Theme Week: Hedonism.

You're right.

This is a loaded theme week. Loaded in the sense of there are quite a few negative connotations with the word we're basing our writings on, and also in the sense of illicit substances, liquids and corporeal objects.

Devotion to pleasure as a way of life is what the Random House Dictionary of the English Language calls hedonism, though the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (roughly 1070 pages, and yes, you can bludgeon someone to death with it...) defines it quickly as the pleasure as the good and I can't really disagree. (After all, they did write the books.) I always got the idea that there was a connotation of opulence in the use of the word hedonism, so with that said, I shall continue.

Behind the scenes, there is a little mantra we have, and that is reveal as much about yourself as you please, but do allow other people to reveal themselves as they please. So, we'll have to eschew a little bit of background. I hope you don't mind.

I am not terribly hedonistic in the current (and perhaps classical?) sense. I have only recently started imbibing alcohol, I still haven't used other forms of recreational mind altering substances (recorded media aside) and my sexual palate is rather limited in both scope and variety.

Despite this, I get the idea that I can speak about hedonism fairly frankly and (perhaps!) with a bit of authority. Let us consider the United States. Despite the wide, wide gap between CEOs and the minimum wage earners in large companies, the United States still consumes the world's resources inequitably, a statement which should this point, be a fact.

Much of what is bought in America is not produced here, and much of what I eat, type on and wear has been imported from around the world. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, a wise man quipped, and we're the ones with the circlets of shrubbery on our heads...

Botch continues to be right, that America has a parallel to Mediterranean history, and it ain't the Athenians. All roads lead to Rome, and if I've learned anything from my experience it is that most of the talent and material in the world is shipped here to be consumed. Consider, for a moment, the object you're using to read this with. It could be a computer monitor, your iPhone/Blackberry/Sidekick screen, or whatever else science has come up with in between making new bombs and new TVs. It was probably compiled in China, the microchip sent in from elsewhere, then shipped back to wherever here is to be sold. This also goes for your jeans, my tshirts (ah, but they had silkscreens placed on them in America...) my hoodies, my watches and my cell phone.

Well, thank God for underage laborers for making everything on my body including my underwear. It allows me the free time to bemoan this, while also getting an education that costs more than half the world will ever get paid for a lifetime of their work. And yet, I continue to worry about girls more than my own work.

To include my own missteps into this week's lexicon of hedonism: There is hardly ever silence in my waking hours, and that's probably the most direct form of hedonism, since I far prefer to listen to music than people. If we're going for a textbook definition, then that is the best way I can show of pleasure as a way of life. I have more pleasure listening to music than interacting with people, and that's my hedonism. Pleasure ought to be pursued above all, right? Well, there you go.

To tie this back into the rest of the post, evaluative hedonism I think is the one that I (and most of America) are guilty of. Evaluative hedonism is defined as "pleasure is what we ought to desire or pursue". The pleasure, in this case, is the unknowing of...oh, to hell with it.

Ignorance is bliss, motherfuckers. Let's revel.