The legitimate pursuit of pleasure!

There are so many issues and complex problems facing us humans in 2011 that it seems more than a little indulgent to get enthusiastic about legitimising the pursuit of pleasure. Shouldn’t we be focusing on the many catastrophes that have befallen our planet and its societies and how to guard ourselves against new ones likely to hit us tomorrow, next month and in the next five decades? Well, yes… and no; I have always favoured a both/and rather than an either/or approach. Also, I’ll be writing plenty on the crises facing us all, so this week I’d like to write about why it is legitimate to spend some of your time pursuing pleasure and enjoying the good life. 

To do this, I will examine the ideas of a world-class thinker - the early Greek philosopher Epicurus. He was born around 342 BCE on the island of Samos. From the age of 14 he studied under the philosophical masters of the day. But in his late twenties he decided that he disagreed with most of what they taught. So, he developed his own philosophy of life and reputedly wrote about 300 books and essays on a wide range of topics. In his mid thirties he moved to Athens and bought a house with a small garden on the outskirts of the city. There he set up his own philosophical school, one that was in many ways a breakaway from what had gone before.

Epicurus and his followers said that they “philosophised together” rather than continuing the tradition of a master instructing his pupils. Also, contrary to social convention, Epicurus admitted women along with the men; also, rich and poor and even slaves were allowed in on a basis of equality. The school then encouraged them to study and explore pleasure together, because what distinguished Epicurus’ thinking from previous philosophers was an emphasis on the importance of sensual pleasure. You can imagine how his philosophical school became at once titillating and morally reprehensible to those on the outside.

Apart from being the first (though by no means the last) thinker to promote the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain as the highest good, Epicurus was also one of the early rational humanists. And his atomic and materialist exposition of the nature of the universe was revived in the seventeenth century to become the basis of modern science – after having been suppressed by the Roman Christian Empire for centuries.

What appeals to me about Epicurus, is not so much his early scientific thinking, as his focus on the ethical legitimacy of pursuing personal pleasure and happiness. Also, he is probably the world’s first hippie: he set up a commune in his modest Athens house, and spent many hours philosophising with his friends in The Garden (as the school became known). Incredibly “The Garden” was still in existence 450 years after his death. Epicurus taught that true pleasure did not require a large income as the essential ingredients of pleasure were not very expensive. And here is where his insights can be of interest to those of us who are not among the wealthy of the world. For some of us his insights may provide a confirmation that what we are currently doing and how we are living is on target as it were. For others of us, he may be an inspiration to focus more firmly on the things that truly bring personal pleasure rather than the relentless pursuit of material possessions.

First insight: friendship is the most important pleasure available to human beings. Epicurus said “Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship” So strong was his evaluation of congenial company that he recommended that we should never eat alone. “Before you eat or drink anything, consider carefully who you eat or drink with rather than what you eat or drink: for feeding without a friend is the life of a lone lion or wolf”. For Epicureans the greatest pleasure was to share a meal with friends, in the shade of a tree in the garden, while discussing matters of importance.

Second insight: the highest pleasure is not only eating with friends in the garden. In addition, it involves engaging in enlightening conversation about some of the key issues in life: religion, science, sex, society, ethics, death, pleasure and suffering. In other words, our time sharing a meal with friends is greatly enriched if our dialogue focuses on issues of intellectual import rather than frivolities. Like Socrates before him, Epicurus believed that the unexamined life was hardly worth living.

Third insight: while our happiness is dependent on some complex sociological and psychological factors, it is relatively independent of material wealth. Epicurus divided our needs into three categories: natural and necessary (friends, freedom, ideas, food/shelter/clothes); natural but unnecessary (grand house, swimming pool, lavish meals, servants etc); neither natural nor necessary (fame, power and excessive wealth).

So, what does this ancient Greek philosopher have to say to us about living a good life in 2011? Quite a lot, I think. Firstly, friends are the most important components of our lives no matter what social and economic strata we come from. Cultivating true friendships is the most intelligent and pleasurable thing we can do. Secondly, sharing meals together is one of the most pleasant, fun activities available to human beings; a deeply satisfying and ethically legitimate pursuit. This includes eating at your local restaurants, at home, but also in the wonderful gardens that many of us are blessed to have (a la the Epicureans).Thirdly, we can enrich our lives by opening ourselves to the pleasures of lifelong learning. We can seek out friends who are willing to join us in exploring the challenges of our continually changing local and global circumstances. If where you live, groups of friends are regularly engaged in enlightening table conversations, then the quality of your communal life will surely rise like the morning mist from a beautiful river.

Randall Falkenberg

Alert! Things may be reaching a tipping point!

The man who made the idea of a tipping point well known is Malcolm Gladwell. He was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2005. He also received the American Sociological Association’s Award for Excellence in Reporting of Social Issues in 2007. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three best-selling social science books written for interested lay people. His father, an Englishman, is a Civil Engineering Professor and his mother, a Jamaican, is a practising psychotherapist. They are all now naturalised Canadians.

I reckon that the best way to introduce you to this fascinating thinker is by taking the major insights from each of his three books. They are, in his own words, “intellectual adventure stories”, somewhat quirky but easy to read. The first book, the one on which I will focus, is The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference (2000); second book is Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (2005); and most recently published is his Outliers: The story of success (2008).

First insight: ideas and behaviours move through a population very much like a contagious disease does. Ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way as a virus is. So, false or negative ideas as well as true or positive ideas are often spread by word-of-mouth. And, according to Gladwell, ideas are spread by just a few key people until they reach a tipping point. At the tipping point, a critical mass is attained and the idea or behaviour then spreads like wildfire, just like a viral epidemic! Keep in mind, as you read on, the dramatic footage you have seen of the protests in Tunisia, Egypt and as I write now also in Gaddafi’s Libya. First, in getting to a tipping point Gladwell claims there are the “connectors”, very well networked people who seemingly know everyone and who can make or break a reputation, or kick-start a movement on their word alone. Then there are the “mavens” – a Yiddish word for “one who accumulates knowledge”. They are the people who acquire such detailed knowledge of an idea or issue that others turn to them repeatedly for advice. There must be a number of Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan mavens who understand political systems and the relative merits and demerits of Dictatorships and Democracy. Third there are the “salespeople” – people with the skills to persuade others when they are unconvinced by what they are hearing. In the Tunisian and Egyptian “revolutions” it seems the “salespeople” also used Facebook and Twitter to spread the ideas that reached a tipping point after two weeks of unbroken protest, and empowered the ordinary people of a nation to rid themselves of a dictator. Is there a tipping point sometime in our future in South Africa? What do you think? Who are our connectors, mavens and salespeople?

As with most things in life, these “epidemics” leading to a tipping point can be good or bad. Rumour mongering that breaks a business or destroys a person’s reputation can reach a tipping point where the rumour is taken as truth and denying it is almost impossible. Good news can also be spread via word-of-mouth (and electronic social networks!) and the success of a business, a person or official, or even a whole town, city or country can be permanently enhanced by a positive message that reaches a tipping point then spreads like mad. Is there a way to push South Africa towards a positive tipping point that benefits all of us? Allow me to leave you with these thoughts for the moment, and invite you to think blink, the subject of his second book.

Second insight: learn to trust your intuition, but also know that it can be wrong! Gladwell is talking here about rapid cognition; the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. He claims that we all have a sort of sub-conscious processor that uses all our experience and knowledge to rapidly come to a decision – in two seconds! This is wonderful when it works, when it proves you right. In our family our older son, Dayne, is eerily “intuitive”. He comes rapidly to a decision about people he has just met or about situations he faces for the first time. And to the irritation of the rest of the family he is more often than not right. However, there are also occasions when evolving reality and more considered investigation eventually proves him wrong. And don’t we all, to a greater or lesser degree, experience the satisfaction of coming rapidly to a judgement that turns out to be correct? But then the embarrassment of being proved wrong, sometimes substantially so, is also an experience that I’m sure is shared by all of us. So, Gladwell advises: trust your initial intuition more than perhaps you have been; but also, be sure to subsequently put in the more considered investigation and evidence gathering needed to confirm your rapid cognition.

Third insight: success is not just a matter of talent; the time, place and resources available to individuals and groups are also decisive factors in eventual success or failure. His book Outliers susses out what makes certain men and women do and achieve things that are out of the ordinary. His findings are instructive. For sure, talent is needed and usually a decent IQ; but the context is also crucial. If you grew up in a home where parents encouraged to you try things, and not be discouraged if at first you don’t succeed; if you and the kids at your school had early access to computers and state-of-the-art software; if the globe was on the brink of computerisation then you may have turned out to be a Bill Gates. And, surprise, surprise apart from everything that needs to break just right, and the prodigious amount of luck that is necessary; hard work and practice are also key. He cites the claim in the psychological literature that expertise usually takes about 10 years and some 50,000 hours of practice to develop. A Roger Federer, a Pablo Picasso or an Albert Einstein doesn’t just walk onto the world stage and deliver superior performances! No matter how talented they are intrinsically, they all have to work hard at it to sustain extraordinary performance. So, his message to all of us is this: when you go for your goals make sure you put in the hard work and practice required! They are essential for your success…

Malcolm Gladwell commands $40 000 a lecture in the USA corporate world. For just over R120 you could read his Tipping Point, which is the best introduction to why, apart from his wonderful Afro hairstyle, he is such a star celebrity. Blink about it!

Randall Falkenberg

February – the month for Celebrating Love

February is the month of love with St Valentine’s Day holding centre stage. Love is such an abused concept that many people are embarrassed to use the word. Yet it is also an absolutely crucial concept in defining our humanity. I have (appropriately I hope) chosen a Frenchman as my first weekly piece on a world-class thinker: the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville. A distinguished scholar from the Sorbonne, Comte-Sponville has written many articles and books in French. Thankfully three of his books have been translated into English and I have all three in my library.

Interestingly this philosopher has written a fair bit on “love”. In his best selling book A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues he distils all our human virtues down to a list of eighteen. His opening chapter is on Politeness, which he says precedes morality, and his closing chapter is on Love, which he says exceeds morality. Love he claims is the most interesting of all subjects. The early Greek philosophers had two words for love: eros and philia; and much later a third Greek word was added – agape. Let’s look at some of his insights by examining these three words.

First insight: erotic love strives to possess and to retain what it does not currently have. This is the simplest form of love. New lovers at a St Valentine’s candlelit dinner stare passionately into one another’s eyes. A significant part of their pleasure is their anticipation of what is to follow, what is not yet. The gifts of chocolate and the Valentine’s cards are attempts to get what we don’t yet have. And there’s nothing wrong with that! But as soon as eros possesses what was desired and retains the object of erotic love, passion dissipates. Interest wanes and boredom may even set in. Eros is that driving, almost blind biological love that longs for what one does not have and weakens when one gets it. Eros is such a strong passion, with characteristic butterflies in the tummy that we are often tempted to think that erotic love is what life is all about! However, according to Comte-Sponville, Plato was only partly right when he described love as eros pure and simple; for not all love is erotic, passionate and possessive – spent as soon as it has been attained. There are, as Aristotle argued, other forms of love; “to love is to be joyful” within the context of intimate friendships.

Second insight: philia is the love shared by intimate friends and it is a joyful delight. Usually translated from the Greek as Friendship, Comte-Sponville points out that philia is a “benevolent” love that loves another for the other’s sake. It is a love that rejoices in the pleasure that it gives and is the secret of happy relationships. Parents and children delight in loving one another in this warm way of devotion; so too do spouses, lovers, and partners. And philia often combines with eros illuminating relationships with the mutual pleasure of ‘making love’. For Aristotle, philia (to love) is to be joyful and to wish happiness on the person one loves. It is the love we experience when we are secure in our relationships; it is the comfort of true friendship rather than the passionate possessiveness of erotic love, though it may combine with eros on occasions.

Third insight: agape is to love one’s neighbour which is to say anyone and everyone. Neither Plato nor Aristotle would have known the Greek word agape. They knew only passion or friendship. Long after their time, Jesus, a seemingly insignificant Jew in a far-off Roman colony began in his strange Semitic tongue to say astonishing things like “love you neighbour” and “love your enemy”. No Greek word for this! Who in their right mind would passionately try to possess humankind? Or who could, absurdly, be close friends with their enemies? The English translation of agape is usually charity which carries the meaning of compassionate care for others who are in need. It is a love that is liberated from egotism and is therefore in itself liberating.

Comte-Sponville argues that while it is okay intellectually to distinguish between these three kinds of love they are not discrete, mutually exclusive entities. He sees them as three points in the single realm of love; three possible impulses in the complex process we call life.  What is great to know and to experience, especially for those of us who are no longer in enthralled bondage to erotic love, is that philia and agape increase in importance and desirability with age. Friendship and compassionate care for others remain ultimately meaningful and incredibly satisfying when eros no longer dominates one’s every waking thought!

I wish you a wonderful Valentine’s month and lots of love in all its interesting manifestations…

Randall Falkenberg