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>He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see any evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like that.
by freeflight 10y ago
>He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see any evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like that.
What definition of hedonism are you using that necessarily involves marriage, eating meat or being a sex maniac?
The very basic definition of hedonism is this:
>He simply believed that the good life is the absence of suffering
Nothing more and nothing less because "suffering" and "good" can actually be quite subjective. A masochist might enjoy being degraded and hurt, it's his/her part of the definition of "good", while non-masochists would probably put many SM practices into the category of "I wouldn't want to suffer trough that".
If not eating meat makes you suffer less, on account of empathy for the animals that didn't need to be slaughtered for your nutritious needs, then that fits pretty perfectly into decreasing the suffering around you and for yourself.
- vivekd 10y ago>What definition of hedonism are you using that necessarily involves marriage, eating meat or being a sex maniac? the google definition: the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence. The sex maniac part was from the article.
- narag 10y agoUnfortunately those ancient greeks didn't have Google to know better ;)
- narag 10y agoExactly and, as the article suggests, rival schools made all they could to give hedonism a bad name, equalling it to seeking raw pleasure over any other thing. Enemies include two millenia of Christianism, so no wonder "hedonist" is not a compliment now.
- freeflight 10y agoImho in that regard Hedonism is quite similar to Satanism: Both are often very misunderstood due to massive stigmatization and misrepresentation throughout history by "ideological rivals", like more fundamental schools of Christianity where "suffering" is often seen as something necessary for people. Makes sense from the religious view: Tell people they need to suffer for growth, people keep on suffering looking for a reason behind the suffering, religion offers a reason while at the same time justifying it's own dogma. Any animal in the wild, that actively goes out of it's way looking for pain and suffering, is an animal that most likely ain't around anymore, yet somehow exactly that behavior is often expected from humans to show their "virtues".
- narag 10y agoI heard that Satanism was kind of a conflation of biblic character with paganism, the beliefs of the dwellers of the pagos, the country, as opposed to the cities, where Christianism was striving with rulers' support.