In Wiki, I see references to this in early Greeks. (Walter von der Vogleweider says there* were *no late Greeks) The bible is full of injunctions about going too far. But why? How is pleasure seeking anyone’s problem? Or is this the early notion that if you just play video games you won’t do your homework? It takes you away from what you “ought” to be doing, i.e. praying? This goes way back. I don’t get it.
Do you have some specific examples you could cite, from the early Greeks, the Bible, or other ancient texts?
I looked up hedonism on Wikipedia in case it might shed some light on your question. There’s a fair amount on the pursuit of pleasure itself, but what little it says about criticism of hedonism is mostly fairly recent.
Religion.
Wild guess: There is a constant tension/balance in any human unit larger than one, between the needs of the community (the greater good) and the desires of the individual. They are often quite opposed to each other, and yet without community humans cannot survive.
As the possibly apocryphal Navaho malediction against acting selfishly goes, “he acts like he has no family”.
“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
If your pursuit of pleasure contributes to a STD epidemic, that’s the community’s problem.
If you are incapable of supporting your out-of-wedlock children, and your ex-lovers fall into poverty, that’s the community’s problem.
If you and your partner start fighting, and the police have to intervene, that’s the community’s problem.
If pursuit of chemical pleasure turns you into an addict who turns to crime to support his habit, that’s the community’s problem.
In modern times people can get very upset when people are slothful, gluttonous, lazy, play video games, etc. They want life to be an intentional, spartan, conscious effort.
I think the problem is there even with just one individual. The question for me is not so much should you ever seek pleasure, but rather what else are you also doing with your life?
Pleasure by itself soon palls and wears.
If you are seeking pleasure in lieu of doing the minimum to keep your life together, you will not survive.
If you are seeking pleasure and only doing the minimum to keep your life together, you will not thrive.
There is much joy to be gotten in the world, and relatively little of it comes from seeking pleasure. Example: you are having sex with the person you love, and you are both getting great pleasure from it. That pleasure derives from so much more than the physical act, it derives from the relationship and the work you have done to make it a good one. If all you look for in a SO is good sex, you are doomed to a life of disappointment.
From my perspective of 70 years, I look back at the events and deeds of my life, and those associated with pleasure-seeking for its own sake are among the least interesting and the least enjoyable to recall.
TL;DR version: there’s nothing morally wrong with seeking and/or getting pleasure out of life, but there is so much more to life than seeking and/or getting pleasure. The last part of this, at least, has been taught in virtually every culture in one way or another.
I had no idea that Sparta was such a modern city. Have you told them about this?
There is a thread in Christianity (which I’m too old and stupid to describe properly), in which things over which it is difficult to exert self-control, are bad. Not the only idea in Christianity, just one thread from some people in the history of the church.
So, say you think gambling is a bad idea, because you always loose money. But you can’t stop. It’s the can’t stop bit which transforms it into a moral issue The more you fail to control you thoughts and actions, the worse you consider the thoughts and actions you can’t control.
I’m not a scholar, but I think the reason St Augustine was so influential is because people agreed with him.
(In my branch of the church, nobody thought sex was bad. To be enjoyed to the glory of God.)
[Moderating]
A topic as subjective as this doesn’t really fit in GQ. Moving to IMHO.
You’ve never seen “spartan” used this way?
I tend to be in the school that says that raw pleasure is a poor purpose in life, and that a better life is one that has more meaning, more impact. I want to matter.
It’s fine for a person to say that hedonism doesn’t work for them, but I think the OP is asking why people would be critical of others who seek pleasure.
I suspect it’s a thread in any major religion or philosophy with a strong moral component.
To the OP: No one has to tell people, “Desire pleasure.” It’s natural, almost tautological, to desire what feels good.
But there are dangers and downsides to seeking pleasure, some of which have already been mentioned in this thread: neglect of what one needs to do for oneself or one’s community to survive; the danger of addiction or loss of self-control; the paradox of hedonism (that actively seeking pleasure may not yield the most pleasure or happiness in the long run); et al. Hence, warning against such dangers and downsides. And if the wanrer or the warnee oversimplifies, such warnings can come across as condemations of pleasure per se.
Projection, plain and simple. The greatest morality critics seemingly always end up falling to the evil they’ve spent their lives preaching against. THEY think something is a problem for everyone because it is a problem for THEM.
Nope - I’m asking what is behind the age old prohibition or tendency to limit desire? It’s old. (Thudlow Boink - one reference for you: Temperance (virtue) - Wikipedia). So far, I see an indication that society may find individual desire objectionable because it may be seen as diverting attention from the common good. But it feels as if there’s something deeper in most prohibitions or admonitions against desire - something that says it’s…unseemly to have desire (for pleasure). It’s apparently seen as inherently wrong, and I don’t really understand what’s behind that. I read that Buddha said that desire was the cause of suffering, but I wonder how he arrived at that notion. Why not, say, anger, or hatred?
I think a lot of people divide pleasure into two categories. The first is what you might call venial pleasures: eating and drinking to excess, having sex, tripping balls, etc. The problem with these is that overindulging (or even just indulging) makes you feel worse - bloated, nauseous, headachy, riddled with disease and so on. The second set of pleasures are the, I dunno, intellectual pleasures: figuring out a tricky math problem, going for a brisk jog, taking an art class. These usually take more effort and may even in the moment not really be ‘fun’ but the pleasure of succeeding at them is longer-lasting and not usually something it feels like you can overindulge in. Antipathy to pleasure is usually directed at the first category because it’s seen as a false path to happiness.
I think it is because people in general believe that service to others is a virtue, and it is hard for many people to imagine a hedonistic servant. The person who lives to make others happy is a more remarkable person and than the person who lives to make only him or herself happy. The first is not necessarily more valuable than the second, but they are definitely more likely to leave a positive impression on those around them.
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Actually, Hedonism goes all the way back to the Sumerians as seen in The Epic of Gilgamesh. However, the term is derived from the Greeks who viewed Hedonism as anti-intellectual, selfish, and shallow.