Monthly Archives: January 2022

The simplest theory of human nature is hedonism we pursue pleasure and comfort. Suffering and pain are, by their very nature, to be avoided. The spirit of this view is nicely captured in The Epic of Gilgamesh: Let your belly be full, enjoy yourself always by day and by night! Make merry each day, dance and play day and night For such is the destiny of men. And also by the Canadian rock band Trooper: Were here for a good time / Not a long time / So have a good time / The sun cant shine every day.

Hedonists wouldnt deny that life is full of voluntary suffering we wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby, take the 8.15 into the city, undergo painful medical procedures. But for the hedonist, these unpleasant acts are seen as the costs that must be paid to obtain greater pleasures in the future. Challenging and difficult work is the ticket to survival and status; boring exercise and unpleasant diets are what you have to go through for abs of steel and a vibrant old age, and so on.

Plainly theres something right here. Nobody could doubt we possess drives for food, sex, status and much else and that much of our suffering is chosen with these ends in mind.

But I think hedonism is an awful theory. My latest book, The Sweet Spot: Suffering, Pleasure, and the Key to a Good Life, makes the case for a different theory of what people want. I argue that we dont only seek pleasure, we also want to live meaningful lives and this involves willingly experiencing pain, anxiety, and struggle. We see value in chosen suffering.

After all, people willingly climb mountains, run marathons, or get punched in the face in gyms and dojos. Others, mostly young men, choose to go to war and, while they dont wish to be maimed or killed, they are hoping to experience challenge, fear and struggle to be baptised by fire, to use the clichd phrase. Some of us choose to have children, and usually we have some sense of how hard it will be; maybe we even know of all the research showing that, moment by moment, the years with young children can be more stressful than any other time of life, (And those who dont know this ahead of time will quickly find out.) and yet we rarely regret our choices.

Strangely enough, then, we often choose to suffer. A better story of our nature was nicely expressed in the movie The Matrix, where Agent Smith tells Morpheus how the world they are experiencing a simulation created by malevolent computers came to be: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the programme, entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.

Why would we ever choose to suffer? Sometimes, as a hedonist would tell you, its for the sake of tangible goals. Pain can distract us from our anxieties and even help us transcend the self. Choosing to suffer can serve social goals it can display how tough we are or serve as a cry for help. Unpleasant emotions, such as fear and sadness, are part of play and fantasy and can provide moral satisfaction. And effort and struggle and difficulty can, in the right contexts, lead to the joys of mastery and flow.

But theres more. The economist George Loewenstein gives the example of serious mountaineering. The pleasures here are not obvious, to say the least; rather, it seems to be unrelenting misery from end to end. Diaries and journals by climbers talk about relentless cold (often leading to frostbite and loss of extremities, or death), exhaustion, snow-blindness, altitude sickness, sleeplessness, squalid conditions, hunger, fear There is constant craving for food. And there is boredom: On a typical ascent, the vast majority of time is spent in mind-bogglingly monotonous activities for example, being weathered out for many hours in a small smelly tent crammed in with other climbers. Climbers describe their experiences as lonely and alienating, spending days and weeks in bitter silence, with disagreements that dont get smoothed over. And yet people do it, and then do it again and again, getting some satisfaction that doesnt reduce in any real way to pleasure.

Apparently, then, for at least some of us, a life well lived is more than a life of pleasure and happiness. I side with the economist Tyler Cowen, who wrote: Whats good about an individual human life cant be boiled down to any single value. Its not all about beauty or all about justice or all about happiness. Pluralist theories are more plausible, postulating a variety of relevant values, including human wellbeing, justice, fairness, beauty, the artistic peaks of human achievement, the quality of mercy, and the many different and, indeed, sometimes contrasting kinds of happiness. Life is complicated.

Alongside pleasure, there is a desire for meaningful pursuits. If this motivation is unsatisfied, life feels incomplete. This tweet, from Greta Thunberg, captures a pretty typical reaction to finding meaning in ones life: Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didnt speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder. All of that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.

Viktor Frankl came to a similar conclusion. In his early years as a psychiatrist in Vienna, in the 1930s, Frankl studied depression and suicide. During that period, the Nazis rose to power, and they took over Austria in 1938. Not willing to abandon his patients or his elderly parents, Frankl chose to stay, and he was one of the millions of Jews who ended up in a concentration camp first at Auschwitz, then Dachau. Ever the scholar, Franklstudied his fellow prisoners, wondering about what distinguishes those who maintain a positive attitude from those who cannot bear it, losing all motivation and often killing themselves.

He concluded the answer is meaning. Those who had the best chance of survival were those whose lives had broader purpose, some goal or project or relationship, some reason to live. As he later wrote (paraphrasing Nietzsche): Those who have a why to live, can bear with almost any how.

As a psychiatrist, Frankl was interested in mental health. But his plea for a life of meaning a central part of the therapy he developed once he left the camps wasnt merely based on the notion that this would provide happiness or psychological resilience. He believed that this is the sort of existence we should want to pursue. He was sensitive to the distinction between happinessand what Aristotle described as eudaemonia literally good spirit, but referring to flourishing in a more general sense. It was eudaemonia that mattered to Frankl.

How do we get from meaning to suffering? There is a wealth of scientific evidence suggesting a connection. Individuals who say their lives are meaningful report more anxiety and worry and struggle than those who say that their lives are happy. The countries where citizens report the most meaning tend to be poor ones where life is relatively difficult. (In contrast, the countries with the happiest people tend to be prosperous and safe.) The jobs that people say are most meaningful, such as being a medical professional or a member of the clergy, often involve dealing with other peoples pain. And when asked to describe the most meaningful experiences of our lives, we tend to think about those on the extremes, very pleasant and very painful.

Its not that we seek out suffering. Rather, we seek out meaning and purpose. But part of meaning and purpose is difficulty anxiety, stress, conflict, boredom, and often physical and emotional pain. We choose pursuits we know will test us training for a marathon, raising children, climbing Everest because we know at a gut level that these are the pursuits that matter.

After all, wouldnt a life without some suffering ultimately be boring? Ill end with another origin story, this one from Alan Watts, the British philosopher and popular interpreter of Zen Buddhism.

Watts begins by asking you to imagine that you are able to dream about whatever you want, with perfect vividness. Given this power, you could, in a single night, have a dream that lasted 75 years. What would you do? Obviously, he says, youd fulfil all your wishes, choose every sort of pleasure. It would be a hedonistic blowout.

Then suppose you can do it again the next night, and then the next, and the next. Soon, Watts says, you would say to yourself: now lets have a surprise, a dream which isnt under control, where something is gonna happen to me but I dont know what its gonna be.

And then you would continue to gamble, adding increasing add risk, uncertainty, ignorance, deprivation. You would put obstacles in your way, obstacles you might not be able to overcome, until finally you would dream the dream of living the life you are actually living today.

Is your life right now with its difficulty and struggle, worry and loss the best that life can be? Probably not. But Wattss fantasy is close enough to the truth to be profound.

The Sweet Spot: Suffering, Pleasure and the Key to a Good Life by Paul Bloom is published by Bodley Head at 20. Buy it for 17.40 at guardianbookshop.com

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Hedonism is overrated to make the best of life there must be pain, says this Yale professor - The Guardian

Were already three quarters of the way through DIYs Hello 2022 - a dizzying four-night run through 16 buzzy new artists destined to give you ultimate I was there cred in years to come - but the vibes arent letting up at Londons Old Blue Last. In fact, tonight, the venues live room is packed to capacity before the first band even steps on stage, with a queue steadily snaking through the venue for the rest of the evening.

Not to rub it in for the latecomers left outside, but the nights line up - from more cerebral beginnings to full on club-ready bangers by the end - is a four-for-four winner that overflows with audible potential. Its opened by Manchesters Mewn, who might not be the most bolshy band on the bill but create a more mature kind of confidence - singer Daniel Bluer helming a set that nods to the sweeping, emotional crescendos of Arcade Fire crossed with a sort of earthy Elbow-ness. The likes of twinkling closer Im Only Talking are more likely to waltz you around the floor than create a mosh pit in the middle of it, but Mewn still experiment: not least via their guitarist, who sporadically begins playing her guitar with a screwdriver for optimum tremor.

Old Blue Last, are you ready to rock?! Im on top form tonight baby! declares wild-eyed Keg frontman Albert Haddenham midway through the bands following set. He may not be humble, but hes also not wrong: a madcap bunch that come on like Squid channelling the reckless abandon of Sports Team, tonight the Brighton band and their irrepressible leader are utterly magnetic. Contorting and punching his way around the tiny portions of stage not filled by the six other band members, Haddenham spends the next 30 minutes lyrically lambasting Michael McIntyre one moment and seemingly speaking in tongues the next; musically, theyre all yelping, loose-limbed indie-art-punk fun. Keg, you sense, are going to have a very good 2022.

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Night 3 of Hello 2022 delivers hits & hedonism from The Umlauts, English Teacher & more - DIY Magazine

Bless Olly Alexander. Its not easy to be the newly-minted emblem of queer activism in mainstream pop, while also keeping a legion of teenage girls giddily bopping along to your every tune. Doing this while charting a credible creative trajectory that will ensure longevity is a heavy lift, even for the most seasoned and confident of artists. Emboldened by considerable swagger, the talented but still evolving 31-year-old takes a bold swing at all three on the third Years & Years album, Night Call, a trend-savvy dance-pop collection,with results that succeed and confound in equal measure.

After the 2021 departure of Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Trkmen, Y&Y is no longer a band, but rather a brand for Alexanders solo musings. Its a wise move that not only allows him to trade in on the established familiarity of Y&Y, but also to conjure an image that matches the sonic bombast of Night Call with Alexander cleverly casting himself as the charismatic, larger-than-life frontman.

This album marks Alexanders return to recording after a four-year break that included starring in the acclaimed television drama Its A Sin, which told the story of Aidss impact on 1980s Britain. Its a role that merged his sizeable pop following of over nine million monthly Spotify listenerswith a larger audience. Y&Y was formed in 2010, coming into prominence in 2015 with the chart topping album Communion, which was the years fastest-selling debut by a band. It spawned the No. 1 smash King, as well as Shine, which peaked at No 2 on the charts. The 2018 follow-up, Palo Santo, was a top 10 success that included the hit singles Sanctify and If Youre Over Me.

It seems that the experience of fronting Its A Sin has matured Alexanders lyrical point-of-view. Songs such as the stand-outs Immaculate and Make It Out Alive meditate on the experiences of hedonism and sex through a knowing lens of consequence and danger. On Communion and Palo Santo, elements of sexuality often felt like extraneous interludes of titillation.

Here, Alexander is palpably aware that his community of LGBTQ+ people are now paying close attention. The margin for getting it wrong with a misstep is smaller, and hints of timidity can be felt on the notably self-conscious tracks Sweet Talker and Crave, both of which employ empty-calorie clichs instead of the primal seduction that both songs imply. That said, when he gets it right, as he does on Reflections, with its cynical negotiation of a one-night stand, Alexander proves his skill as a writer and vocalist of formidable power.

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Years & Years, Night Call, review: Olly Alexander turns the hedonism up loud - Telegraph.co.uk

Without decadence, the bulk of our most beloved rock icons would have dressed, behaved, and created very differently. This short-lived 19th century artistic and literary movement celebrated an aesthetic founded on an ideology of excess, hedonism and intentional artificiality employing a combination of juvenile humour, subtle eroticism, and scepticism to rupture Victorian conservative attitudes. A century later, this iconoclastic and yet strangely elitist group of writers, poets, and novelists would go on to inspire the creative world view of some of rocks most innovative performers, and none more so than the late great David Bowie.

In the 1890s, the decedent movement was burning with the utmost intensity in British culture, largely thanks to its iconoclastic and scandalous central figure, Oscar Wilde. Decadence rejected the didactic Victorian view that art should serve some moral purpose and instead celebrated the intense sensations that art and creativity invoked. This belief led to the formation of the central mantra at the heart of the decadent movement: Art for arts sake. This stance earned the likes of Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and others a reputation for sexual and moral degeneracy, and, before long, the bright green flame of decadence was extinguished, leaving in its wake some of the most subversive worked of art and literature ever to emerge from the British isles, including Wildes The Picture Of Dorian Grey, and Beardsleys illustrations for The Yellow Book which itself was revered as something of a handbook by followers of the movement.

So how did this group of Fin de sicle artists inspire Bowie and his contemporaries? Well, in order to answer that question, its important to remember that it was only in the 1980s that decedent literature began appearing on the school syllabus. Such was the scandalous legacy of Wildes famed homosexuality. As Kate Hext, senior lecturer at the University of Exeter explained in the In Our Time podcast: The decedent movement wasnt part of the formal syllabus until the last couple of decades or so. And I think that allowed decadence and decedent writers to retain this image of bad boys and bad girls of literature. I think the fact that writers like Wilde werent claimed by the burgeoning English literature degree problem in the 1960s and 70s allowed them this sort of image as being outside the establishment.

For ambitious young creatives like Bowie, the likes of Wilde and Beardsley were inextricably linked to the notion of Bohemia. Their outsider status made them the perfect archetypes for the fledgling pop generation of the 60s and 70s providing a model of subversion in this tumultuous era of social and artistic upheaval. Bowies earliest incarnations especially his Ziggy Stardust alter ego saw him embrace not only the artifice of the decadent movement but also the dandyism of its most essential innovator, Oscar Wilde. While they belonged to completely different societies, their fashions served the same dual purpose: to draw attention to themselves and to undermine perceived gender norms.

Like the decedent writers and artists, Bowie also embraced popular culture while simultaneously treating it with contempt. While writers like Donald Firbank whose favourite record was, famously, Yes, we have no Bananas -found early jazz to be a well of inspiration, Bowie drew on everything from novelty records and music hall to funk and disco to shift his style into new and exciting directions. As Kext, notes, the Decedent writers embrace what other people would see as popular degenerate culture, using it as a means of exploring and expanding high art.

However, decedent artists often treated popular culture with disdain, Wilde especially. His work frequently celebrates elitism and spurns the mediocrity of the masses; portraying their culture as a den of sickness, rottenness, decay, and amorality. In this sense decadence, like rock, and, perhaps more obviously, punk, is founded on a self-devouring impulse. Perhaps the most prominent example of this paradoxical aesthetic Bowies work is his 1976 album Station to Station an album recorded when the star was living the sordid and strangely glamorous life of an archetypal Decedent man. In that album, he seems to recognise his own inflated ego, equating it to the bloated state of modern rock. In many ways, Station to Station is Bowies most Decadent record, painting a portrait of a man whose artistic pursuits look ridiculous when contrasted with the ongoing recession pulling the real world limb from limb, but who cannot quite detach himself a desire to escape that world and flee into a realm of fantasy.

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How the debauchery of the decadent movement inspired David Bowie - Far Out Magazine

Sir Julian Brazier is a former Defence Minister, and was MP for Canterbury from 1987-2017.

In the background to the unhappy struggles in the Conservative Party today is a philosophical clash in which the voices of libertarians are loudest. While (mostly) still supporting the man, their accusation is that the Johnson government has abandoned liberty.

These voices call for much that traditional small c conservatives should agree with a smaller state, lower taxes, less regulation but their message carries at its heart a deeply unhelpful strand which would be bad for the country, and calamitous for the Partys prospects of staying in power.

Our most important domestic challenge today is reining back public expenditure so we can lower taxes on struggling families. Government spending is the highest proportion of GDP since the aftermath of the Second World War.

Where I part company from my libertarian friends is that I believe it is time we acknowledged that one of the hidden drivers of runaway public spending is libertarianism itself and its left-wing cousin, the human rights lobby. Both stress freedom and gloss over the responsibilities and consequences which should come with it.

John Stuart Mill formulated the paradox of hedonism: those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.

Similarly, the paradox of liberty is that we can only attain true freedom and a smaller state, if we focus not on selfish individualism but instead on nurturing and rebuilding those natural structures and attitudes which reduce the need for the services of the state. This requires active citizens, robust families, stronger communities and a sense of nationhood. These were themes of the late, great, Sir Roger Scruton.

One of his favourite examples were the American laws which allowed people, in most places, to build freely where they wanted, but then required the American taxpayer to expend huge sums taking roads and power to them. This has created a nightmare of ever-expanding suburbs with social black holes in town centres and heavy government spending.

More broadly, he attacked the growing wish for extending freedoms without accepting any corresponding responsibilities, even crucially where there are heavy costs to the taxpayer and wider community (including later generations).

There is a parallel with Britains NHS. The cost of NHS and social care has exploded to the point where some are claiming Britain is becoming a health and social care system with a country attached. The Party is buzzing with ideas for reform of the NHS and social care from pruning expensive bureaucrats and tackling GP contracts, to moving towards an insurance-based system. Yet there is one way we could reduce NHS spending dramatically and improve productivity in the economy: by persuading millions of obese people to lose weight and the nation to become fitter.

Scandinavian countries adopted a wide range of contrasting approaches to Covid but, with their much fitter populations, all suffered far lower rates of Covid deaths, and lower pressures on their health systems. Indeed, the Swedish approach was never an option here because our large population of obese people would have brought the NHS down.

The impact of Britains obesity, the worst in Europe (apart from Malta), goes far beyond Covid. A range of illnesses from cardiovascular conditions to arthritis to diabetes are made both more likely and more dangerous by obesity and also drive up the cost of the NHS.

Yet libertarians oppose measures to incentivise fitness, from sugar taxes to public health campaigns (what they call the Nanny State). Meanwhile the human rights lobby screams against fat-shaming even in professions (such as the Army and the Police) where fitness is self-evidently important.

So, yes to lower taxation in general. But yes also to taxes targeting unhealthy foods and to tax breaks for gym subscriptions.

A parallel example is opposition to so-called Covid passports. Most of the Covid deaths, for some time now, have been among the unvaccinated. All Conservatives should wish to raise restrictions as quickly as possible. Indeed, the noisy lobby calling until recently for the re-imposition of Covid restrictions was mostly on the Left, but the circumstances which have underpinned their case the existence of large numbers who refuse to vaccinate and get sick is ignored by libertarians and the human rights lobby.

By contrast, millions of Britons saw nothing wrong with those who choose to be refuseniks paying some price (in terms of minor inconvenience) for their potential impact on the NHS. Even as we manage to ease out of the last parts of lockdown, protecting the short-term liberties of the refusenik minority has consequences, not just for public spending, but also for many who have other life-threatening conditions over which unlike the refuseniks they have no choice. Sick refuseniks are occupying beds desperately needed by other sick people.

A broader example is attitude to the family. Individualists on left and right campaigned successfully a generation ago for the virtual end to restrictions on divorce and the end of allocation of fault as a factor in child custody and the division of assets.

Today, attempts to reinforce traditional families are bitterly opposed by many the same people. Iain Duncan-Smiths radical reforms on social welfare reintroduced incentives to work, but he was consistently blocked in trying to remove disincentives for traditional families to stay together.

Yet the result of the decline of the traditional family is not just growing misery among children, with mental health, suicide, self-harm and drug-taking all on the rise and mostly higher than other European countries. It is also extremely expensive for the taxpayer as social security spending and the requirement for police officers, social workers, prison officers and childrens mental health staff grows. Studies consistently show that stable two parent families offer on average the best outcomes for children and family breakdown has an immediate cost to the benefit system.

If the state can encourage responsible personal choices and the rebuilding of those Burkean structures, from the family to the community to a sense of shared nationhood, expenditure can fall as the use of the safety net declines. If, on the other hand, choices which lead to mounting bills for the taxpayer are protected on the basis that We are not a country which asks to see papers, the size of the state will expand as the safety net gets more and more crowded.

Scruton once commented When government creates an unaccountable class it exceeds its remit, by undermining the relation on which its own legitimacy depends. In courser terms, people hate a freeloaders charter; rights should be balanced by responsibilities.

Boris Johnson led us out of the European Union. The next moves we take should seek to re-establish that balance. So, yes to reducing regulation (such as the Clinical Trials Directive which destroyed East Kents biggest employer). Yes to making strategic choices to cut public spending and taxation (a smaller university sector, an end to the triple lock for pensions?). Yes to forging new global trade and wider partnerships.

But lets have an end to the suggestion by so many of the Prime Ministers critics that a combination of offering freedom, alongside state-funded protection from the consequences, will capture the hearts of the British people.

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Julian Brazier: Meet a hidden driver of a bigger state, higher taxes and more regulation the libertarian movement - ConservativeHome

Though it may have been her first acting role, we cant imagine anyone else but Hunter Schafer playing Jules in the HBO series about sex, drugs and high school hedonism, Euphoria. In fact, many fans felt as though the actress was robbed of a Golden Globe nomination after the first series, and particularly her role, was met with such acclaim. But in a newly released Divine Frequency podcast from A24 with Solar Power singer Lorde, Hunter shared that she almost turned down the role.

I had never acted before Euphoria, and it was not in my plan at all, Hunter tells Lorde in response to her question about how she got the role of the teen who sparks up a sweet romance with Zendayas Rue. I had never been in an audition before. And my agency said that these casting people had reached out and asked me to come in and read for this role for this HBO show. I didn't know what to think of it. And initially I was like, I don't think I want to do it, just because it wasn't my thing. I was supposed to go to school in a few months, in fashion. But they asked again and I think I ended up going in.

She went on to say that she often thinks about what Jules would have been like if another actress had taken on the role, a thought Lorde refuses to consider (same). I don't think about any other versions of Jules, Lorde protests. There are no other versions.

During the podcast Hunter also spoke about her first ever job as a contributor for Tavi Gevinsons fashion magazine, Rookie, co-writing the Jules special of Euphoria with showrunner Sam Levinson (we just started talking about it and got into it. And eventually, he was just like, This kind of sounds like dialogue. Should we do this together?"), and her love for Miu Miu and babydoll fashions growing up.

Meanwhile a vintage Prada wearing Lorde shared her own fashion favourites (I was a big Commes-head. Obsessed with Commes. A huge Phoebe Philo Celine fan), checking her friends dates astrological compatibility and her love for artists SOPHIE and ANOHNI, and the show Succession. Hunter added she personally struggles to separate TV from work but loves Fleabag and I May Destroy You.

For those of you hoping Lordes current album cycle isnt over yet, the artist also shared that she made six or seven music videos for her album Solar Power, all filmed over 10 days on the same beach from the video of the albums title track, and that more will be released in the coming weeks!

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Hunter Schafer almost turned down the role of Jules in Euphoria - i-D