forming coalitions.

The Religious faction says that in a free society you can do as you please as long as you do not infringe on the rights of others, nor disobey what is preached in the bible.

The Republican Party sub group called the Tea Party has several factions, two of which are considered on the edge if not on the fringe, and are generally called the Libertarian faction and the Religious faction.

The Libertarian faction of the Tea Party says that in a free society you can do as you please as long as you do not infringe on the rights of others. Technically, it includes anarchists, who pay lip service to rights but in reality think, “might makes right.”

From The Daily Debate by Robert Tracinski who quoted:

The Politico's Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen think they know who is going to be leading that reform. The real power on the right, they argue, rests with the "Rubio-Rand Party."

"Forget John Boehner. Ignore Karl Rove. The real action in the GOP is coming from the newest wing of the party, the one born in the spring of 2009—the offspring of Tea Party activists that almost single-handedly propelled Republicans to control of the House.

"This new movement brought Marco Rubio and Rand Paul to Washington—and made them the two most potent forces in GOP politics today."

end quote

jts wrote:

If you answer that you are into hedonism, then it seems according to Objectivism, you are anti-morality, anti-intellectual and anti-philosophical. If you answer that you are not into hedonism, then I suspect that you are either a liar or an unusual person.

end quote

Not surprisingly, the Objectivist movement also has its “can you” and “should you” factions. Several responders have eluded to them. Does anyone care to describe them? Speak correctly or I will shun thee.

Peter Taylor

[FuturistNow]

If we are going to talk about hedonism we should first talk about who actually argues for hedonism. Epicrueanism for example basically states that the best thing for a man or woman to do is to avoid pain and to seek pleasure. Overall it encouraged temperance not excess because excessive pleasure usually led to a net loss so to speak.

When we say...that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. - Epicurus

This is similar to Buddhism, although Buddhism makes things more complex by focusing on "Suffering" (which is a higher order phenomena than pain).

Ayn Rand did not think that pleasure, pain, happiness, or suffering were the proper meta-ethical standard. The goal of her ethics was to create a set of ideas that could help people make decisions. None of those concepts help you actually make decisions. The concept of "Life" gives me reference to some facts of reality that my thinking can be based in. Hedonism basically puts the cart before the horse by making the goal the standard.

(Doing whatever you want is not an ethical idea, if that was actually a good idea, or the only idea, then ethics is an invalid or pointless pursuit)

[BaalChatzaf]

Seriously now. Going after short term pleasure at the cost of middle and long term damage is unwise. One must get the possible future nearly as much weight as the here and now present. The pursuit of pleasure must be constrained by temperance and wisdom.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

I have 2 refrigerators packed full of lettuce, beets, and tomatoes, and nothing else. Do you think I give a rat's ass about nutrition?

Do you think I give a rat's ass about nutrition?

Absolutely.

For all the evidence available on the various threads you have opened here on the subject indicate that you care very much about nutrition.

One of my favorite meals is 1 head of leafy lettuce, a beet or 2, a whole bunch of tomatoes, all run thru the Omega juicer (pulp and juice together), and a dash of turmeric powder, and distilled water run thru the juicer to half-ass clean it and to add water to the mix.

You would not consume a head of leafy lettuce plus a beet plus a whole bunch of tomatoes if you didn't think they have nutritional value, would you?

[jts]

I have 2 refrigerators packed full of lettuce, beets, and tomatoes, and nothing else. Do you think I give a rat's ass about nutrition?

Do you think I give a rat's ass about nutrition?

Absolutely.

For all the evidence available on the various threads you have opened here on the subject indicate that you care very much about nutrition.

>One of my favorite meals is 1 head of leafy lettuce, a beet or 2, a whole bunch of tomatoes, all run thru the Omega juicer (pulp and juice together), and a dash of turmeric powder, and distilled water run thru the juicer to half-ass clean it and to add water to the mix.

You would not consume a head of leafy lettuce plus a beet plus a whole bunch of tomatoes if you didn't think they have nutritional value, would you?

What I care about is avoiding pro-tumor things.

How do you know those things (lettuce, beet, tomatoes) have nutritional value? Did you run them thru a nutrition program? They are mostly water.

Here is the Javascript version of Diet Monger Ass Kicker. The data might take a long time to load. It consists of 7500 foods and 140 nutrients from USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). This is not nearly as nice looking as the Euphoria versions but they had problems. Being only a primate, I did not yet figure out how to make a menu bar in Javascript. It does use HTML5's local storage to store your settings on your hard drive. Click on all the orange ? buttons to learn how to use the program.

http://jtstory.onlinewebshop.net/dmak-javascript/dmak-js.html

I gotta question to ask you. Why the h... would I make a program like that if I was interested in nutrition?

Some people think food can't taste good unless it has crap in it. For me, veggy mix actually tastes good. For a funny story about how to reboot your brain so healthy eating is preferred, read this article.

http://www.healthpromoting.com/learning-center/articles/resolving-corruption

I see nothing wrong with hedonism if your brain is not corrupted by crap.

[PDS]

Does hedonism lead to happiness?

I don't think so. I agree with the Stoics on this.

[Xray]

I gotta question to ask you. Why the h... would I make a program like that if I was interested in nutrition?

You have answered this question in your own post:

What I care about is avoiding pro-tumor things.

And you obviously believe that eating the 'right food' avoids "pro-tumor things".

How do you know those things (lettuce, beet, tomatoes) have nutritional value? Did you run them thru a nutrition program? They are mostly water.

Am I correct in assuming that you eat lettuce, beet, tomatoes because they also contain essential nutrients?

[jts]

What I care about is avoiding pro-tumor things.

And you obviously believe that eating the 'right food' avoids "pro-tumor things".

>How do you know those things (lettuce, beet, tomatoes) have nutritional value? Did you run them thru a nutrition program? They are mostly water.

Am I correct in assuming that you eat lettuce, beet, tomatoes because they also contain essential nutrients?

Avoiding pro-tumor things:

Hedonism does not imply insanity. If you had a spinal cord tumor in your neck, causing you to be paralysed neck down and the surgeon didn't want to do the operation because it's too dangerous, would you not avoid pro-tumor things?

Nutrients:

All half ass decent foods contain nutrients.

My theory about food:

I believe something is seriously wrong with any food that makes me more hungry after I finish eating it than I was when I began eating it. I believe such foods are not fit to eat. It is common for restaurants to have 'appetizers'. Appetizers are foods or dishes or meals that make you hungrier after you finish eating them than you were when you started eating them. I don't see the logic of appetizers from my point of view. (The restaurant has a different point of view.) Would you attempt to quench thirst on salt water? No? Then why do the equivalent with food? I tend to judge foods and meals by hunger satisfaction. Some foods (for me) produce little or no hunger satisfaction. I found in my experience for myself that veggy mix produces better hunger satisfaction than probably anything else. If this doesn't do it completely, then maybe the next meal will have something with more calories or whatever.

[Xray]

There doesn't seem to be any clue about the difference between hedonism and Objectivism from Ayn Rand's life. Her food choices look to me like hedonism.

http://www.facetsofaynrand.com/book/chap7.html

The term hedonism refers to a certain philosophical attitude, but I don't think Ayn Rand was philosophically interested in the topic of food/nutrition. It is in the back of my mind (from BB's book) that Rand loved sweets and was not quite satisfied with her weight, but she just had a figure that was more on the 'stocky' side.

Like everyone else, Rand preferred certain dishes and disliked other food, but I bet she thought of food in general as not important enough to deserve philosophical consideration.

Rand's mind was philosophically preoccupied with other topics, I think.

[Xray]

Avoiding pro-tumor things:

Hedonism does not imply insanity.

But is the term 'hedonism' needed here at all? Doesn't it cause more confusion than clarity?

For no doubt there exist many hedonists whose interest in food and nutrition is near zero.

Why not call it something like 'healthy eating that also satisfies the palate'?

My theory about food:

I believe something is seriously wrong with any food that makes me more hungry after I finish eating it than I was when I began eating it. I believe such foods are not fit to eat.

It is food with a high glycemic index which has that effect. It quickly raises the level of blood sugar, the body reacts by releasing insuline to lower the blood sugar level. But once the blood sugar level is low, this quickly makes you hungry again

Among the 'worst' food of that type are jelly beans ('Gummibärchen' in German). Unfortunately, I love them.

I once even got into a disagreeable state of hypogclycemia after eating a 100 gram package on an empty stomach. Ever since, I avoid eating too many of them, and also avoid eating them on an empty stomach.

Appetizers are foods or dishes or meals that make you hungrier after you finish eating them than you were when you started eating them. I don't see the logic of appetizers from my point of view. (The restaurant has a different point of view.) .

But isn't the purpose of appetizers to whet the appetite for the main dish? They are the 'ouverture', so to speak, and are not meant to give you the feeling that you've had enough.

Whether one likes to have appetizers or not is a matter of personal preference.

[Brant Gaede]

Hedonism is for discussion.

Indulgence for when we shut up.

--Brant

time to party

[Peter]

Angela with the xray eyes wrote:

But isn't the purpose of appetizers to whet the appetite for the main dish? They are the 'ouverture', so to speak, and are not meant to give you the feeling that you've had enough.

end quote

Quite right. Klingons eat Gok. We humans call it steamed shrimp.

Peter

[Peter]

I dont think anyone is seriously thinking of this thread as a discussion of Greek philosophy. Rather it is about doing bad things that feel good when you do them but then they do have consequences. I remember the lovely Barbara and Ok looking Nathaniel Branden discussing smoking and drinking. I could not find Nathans answer to a Student of Objectivism about the morality of drinking. I think Mr. Branden said it was not morally wrong if it did not affect your productivity and if you drink, you cant cry about a headache the next day. Here are some samples.

Peter

From: Nathaniel Branden <brandenn@pacbell.net>

Reply-To: brandenn@pacbell.net

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Rand and smoking

Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 16:05:42 -0700

When Devers Branden visited Ayn Rand, as reported in the revised edition of my memoir, Devers still smoked (1980-81).

When Devers pulled out a cigarette AR said to her, "Oh, you really should not smoke. It's very bad for your health."

Devers promised to quit and she did.

Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden <n6666b@cs.com>

Reply-To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com

To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com

Subject: [starship_Forum] Branden: Energy Psychology and Self-Esteem

Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 05:49:57 -0000

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: [nathaniel_branden] Energy Psychology and Self-Esteem

Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 16:16:28 -0400 (EDT)

From: n6666b@cs.com

I have asked to discuss how I relate Energy Psychology to the kind of issues I discuss in my books, which chiefly have to do with self-esteem, autonomy, and self-development.

Let me mention that I write of "Energy Psychology" rather than "Thought Field Therapy" (TFT) because the latter is one school, although by far the most influential one, within the wider field of Energy Psychology. These days I am immersed in the study and practice of Seemorg Matrix Work, developed by Asha Clinton. Clinton uses some of work originated by Roger Callahan in TFT and I understand that TFT people use some of Clinton's workâ?¦which is all as it should be.

I think of psychotherapy as having two broad tasks: the elimination of negatives (phobias, anxiety, depression, self-destructive attitudes, etc.) -and the cultivation of positives (living consciously, self-acceptingly, self-responsibly, self-assertively, purposefully, with integrity, a positive attitude toward the challenges and opportunities of life, etc.)

Although these two tasks commonly overlap, there are distinctions here that need to be understood.

The absence of anxiety does not equal the presence of self-confidence. The absence of depression does not equal the presence of happiness. The elimination of negatives does not guarantee the establishment of positives.

The elimination of negatives opens the door to the possibility of building positives, but different processes are involved.

My writing has chiefly been concerned not with the overcoming of negatives (although indirectly my work has often proven helpful in that regard, if only by inspiring courage) but with clarifying the kind of positives essential to a fulfilling life (e.g., the six pillars of self-esteem).

I have found Energy work extraordinarily helpful in dealing with negatives-healing traumas and eliminating traumatic patterns, overcoming anxieties and insecurities, healing psychic wounds, curing phobias, lifting depression, and so forth. But I have never found any school of Energy Psychology to be a totally stand-alone therapy.

So in my work I interweave the kind of themes I write about into my practice when I am also using some form of Energy Psychology--and I interweave what I have learned from Energy Psychology into my practice when I am working with someone on issues of self-development and self-actualization.

When I am working on eliminating negatives, I am also weaving in positives-and when I am working on developing positives, I sometimes need to pause to focus on the elimination of a negative.

Does Energy Psychology offer some tools for installing positives? Yes. Some. But by my standards not enough by itself. I might be mistaken but I don't think most therapists of a basically Energy orientation would give me an argument about this.

Surely it is enough to say that in my judgment Energy Psychology has made revolutionary contributions and I am profoundly grateful to colleagues like Callahan and Clinton.

Forgive the brevity of this note, by I am being very wicked by playing hooky from the book I am writing to dash off this note. I hope it's useful.

Nathaniel Branden

From: "RCR" <reason_on@hotmail.com>

To: "Atlantis" <atlantis@wetheliving.com>

Subject: ATL: 8 Track NB (Context Crossing Condensor Mix)

Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:15:38 -0600

1. The age of the muscle-worker is past; this is the age of the mind-worker. That your mind is your basic tool of survival is not new; what is new is that this fact has become inescapably clear. The market is rapidly diminishing for people who have nothing to contribute but physical labor. In an economy in which knowledge, information, creativity-and their translation into innovation-are the prime sources of wealth, what is needed above all is minds. What is needed are people who are able and willing to think. - Nathaniel Branden

2. What is the specter that makes self-assertiveness feel so terrifying? The image of someone frowning in disagreement or disapproval. Nathaniel Branden

3. Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of misguided notions of duty, people surrender their selves-their convictions and their aspirations-every day. There is nothing noble about it. It takes far more

courage to fight for your values than to relinquish them. Nathaniel Branden

4. Blaming is a dead-end. What is needed is to focus on solutions, which entails discovering your own resources and mobilizing the will to use them. What are you willing to do to make your life better? - Nathaniel Branden

5. Taking on responsibilities that properly belong to someone else means behaving irresponsibly toward yourself. You need to know where you end and someone else begins. You need to understand boundaries. You need to know what is and is not up to you, what is and is not in your control, what is and is not your responsibility. - Nathaniel Branden

6. If you choose to move through life blindly, you have good reason to be anxious. - Nathaniel Branden

7. When you fight a block or a resistance, it grows stronger. When you acknowledge, accept, and experience it fully, it begins to melt. - Nathaniel Branden

8. In the nature of reality, sometimes there is no choice but to act instantly with no time for reflection. It is an act of consciousness to recognize such moments and take your chances-and know that you will live (or possibly die) with the consequences of your actions. Nathaniel Branden

**9. A policy of independent thinking can bring us into conflict with the opinions of others. And then the question becomes: What matters more to you-your own perception of reality or someone else's approval? If this is not a spiritual issue, what is? - Nathaniel Branden

From: BBfromM@aol.com

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: Re: ATL: Re: Was Ayn Rand ever wrong?

Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 00:29:13 EDT

Steve Reed wrote:

<< Was it that she [Ayn Rand] had, in fact, decided (or not) that smoking was genuinely dangerous to -human life,- in more general terms? Or that it clearly had been a cause of harm to -her own life,- in specific terms? I never quite understood which alternative was involved here. (Perhaps something else.)>>

I think that both sides of the alternative were involved. That is, that she began to think it likely that smoking potentially was dangerous to life and that it had been at least a partial cause of her own cancer.

Steve further wrote:

<<It would only tend toward being a causal "result" for those who -substituted- Rand's judgments about this evidence for their own appraisals. We do that all the time when relying on expert testimony. Many strong admirers of Rand (such as I) have had moments of doing so. . . . Yet whether Rand had enough of a scientific basis at hand to be properly relied upon as an expert on this issue is another matter. She had one genuine broader philosophic truth at hand, that "correlation is not causation" -- yet she ended up using this, it seems, as a mere rationalization.>>

If you had heard Ayn Rand's arguments about why there was no proof that smoking had a causative role in cancer, you would not speak of her listeners substituting her judgment for their own appraisals. As usual, her arguments were powerful, even overwhelming. I believe that most of our students were convinced by her reasons, whether or not they also saw her as an authority figure. Unless one went home, thought about what she said and how convincing it was -- and then thought: But is just isn't so! Although there are many

exceptions, the correlation between smoking and cancer is simply too strong to be explained away.

It is very difficult to make real to people who didn't see her in action, the extraordinary intellectual power of Ayn Rand. We are very lucky that she wasn't a communist, because if she had been, we probably would now be living under a communist dictatorship. (I know, I know, I'm uttering a near-contradiction Ayn Rand as a communist would not be Ayn Rand -- but it approximately makes my point.)

Steve also wrote:

<< . . . Mind-over-disease cults have had a long history of popular appeal in Russia, over two centuries -- and have had a newly fueled appeal with Russia's equivalent of tabloid TV, in the past decade. Especially in light of Chris Sciabarra's recent research, I wonder if some of -that- perspective sneaked into her outlook at a tender age.. . . . It's no calumny on Rand to note this possibility, as some of the Orthodox have implied in bashing Barbara's bio. Irrationalism has deep roots, and the human mind deals with too many matters at once to make it easy to exclude others' bad judgments.

I quite agree with you that it's no calumny on Ayn Rand to suggest that the mind-over-disease idea might have begun with her early years in Russia. I have said before that the astonishing thing about her was how many of the ideas that constituted her world as a child, she was able, then and later, to question and, if they didn't make sense to her, to reject. Most people never question the ideas they are exposed to in childhood, the ideas that seem to the child to be so universally accepted that there must be nothing to question or doubt, and that there cannot be a justification, since "everybody knows they are true," even to expose them to the light of reason. Her extraordinary ability and determination to do this to the extent that she did do it, is one more expression of her genius. That she missed a few of the ideas that everyone knows are true but are not true, is not surprising; it probably is inevitable for any mind. Even a great mind cannot know to question *everything.*

This is an aside, but reading her Journal, I was struck once again, as I have been so many times in the past, with the incredible scope and range of her intelligence. In her early teens and twenties, she was thinking about the major concepts of philosophy, and struggling her way to her own philosophy. Hers was as firsthand a mind as I can conceive of.

However, though her view might have begun in Russia, it was later buttressed and expanded upon by Nathaniel, in long conversations they had over many years. He was convinced in those years that the mind and the emotions played a crucial role in disease -- which may very well be so, but that is another issue.

Barbara

From: BBfromM@aol.com

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Ayn Rand and drinking

Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 20:33:51 EDT

Ayn Rand did not drink, simply because she disliked the taste of liquor, but she had no objection to other people drinking -- assuming they did not reach the stage of drunkenness. She very much liked the concept of some drinking and much gaiety and good will at parties -- it was what she had thought would be true of parties in America. She had gathered this while still in Russia, from the American movies she saw. But was deeply disappointed to discover that parties generally held little gaiety and that people too often drank in order to become soddenly drunk and to make that an excuse for the sort of out-of-control behavior that they assumed would not be judged since they were "drunk."

She was convinced that no one HAD to be out-of-control, no matter how much they had to drink, that it was a "luxury" they allowed themselves as an escape from rationality. To demonstrate this, she once downed a large glass of straight vodka -- sufficient to make almost anyone hopelessly drunk and, since she did not drink, sufficient presumably to make her helplessly drunk. She felt the effects of the vodka strongly, she felt physically wobbly and mentally fuzzy -- but by an act of will she was able to remain herself and to continue speaking with the clarity and precision that was her trademark.

There's a moral to the story.

Barbara

www.BarbaraBranden.com

[jts]

But isn't the purpose of appetizers to whet the appetite for the main dish?

If you don't have appetite (or hunger), why eat?

[Xray]

But isn't the purpose of appetizers to whet the appetite for the main dish?

If you don't have appetite (or hunger), why eat?

Valid question.

But having an 'appetizer' doesn't mean that one is not hungry at all. Appetizers are often served in specific settings, e.g. at dinner parties as 'apéritifs´', as part of a social ritual.