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Such a radical hedonism is indeed inhuman; it undermines all conventional ambitions, and is not a possible foundation for political or artistic life. But that is all we can say against it. Our humanity cannot annul the incommensurable sorts of good that may be pursued in the world, though it cannot itself pursue them.
Yes, there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new hedonism that was to re-create life, and to save it from that harsh, uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly; yet it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience.
"Carl," he had said, "you've bigger individual problems to solve than any man I know. You could head a blood revolution in South America that would outrage the world; or devise a hellish philosophy of hedonism that by its very ingenuity would seduce a continent into barking after false gods.
I belong to the middle class, and they are of the upper class. I have a faint desire to indicate that I don't want to cross the border-line, and that what I desire is the society of interesting and congenial people, not the society of my social superior. This is not unworldliness in the least, merely hedonism.
Not only is he present at the action, even when he reads the drama, but he identifies himself with the hero and vicariously experiences his emotions. But neither the hedonism of Aristotle, nor his defense of poetry on moral grounds through his theory of katharsis, is usual in Greek criticism. Isocrates and Xenophon adhere to the usual opinion.
It was very far from his purpose to do that. He determined that he would prepare a little apologia on the subject, to send to his friend; and this was what he eventually despatched: "Your conversation with me the other day gave me a good deal to think about. What you said practically amounted to a charge of hedonism.
Hedonism causes one to accidentally fall into the obligations of child rearing and a marriage certificate is society's glossy endorsement of contained hedonism to perpetuate the species....Confinement is not compassion; hunger for that other one to stop the pangs of loneliness is no different than a hunger compelling one to eat...any hunger really hunger is just there to motivate one to clog an emptiness....Empty heads need to be filled with empty people.
Yet the appeal for schoolmasters should surely not be based entirely or even mainly on the idyllic picture of the happy schoolmaster. John Stuart Mill reduced hedonism to its fundamental paradox when he declared that the way to find happiness was to turn your back on it.
'I see what I've always seen: shadows. Plenty of shadows yours, hers, all the men she was with. He was meaning love making in its full-animated obscenity of interlinked private parts and hedonism, the fundamentals of life." Then in dreams like this he would wake up, think of this all too familiar presence, and doubt if she were his mother at all.
Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life, and to save it from that harsh, uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly; yet, it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience.
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