Happy Pigs and Unhappy Socrates's

Factual Questions
1

My girlfriend and I have been pondering the question;

Would you rather be a happy pig, or an unhappy socrate’s?

A Happy pig being some being (animal or human) unaware of a higher framework of philosophical or ethical thought, that simply lives its life through eating, having sex, and dying. The ‘Pig’ is content within its life as it know no other.

Socrate’s, onthe other hand, strives to improve himself and the bpoundaries of his thought. He is aware of a higher philosophical framework and strives to solve the riddles of how we ought to live etc… Sometimes this leaves him confused and unhappy, but this s offset by the furthering of the person and the race.

Now, we initialy came to the conclusion that it is, of course, better to be an unhappy socrate’s. A person should strive to better themselves and potentially gain the greatest happines in this way. People, however, do need some aspect of ‘pig’ ness about them, otherwise we become 24 hour a day workers and were not like that (Thus was born the working week and the weekend).
Now, this seems ok but rests uncomfortably with me.

Now, it seems self evident that it is better for the unhappy pig to stop laying around on the sofa all day eating ice cream and having sex, and to get up and better themselves. Why? This is implying that happy pigs are not worth as much as an unhappy socrate’s, but if we were to come upon an ethical dilemma , Say, me, socrate’s and an unhappy pig in a boat out at sea with no food or land. Who shall we eat to survive? we would all choose the happy pig.

This is my problem. remember the happy pig is not an animal, but a being. Lets say a human being. We would not be so quick to eat the happy pig now, would we, even if they are deaf/dumb/quadraplegic, or just like an animal. So why are we so quick to condemn living one way, yet balk at the idea of killing the thing we have already defined as not worth as much?
I think the problem has something to do with our belief that to live a worthwhile life, you need to strive to improve youself and the life around you. Maybe this isnt true…

Imagine a world of happy pigs. The happy pigs are happy, and content. In this world, there are no unhappy socrate’s (yet). So, everything in the world (the pigs) is perfectly happy, lives a fulfilling life, and thats that.

So, even though there are no pigs that are striving to better themselves, no-one can say that any pig is worth more or less than any other pig.

Suddenyl, some of these pigs become unhappy socrate’s. They go around to all the other pigs telling them to stop having sex and eating icecream all day. They puzzle and wonder over how they shold treat the other pigs.

Now, All of a sudden, the unhappy socrates’s proclaim that the (untill now perfectly normal, happy pigs) are unable to live life as fully (self-aware) as they can, and therefore must be deemed to be sub-standard. These pigs should strive to improve themselves like we have.
My point being, that being a happy pig is only a problem if there is an unhappy socrate’s about, because it is unhappy socrate’s judgement that gives the pigs their substandard status.
You see, I find myself wanting to be a happy pig all the time. I feel frustrated at myself for wanting to be a lress than worthwhile person. Unhappy Socrate’s keep wnadering about telling me I should do better.

I don’t want to, and I don’t want my basic dsires judjed by others, and I don’t want to be made unhappy by socrate’s, just because he thinks he’s onto a winner.

I will not be called ‘of less worth’ because I bum around all day, sitting on the sofa eating ice cream and having sex (When I’m lucky), just because someone else thinks that It is better.
I say everyone should start practising ‘lifestyle relativism’.

2

Sounds more like a matter for GD or IMHO to me. GQ is for factual questions which have factual answers. You may want to email a mod and ask for it to be moved.

BTW, it’s Socrates, not socrate’s.

3

Sorry, meant to type: Socrates’, not socrates’s.

This intervention brought to you by the grammar police.

4

Unlike Socrates himself, I’d rather be a happy pig. Unfortunately, you don’t get to choose whether you’re a pig or a Socrates; I (and I imagine most everyone posting here) am a Socrates, so my only option is to be an unhappy Socrates or try to make myself into a happy Socrates.

–Cliffy

5

What the pig don’t know, it don’t worry about. Ah the bliss of ignorance… and there’s Cecil trying to fight it!

In my experience, it’s not so much the things that you don’t know that come back to get ya’, it’s the things that ya’ do know, that ain’t so! FWIW

pax

6

Oh Please.

Socrates was unhappy because he was married to one of the most Shrewish Females ever to have existed on the surface of this planet.

Xanthippe was a Very Bad-Tempered Woman. Is it any wonder that he (Socrates) became jealous of all the Happy Pigs and tried his best to stop them from having all the fun that he (Socrates) could never hope to have (with Xanthippe)?

Socrates was vastly overrated (philosophically) in my view. If he had had the benefit of Regular Sex, his name would not feature so prominently on the list of the World’s Most Venerated Philosophers.

On such mundane issues are Great Reputations made.

7

Having attributes of both the unaware pig and the Socrates, I find neither happiness nor fulfillment. The pig of which you write is happy only because he doesn’t know he’s a pig. Only ignorance is bliss. Knowledge is pain.

8

Well, I’m sure this thread will get moved, but I would add that the dilemma may soon become a much more real problem. It seems reasonable to expect that in the future, mankind will develop “holodeck” type devices, “happy drugs,” etc., which will let people escape reality permanently to a state of blissful ignorance.

9

Quoth Nostradamus:

Now, now, we hardly have an unbiased source for that. Certainly, Socrates’ marriage was an unhappy one, but who’s to blame for that? Consider some of Mr. S’s more enlightened notions, such as that the strong emotions women feel during childbirth are the female equivalent of the strong emotions men feel during orgasm. Were you married to such a lout, I reckon that you would be rather shrewish, too.

10

We also need to consider cause and effect, concerning the state of Socrates’ mind when he first promulgated these enlightened notions.

I agree that his views regarding the emotional joys of childbirth are totally bizarre (I assume) but by this stage in his life his attitudes had been soured by day to day contact with his wife.

Perhaps it is always a mistake to marry someone whose name begins with ‘X’ and translates roughly as Yellow Horse.