I don’t know. I just don’t think that I can talk myself into thinking I’m already living in a utopia. If I did, the only result would be to make me hate utopia.
I’m like a Nickelodeon cartoon victim coming up with plots to destroy fun. Well its not that I value unhappiness. So it it just that I have a very strong harm principle? This is the basis of libertarianism, but for them harm means physical attack. So am I just taking the principle that consenting activities for pleasure are OK so long as no one is harmed, but taking a very strict standard about what is consent and what is harm?
Since I’ve cut myself off, the Roissysphere is my only window to the outside world. That may make the world seem more horrible than it actually is. I mean if the point of isolating myself is to be free from humanity, then why read the views of precisely the cruelest humans?
Well if hedonist pleasure is not really pleasure, then why care that people enjoy it? I used to use the analogy of icecream. Yes icecream like sex is pleasurable, but what sense does it make to judge me lower as an icecream virgin because I do not indulge in a pleasure? Why is my moral worth judged by my sexual success? Well if being a virgin proves that I’m unattractive, then sex is irrelevant. I’m low because I’m unattractive, and anyone can see that with their eyes. IF I’m attractive, then that suggests I could have sex if I desired to, and so I’m not lower than an ugly who had sex. “Unless promiscuity is redefined to equal attractiveness. Well then who cares that I’m a virgin the real insult is that I’m ugly. Or is it suggested that I do not have the rhetorical skill, to convince a girl to have sex?
So is that personal? In that I’m a virgin, I would say by choice but a devil’s advocate would say that just a Freudian defense mechanism to never try and fail. So its just about personal honor? If people valued me for my self-discipline and considered me honorable and incorruptible, then I would be ok with lesser mortals indulging in carnal pleasure? Is all that I crave Hegelian recognition? I want to be recognized as someone who could enjoy pleasure, but out of discipline chooses not to?
But is there any reason to reject pleasure simply because it is pleasurable? Granted pleasure might distract one from higher duties. But that doesn’t make pleasure evil per se, just frivolous. If someone neglected duties in order to fiddle while rome burned, then fiddling would be evil in that case. But it doesn’t mean that the pleasure of fiddling is evil in itself, just that it was overvalued.
But if higher pleasures truly are valuable in themselves, doesn’t that mean that less competition is a good thing? More higher pleasure for me right? I would say the higher pleasures are inherently social. It is the difference between bittorrent and rapidshare. If too many people want sex/rapidshare the market becomes glutted, while the more people who seek virtue/bittorrent the faster the download. Its a sort of economy of scale.
Maybe I should look at people the same way as sovereign nations. Suppose I alone, as an individual, am a free sovereign commonwealth. And society is a gigantic empire. Now I could try to claim some land, and be isolationist. But my existence would be at the mercy of the giant who could crush me under his thumb. In that sense whatever costs the empire of society demands of me is the price of not being invaded. Tribute. The problem is individuals are not self-interested enough. If individuals really did know their self-interest it would be for all of us herd sheeple to get together and by sheer weight of numbers overpower our Ayn Randian betters. But if I regard society as one unified mass against me, then there is no we to speak of. So I’m kind of like a day-laborer from the Republic of One Man, who crosses the border into the USA everyday for work. And all my market transactions are trade between nations. Even if its unfair, what can a tiny republic of one man demand from a vast empire of 300 million?
Well lets say I can’t even imagine what a perfect biography would look like in this hellish world. What would it look like in utopia? The liberal arts are redundant in utopia, since beauty needs no reflection, life itself is aesthetic. That leaves only the hard sciences. Which I don’t have the talent for. And anyway is doing math equations my idea of utopia? Then I could just become an accountant. Well then it would be physical. Just bodybuilding and perfecting my classical beauty. Can’t I do that now? I mean I’ve had no job or school for the last few months. If utopia just means bodybuilding, why don’t I do that now. Its true that I only have a few months till I’m thrown out and meet my doom. But if I could live a few months in utopia wouldn’t I take it? Most of the glories I associate with utopia actually belong to the struggle for utopia, not utopia proper. So is it not that I’m angry that I don’t live in utopia, but that the utopian impulse seems to have been lost in the world? That people have become too settled with their lot? Is that in itself proof we live in utopia? Not really even the worst societies experiance long periods of calm. Still my misery comes from believing that this is not just a period of calm, but the Fukuyamaist end of history? So it it that this world is TOO utopian for me? That there is no longer anything great or noble to fight for? OR is it not the end of history that disgusts me but the place that it ended at?
Well until I explicitly say what my goal in life is, how can I blame this society from preventing me from achieving it? Well what if my goal is to live in a different society? You mean your goal is to fight? But that is precisely what you could NOT do if you already lived in utopia. And if that isn’t your goal, I ask once again what would you do in utopia? And if the answer is body-build, why don’t you do it now? If the answer is science, there is nothing particular to this society that prevented that. Even now you could switch majors if you wanted. Tell me explicitly what would be your biography as a citizen of utopia? You would make glorious speeches? About what? History? Garbage disposal? OR would you be satisfied with any job, so long as you were free of The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy? And if your fellow citizens would be happy. What exactly would be the higher pleasures they were enjoying?
Is it at the end of the day just Nietzsche spite? You as a herdman can’t accept the joy of the masters? Well what if it is? If one need not be ashamed of selfishness, then why be ashamed of spite, envy, jealousy? So you would be content to live the exact same material life you lead now, so long as no one else lived better? I mean you could just move into a neighborhood where you’d be the riches one there. OR look more seriously into hippie communes or a monastery.
Are you concerned about the victims of fun? That enjoyment takes place at others expense? Maybe thats why Roissy’s writing appeals to you so much, since it makes explicit your assumption that all pleasure is a sadistic zero-sum game, that must be extracted from the pain of others.
Well you tell me what YOU want. Well lets say you weren’t Robinson Crusoe. But you lived fairly isolated. Materially comfortable. And you had no social betters in your area. But a few thousand miles away, there were people way above you. You know of them, but your not bombarded with it in entertainment. So its just a factoid. Is that unbearable? No, but thats kind of a faulty analogy. Well isn’t that what you could enjoy in a hippie commune or monastery? Granted it may not be the easiest thing in the world to get into these days, but you haven’t even made a serious attempt. They seem to largely reflect your values. And your entire life would revolve around that community. You would be distantly aware of another world, but you wouldn’t really be part of it. Its like the argument I had about joining the army. I said well maybe the enemy isn’t a threat to America, but they aren’t very nice people, so theres nothing wrong with fighting and killing them. And his reply was yeah but its irrelevant, its like fighting muggers in India. I think thats a good analogy. Are you going to fly to India to fight muggers? From a hippie commune or monastery, mainstream America may come to seem as far away as muggers in India. Now IDK. But maybe you should at least look seriously and see if that’s the case.
But lets face it your not biologically fit to survive in any past age. You could never be a soldier, and thats what all your civic republicanism is based on. You would have been weeded out of all past ages, including your admired ones. Well there are intellectual heroes. But I mean, you do enjoy the comforts of modern civilization. You condemned Ovid for saying he enjoyed the softness of the Empire over the virtues of the Republic. But if your so afraid of cruelty, remember that it is heroic ages that inspire the most. Even if your side can do no wrong, a chaotic age opens up the doorway for the enemy to win and impose far more cruelty than he does now. Do you want to live in a chaotic age? It is during those times that the road to both heaven and hell are opened, and you roll the dice.
Is this all useless? Are you just going to cross your arms and say as long as people have a good time, I refuse to put up with work? If its just that you don’t want people above you, you could become a hedonist yourself and equalize the pleasure. IF the pleasures are false pleasures, then you have nothing to concern yourself with. And if there are victims of their pleasure? Well they are no more victims than you are because you have to get a job. So since your the more victimized, it should be about you and your job and not Tucker Max. Girls don’t have to clubbing. Granted theres a lot of societal and cultural pressure. But theres even more pressure that a young man should have to get a job. And in addition to that you starve if you don’t. So you should feel more sorry for yourself, that you have to get a job. And yet you feel more strongly about the over-sexualized society than your relations with your boss. You’ve even said you would work for a boss, if you lived in a more uptight society. And yet even in an uptight society, your relationship with the boss would be less voluntary than little miss Ayn Rand’s with Roissy and Tucker Max are. In otherwords it would be a lot easier for you as a girl to avoid even meeting the Tucker Maxes of the world, than it would be for you even perhaps especially under puritan capitalism, to avoid having a boss. Do you see the contradiction?
Not to say there are no victims of hedonism but that shouldn’t be used as a reason not to get a job, since the job decision is at a higher degree of coercion. It would be like a prison immate saying the reason you don’t want to be in prison is because your so depressed by the idea that high school kids are stuck in school all day. So again I’m not justifying society per se, it just doesn’t make sense to refuse a higher evil because a lower evil exists. Now it may be in fact just to oppose both evils. But you reason for opposing the higher evil, shouldn’t be knowledge of the lesser one.
But you yourself have said that its not having a boss in and of itself that must be evil, its having a boss in this society. But the sexualization of this society that prevents you from getting a job, it may or may not be coercive, but a girl won’t starve if she doesn’t go clubbing.
So think it over. Not that this closes the debate. But maybe you should focus more specifically on why you don’t want a market relationship with the boss, as opposed to why little miss ayn rand shouldn’t want a market relationship with Tucker.
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