MAY 2022: The pain of denying true pleasure
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain, and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” (Jeremy Bentham)
The word ‘hedonism’ derives from the ancient Greek word for ‘pleasure’. Our cultural understanding of hedonism tends to fixate on the extremes of these pleasures: intoxicating temptations and Dionysian consumption that deliriously engulfs the senses. This reading of hedonism is undeniably laced into the spaces we inhabit. Whether in club settings that are makeshift or cute or grotty, in trampled-down fields, or in the still, ripe air of the home afterhour, there is an exquisite abandon in our pleasure. There is joy, release. Escape.
And yet. Like many things, hedonism manifests along a spectrum. Egocentric hedonism prioritises uncritical pleasure-seeking; its strong desires are atomised and personalised. That isn’t to say that all individualised hedonism is inherently bad. However, dressing it up in the appearance of a greater, unifying agenda becomes a grotesque feat of mental and spiritual gymnastics, twisting around sharply to whisper lies directly into one's own ear. This hedonism of individual fulfilment is packaged, repackaged again, and served back to us, cold. It’s a reverse game of pass-the-parcel where bloating and distorting the original shape is the goal. We soothe ourselves with these layers of platitudes: “Rave culture is about unity.” “Our goals are utopian.” “Our scene is welcoming to all.”
There are numerous attempts, nowadays, to give form and context to the hedonism we seek. We’re encouraged to be safe, to reject the violence that grazes against us - some of us more frequently than others. To counteract these ugly words and intentions, we are asked for interactions that are earnest and tender. Yet detractors label them as too tricky, joy-sapping and moralising, with their rules and emotionality. At odds with the (alleged) set of beliefs that drew us together in the first place.
So how do we align our estranged and fractured narratives? There is a definition of hedonism that characterises it as “ecstatic, orgiastic… or frenzied, undisciplined.” Yet hedonism may, in the end, be the fuel necessary to finally accelerate our stunted gestures towards rave liberation forwards. It can push us beyond our normative understanding of mere pleasure frenzy, to savour the sharp and complex flavours of many hedonisms: psychological, ethical and altruistic. A radical, expansive hedonism that doesn’t need to be propped up like dead weight against a nostalgia that serves so few. An empathic embodiment that is contingent on softening the planes and sharp edges of personal sovereignty. It is knowing (and believing) that your pain brings me no pleasure. In fact, your pleasure enhances my own. In fact, pleasure isn’t just the inverse of pain, but an act of critical intimacy that heals the wounds of the ego’s motivations.
So let’s sit together once again, and reverse that backwards game. Unwrap the parcel. Acknowledge that the prize at the centre was just sweet-scented vapour. Perceive it as it dissipates, grieve its non-appearance. Then, release yourself. Cue up Claudja Barry’s “Love For the Sake Of Love”, but only the steamy, luxuriant, 7-minute 12” version. Slow dance with indulgence, wink back at its flirtatiousness. Then ask yourself, kindly: “what is really, and truly, at odds with my own pleasure?”
References:
Fraser, A. (2012) The Spaces, Politics, and Cultural Economies of Electronic Dance Music
Moore, A. (2013) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Hedonism
DOWNLOAD FLYER German translation by Thilo Schneider / Artwork by Plusminus Studio