Modern society has surprisingly learned to vulgarize and put on grotesque masks on concepts that have existed on this earth for hundreds of years. Today, the phrase “hedonism, hotel” is not surprising. Moreover, these terms are used by people who are not quite aware that such a definition was carried in itself initially and as previously interpreted. For many, the hotel "Hedonism" (Jamaica) are considered stable and reliable phrases. So what does this word mean?
Hedonism is primarily an ethical doctrine that originated in one of the most revered cultural centers of civilization - Ancient Greece. Any moral in a person according to the postulates of this worldview is pleasure or suffering. Yes, the kirenaki, who are the forefathers of this philosophy, put forward pleasure as the highest goal for which man exists. However, who said that they meant only carnal ecstasy?
Surprising is the transformation of the concept over time. Socrates began to divide pleasures into "bad, false" and "good, true." I have no doubt in the authority of the great Greek and his wisdom, but … Is it not from this point that the “fork” of perception of good and bad in different ways has gone? Aristotle already said that "pleasure is not good." Surprisingly, the thinking of the greats soon returned to their starting point. So, Epicurus again began to talk about pleasure (though not for the body, but for the soul) as the highest good.
The Epicureans are reproached with egoism, and one can often hear that hedonism is pleasure at all costs. To some extent, it is. But look how different its manifestations are. The ideas of hedonism gently “propagated” Spinoza and Locke, Mandeville and Hume. The most striking flash can be called the works of De Sade. It is in them that hedonism is a counterbalance, it is a protest to society.
The modern concept of the term is much narrower. Today, hedonism is sex, services of an intimate nature, satisfaction of carnal attraction. It is rather disastrous for the doctrine, which lasted several hundred years. Moreover, such a “one-sided” perception of pleasure is already becoming commonplace.
Modernity has “vulgarized” and made primitive not only the reactions of the masses, but also the very perception of reality. A person does not seek to reason and analyze. He, like a voice recorder, reproduces those definitions that he heard or read in one, not always reliable, source. Today it is accepted that hedonism is sex and all its manifestations. Is there really nothing more for a person to receive emotions with a + sign?
Why is it considered ridiculous rapture to tears? Crying at all became indecent.
Why is hedonism sex or carnal pleasure? Or the delight of sunset at sea or snowflakes waltzing in the light of a lantern - a perversion? We have become critical. We divide the world into our concept of black and white, into norms and deviations. Why is sexual connotation always sought in the word “pleasure” today? The Greeks regarded as a pleasure both training (to make it pleasant to look at the body), and figurative speech, and spiritual strength. Hedonism is the talent to live brightly and be happy from it.
