By now, the Holiday high is slowly fading, transitioning back to our daily routines. You're lucky if it's not your case, but you'll get here soon somehow. Now, looking at how people all over the world celebrate the holidays, we can tell that we all have a common thing for that excessive fun time. Also, add the fact that during this time, excess is just right but if you do it in the middle of the year on a Monday night, you are most likely to be perceived as a troubled one. Now, why is that? Well, let me discuss it to you as we go down this deep well of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and all that heavy stuff your holiday-hungover head might take some time to process...

Hedonism

You've probably heard of this term before. It is the philosophy that says pleasure is the only thing good for a person--that it is the most important, thus excessive partying and all that lavish way of living is the virtue in this perspective. However, this is just the modern way to define the term. It did not use to sound like this--as a mere justification of intense inebriety at nights or even at the middle of days.

Epicurean Hedonism

Epicurus is known for his definition of hedonism which is definitely far from the bad misconception many people have these days when it comes to that term. He believed there were two kinds of pleasure which are as follows:

Kinetic- Something you get by satisfying a desire such as eating what you have been craving for, scratching an itch, and of course releasing your sexual tension may it be with a partner or by oneself.
Katastematic- Pleasure attained form not wanting more, of being content of what you have, or basically not having any more desires to be satisfied. As in simply fulfilled.-

Epicurus prioritized katastematic, for he believed that in this case, one achieves genuine happiness, because desires are merely eliminated rather than continuously satisfied. Therefore, one could not be any happier because there is already a sense of contentment. On the other hand, if you're just going to repeat satisfying those kinetic pleasures, you are just left with a constant itch to be satisfied that when circumstances don't work in your favor of achieving that, you feel really frustrated and might even become totally miserable if that frustration is taken as a really big deal. Now, we all know a friend who has that first world life problem...

Mill's Hedonism

John Stuart Mill also had his own two's when it comes to the concept of pleasure. According to him, there is a higher pleasure and a lower pleasure, and that the former is to be prioritized. It is a very subjective take on the issue of pleasure because he said that in order to find out which pleasure is higher, one must ask an expert who had experience two pleasurable things which one he would choose had he been offered both in equal amounts.

Now expertise in the field of pleasure does not really exist. I mean, who are we going to ask--Trump? Well he surely has a lot of fun with all his wealth and privilege, but would most people consider him at expert at it with all those negative things tagged onto his image? I don't think so. Also, your life is your life, thus it is subject to adjustments made solely by you. Come on, we all know life is not a one size fits all kind of thing.

Clearly, Mill had a problematic opinion about pleasure. You see, the grounds on which the experts decide which is the higher pleasure suggests another value--apart from hedonism. Of course on their decision, other rational factors are of big influence. In that case, pleasure itself is no longer that only thing with intrinsic value, for most probably, struggle affects one's decision in choosing which is the higher pleasure.

Robert Nozick's Experience Machine

First of all, Robert Nozick's experience machine is not how that gif made it seem to be. I just found the gif really cute. Now, this experience machine was supposed to challenge our idea of hedonism. Let's say a machine exists that you could plug into that could also give you a virtual experience of your idea of a good life. When you're in the machine, your brain perceives the whole virtual world as reality and you completely forget your whole decision to just experience a stimulation of your fantasy.

Then ask yourself, would life in the experience machine be better? If yes, then it means that you don't have any problems with the concept of hedonism, but if your answer is no, then you agree with Nozick's conclusion that perhaps there is just really more to life than pleasure...

The Holidays

So, going back to holiday fun, it is indeed acceptable to be at our craziest during these times. It's like unleashing all the bottled up and deprived expression of happiness we have been keeping for almost an entire year! Yes, that's the justification. However, if we are going to look at the basic hedonistic idea, could it be that this holiday-only madness is a harsh treatment of ourselves? Why can't we just enjoy everyday, at any hour and time in the whole year?

From the three philosophies of pleasure, we could infer that there is indeed a semi-instinctive sense of regulation within ourselves that comes up when the idea of fun faces us. Even Epicurus whose hedonistic ethics have been known for years has a reservation with his two's of pleasure saying that there is a katastematic way to attain satisfaction. It kind of proposes a shady "don't go for the excess as much as possible" advice. This is an obvious cause to why we only allow ourselves to get dead drunk on some occasions and extremely careful on "regular' days.

Mill, on the other hand, confuses us once more now that he suggests we have to have a priority when it comes to pleasure. Like hold up, we are now away from the real concept of hedonism--pleasure is the only good thing for humans. Yes, with a choice being asked of us to make, we are basically given endless reasons to actually make it. That includes a lot of negative experiences too. Therefore, our holiday high is universally accepted because for the rest of the year, we are constantly faced with just too many agonizing decisions to make that concern our pursuit of pleasure and happiness, its duration, and other rational life factors we just have to make in this life.

Lastly, with that experience machine of Nozick's, we are confronted with the fact that indeed, pleasure could not be the only principle to make it through this life, for living in the machine would definitely feel unrealistic, still, despite its mechanics as I have specified above. This is because just by looking for example, at that binge-eating and Netflix marathon on weekdays, we are quick to pick up a sense of misery from it despite its hedonistic nature--satisfying pleasure to the fullest. Now, this is the reason why we have kept the New Year's countdown party tradition for so many years now--we want to be able to have that excuse to enjoy without being shamed like on those regular days when you wish you could just act the same way.

Conclusion

In psychology, hedonism states that we are all psychologically built to exclusively desire pleasure, thus the way we behave. This just shows how despite the great and obvious evidences and thoughts that say there is more to life than just our pursuit of pleasure just like how Nietzsche said we also have a thing for pain, pleasure indeed still plays a big role in our life. Therefore, it is up to us to work our way around it keeping in mind that life is short, it is like this and that, etc. I hope you have a great 2018 and that you have learned something from my article that you could take in your journey this year!

Philosophy Talk Series # 1: Why We Party So Hard During Holidays