Nobility and Hedonism

Magnus Anderson claims that hedonists are slaves to pleasure.
Sure, the bulk of hedonists are, probably, lacking discipline and self-control;
but what Magnus fails to understand is that people can also be slaves to ideals,
such as ‘nobility’. Asceticism can also become a decadence, just like hedonism (indulgence).

Now, here is the kicker: most people, like Magnus Anderson, who demonize hedonism
and deify asceticism, are merely resentful and bitter about their social standing. Just like
the poor envy the rich, the ugly envy the beautiful, so too do the “noble-ascetics” envy the
pleasure-seekers, those who go out partying often, the nimphos.

The ones who claim to be above pleasure and pain are usually, deep down, the most
ardent, the most lascivious and decadent of all.

These people are ostracized, they see others around them enjoying themselves.
They can’t stand this, so they conjure up self-righteous nonsense about how
these other people are inferior and slaves to pleasure. It’s a coping tactic, self-consolation.

They become so bitter towards the world that they shun indulgence all-together, trying to
distance themselves as much as possible from those whom they envy. They become neurotic
walking contradictions with very uptight and dull lives. They become slaves to their
ideals of abstinence and nobility, unable to engage in and enjoy indulgence.

It’s Christianity all over again.

That’s very poor reasoning.

What should be understood first and foremost is that while the higher can comprehend the lower and reduce itself to its lowness if it wishes to, the lower cannot comprehend the higher and ascend to its heights.
For example, a person with a genius IQ can comprehend both the subjects which require a genius IQ and the subjects that require an average IQ, while an average person will only comprehend those that require an average IQ.
Another example that is analogous to that one, is that you can install inferior and superior software on superior hardware, but you can only install inferior software on inferior hardware.

Let’s move on to the concepts of low and high themselves. I associate it with biology/evolution.
What is characteristic of and also present in the simpler, less intelligent organisms is that which is low and base (pleasure-seeking, instinctive action, emotion, preference for quanitity).
High is that which is characteristic of the more complex and intelligent organisms (intelligence, rational decision making, preference for quality ).
Hedonism is characteristic of the low people - the base, the stupid, the manimals, while asceticism is characteristic of the high because hedonists can comprehend nothing more than indulgence in base animality, while the high aren’t truly content by it the same way a genius isn’t content exploring mediocre subjects, and it applies to installing inferior software on superior hardware too - it is a waste of potential.

A refined perception leads to a more refined sense of self that considers submission to primitive urges by satiating them with inferior means an affront to its identity, a compromise that results in loss of dignity for the sake of something as temporary and ephemeral as pleasure. To those who value consistency and have long-term ideals this would be an unacceptable compromise.

Those who are too dull of the mind, too intellectually inept, are more likely to indulge and take pleasure in simple things because they don’t have the capacity to comprehend the finer things in life. They have a weak genetic foundation for the sense of self, and so then, having nothing to build upon in themselves, they seek self in external things.

Using this foundation, let’s re-explore your comments:

Hedonism itself is always decadent and characteristic of the lower.
Asceticism is never decadence, asceticism detached from the real/nature and left to wander in the idealistic/unnatural is no longer asceticism as the core of it is then lost as asceticism is about self-control and not self-denial and yes, whatever that is, it is decadent.

Ideals only enslave in two scenarios that I can think of:

  1. If they are externally imposed and accepted by coercion or force (in other words, if they aren’t accepted by the person holding them)
    and
  2. If the attempts to achieve the ideal constantly results in failure (the ideal is too un-realistic)

How do you figure that? Given that I explained it above, ascetics are in relation to hedonists what humans are in relation to dogs.
Is a human to hate a dog for being more socially accepted by other dogs?
Would a human be resentful towards dogs for not accepting him, and bitter because of it?
Would he be angry at dogs that they are not as intelligent, frustrate himself because they can’t comprehend him, and hate them because they piss and shit everywhere and eat shit?
Unless he is a hardcore hedonist that is not much different than dogs, and so he identifies with them, no, a human wouldn’t care what dogs do, think, or say.

That, however, does not mean the human would allow dogs to piss and shit in his house, where his rules apply… there the dogs would either abide by his rules, or get kicked out if it doesn’t want to, or is too stupid to.

The ones who are merely pretending to be ascetics are the ones who are resentful and bitter.

Although a good reason even for true ascetics to be resentful towards degenerates is that their degeneracy contributes to the downfall of civilizations, which is akin to my dogs shitting and pissing in the house example.
For example, not only would I not mind degenerates in the country of an enemy I want to conquer, but I would PROMOTE degeneracy there, to weaken the country, get it?

Yes, the poor may envy the rich and the ugly the beautiful, because the poor know what richness is and that it is superior, and the ugly know what beauty is, and that it is superior.

It would be the hedonists who would envy ascetics, were it not for the fact that hedonists are too stupid to comprehend asceticism and thus don’t know why it is superior, which is why they are hedonists in the first place.

Is this just another claim you’re going to make without backing it up with anything?
No, I would disagree with your observation even if I myself criticize those, like Magnus, who claim to be above pleasure and pain.

As I said above and in my foundations - the high aren’t envious of the ‘pleasures’ of the low, the same way a human isn’t envious of a dog eating shit, unless the human himself is a degenerate shit-eater and secretly wants to eat shit.

Yes. Indulgence is sacrificing self-identity for the sake of temporary inebriation in quantities, the very opposite of what a noble, ascetic mind strives towards - a careful, aware, relishing of quality.

The rest is more of the same differently phrased.

Is there no such thing as an intelligent pleasure seeker? Do the facts bear this out? Have you done any research? Do you know what you’re talking about? I put it to you that you are just making this up as you go along. On the other hand: I think I am of average intelligence and I must admit to liking a moderate amount of pleasure and don’t believe in overdoing it, so, maybe you’re right, after all. The trouble is; it just doesn’t sound right. Forget I said anything, I’m just getting confused now.

According to the official definition, in order to be envious, you must desire those qualities that you scorn.

The quality that I scorn is pleasure, but since I desire no pleasure, it is wrong to conclude that I am envious of people who have tons of pleasure.

You need to be a greedy person – and that means a person with no hierarchy in his actions – in order to be envious. Since I am a man of hierarchy, who relies on his will and not on his instinct to direct his actions, the concept of envy is completely inapplicable to me. I am beyond all of that business.

I am sorry, but it is you who are seeking consolation. You are trying to console yourself and you are doing so as we speak and you are doing so by trying to reject what I am saying by trying to (mis)interpret me as being envious myself. But it is you who are being greedy, not me. It is you who cannot settle on a clear hierarchy of values, not me.

I despise hedonists not because it bothers me that I cannot have what they have, but because they are developing in a different direction (actually, they have no direction of development.)

To be a slave means to be detached from your own ideal and attached to a different direction of development. I am no slave for being loyal to my own ideal.

Hedonists have no ideals. Hedonism posits no ideal because what it posits is a goal that is avoidance-based. Only advance-based goals can be considered idealistic, and hence, non-slavish.

Let me try to explain the difference between avoidance-based (what Nieztsche calls “reactive”) and advance-based (what Nietzsche calls “active”) goals.

Avoidance-based goals are negative goals in the sense that they posit an undesirable state that must be avoided. Desirable states are not defined – you see – they are left undefined. What is defined is an undesirable state. This is any state that is associated with fear, which can be death, pain, negative social judgement and many other things. The crucial bit is that negative states are primary (which is why they are well known in advance) whereas positive states are secondary (which is why they are unknown in advance.) Positivity is derived from negativity, not the other way around. We can also say that avoidance-driven people “say no to few, but yes to many”.

Advance-based goals are positive goals in the sense that they posit a desirable state that one must realize as soon as possible. Undesirable states are not defined – you see – they are left undefined. What is defined is a desirable state. This is any state that is deemed as aesthetically ideal. The crucial bit is that positive states are primary (which is why they are well known in advance) whereas negative states are secondary (which is why they are unknown in advance.) Negativity is derived from positivity, not the other way around. We can also say that advance-driven people “say yes to few, but no to many”.

The former call themselves realists while everyone else calls them hedonists. The latter call themselves idealists while everyone else calls them nihilists.

Nietzsche was a mongrel, so he was neither here nor there. In many ways, Nietzsche was a hedonist. His attempts to justify slavery, his idea that there is nothing beside WTP, his ER, his amor fati, his scorn for idols and idealism in general, his reliance on the concept of nihilism (the concept of nihilism was invented by hedonists to demonize idealists/gnostics) . . . all these point to the fact that he was a hedonist to a great degree. It is only in subtle ways that Nietzsche betrays his idealism.

There have been attempts to present the problem as being that of extremes. Both hedonism and idealism have been presented as negative extremes that must be resisted in order to reach the state that lies somewhere in between the two. These were merely attempts to escape the accusation of hedonism while preserving hedonism itself. I call this movement neo-hedonism. It’s populated by mongrels who carry within themselves both hedonistic and idealistic sets of impulses but who nonetheless remain dominated by hedonism. They have coined the term “realistic idealism” in order to tell us what mongrels they are.

Idealism is born out of the capacity to overcome one’s instinct, which is the same as that of biological ability to relax (regulated by parasympathetic nervous system, or simply PSNS.) It is those organisms that have developed the great power to relax and transcend their instints that have become idealists. All other organisms, with their limited capacity to relax, have remained stuck within the narrow confines of the material realm of instinct. No matter how many instincts they overcame, at the end of the day, they still remained dominated by them.

It is therefore very ironic to consider idealists as being uptight or too strict, as you do, as some do, as many people do. For it is those who are below instinct, and not above it, that are too tense, not the other way around. That hedonists confuse being relaxed with feeling relaxed, and feeling tense with being tense, is no argument against it, but against those who are incapable of relaxation and whose own lack of capacity leads to a self-referentiality that is only reinforced by the fact that their kind is the numerically dominant kind. A hedonist has thus convinced himself that there is nothing beyond hedonism and that those who claim otherwise are merely liars who remain to be what can only be and that is hedonists.

A hedonist cannot take an advice for a hedonist, due to his inability to relax, is stuck in a perpetual state of over-activity, and any advice he takes, even if with the good will to learn how to relax, will only lead to further over-activity which above certain point manifests as unbearable pain. The only thing he can manage is his symptoms which manifest as feelings of pleasure and pain. If he tries to change, he feels bad; if he does not try to change, he feels good. Therefore, his solution, which is no solution but he cannot hope for anything better, is to simply refuse to change, or at least, to control how he changes. The great reality of the biological ability to relax thus becomes buried beneath all this over-intellectualization.

It is very common for a hedonist to accuse anyone who suggests a change of being too strict, even if one’s aim was to make him more relaxed, for a hedonist cannot relax and cannot imagine any biology other than his own degenerate one.

We despise him for this reason, not merely because he is wrong about himself, but because he takes his own advice and makes it popular thus suffocating not only his own biological potential but also of those who are biologically superior to him.

Don’t you like him going around the town calling everyone he considers as being too strict a “Nazi”? “Nazis” were too strict indeed, but that’s only becuase “Nazis” are a caricature of authentic National Socialists propagated by the Jews.

Do you understand that without prior relaxation a man cannot be an idealist? This must be a huge revelation to all those poor souls who still think that idealism means being too strict. But there is no strictness in idealism. To be an idealist, you must completely overcome your instinct, and that is another way of saying completely relax. Those who fail to do so become hyper-active, making them less efficient in their idealistic efforts. It is a very sad reality that such people have been described by hedonists as “self-loathing”. An idealist who struggles to remain one because he is over-stimulated is described as “self-loathing” because the amount of fear and pain hedonists would feel in his shoes would be too much for their pitiful biologies.

Whatever way you look at it, it’s pretty clear that idealism trumps hedonism, not because I envy hedonists, but because idealism is infinitely superior to hedonism.

I think I get Magnus.

Erik, he doesn’t envy hedonists, but a part of wishes he could envy hedonists…that is why we hate hedonists so much Erik. Erik I know you hate hedonists, you told me about it in one of your rants. I know you understand this and I know you understand why Magnus hates hedonists too. Envy has many forms.

We all wish we could be hedonists, but we don’t, because they are fucking stupid and they’re bringing the world down. We want nothing more than to be hedonists, but we can’t, because they are ignoble and polluting this world. We can’t be hedonists…we can never be accepted by hedonists…they are not of us and we are not of them. We are too advanced to dumb ourselves down to fit in with them, we are too advanced to be entertained by their rave houses and drug parties. The only hedonist I admire is Pinkie Pie, and she’s not even a real hedonist, shes just a psychotic clown. She’s not even a real hedonist, because real hedonists are cliquey and don’t care about the world.

That is not exactly the case. Excess complexity can leave backwards compatibility issues, then you have to download an emulator to play the old files. Human beings are no different…they go to a club and they are too intelligent to dance, they don’t see what the purpose of it is, so they have to do booze (an emulator plugin) to dumb themselves down to get in the mood to dance.

If someone goes to the club does that make him a hedonist? He could go to the club for several reasons. Maybe to relax and enjoy the ambience to get insight into the universe, maybe to observe human behavoirs and watch specimens, maybe to find a hot date, or maybe to get drunk and party. Only 2 of those reasons are hedonistic.

Magnus seems to have a habit of labelling people. This is a common mistake described in Sex and Character. When we say a woman, we do not refer to an actual person, but a set of traits that would make someone a 100 percent woman. Same with hedonism…there is no such thing as a hedonist, just a set of traits that would make someone a 100 percent hedonist. There is a spectrum, most of us have hedonistic qualities, it’s not black and white, theres not a biology of non-hedonistic individuals and biology of hedonists. Magnus is not 0 percent hedonist. That doesn’t mean he has an actual desire to be envious of hedonists. One may have a passing desire to be a dog, just to see what it is like, but it never transforms into full blown envy.

That being said, what makes aesthetics any more better than pleasures? Aren’t women an example of this? Aesthetics are the same as pleasures…it seems to me that the difference is arbitrary, it seems to be labeling one thing as hedonism, and another thing as noble, aesthetics. Isn’t a woman’s form both aesthetics and pleasure. That being said, hedonists are definitely ignoble, because they don’t care about the word, and never undergo any personal development. They stay in ignorance and never try to leave their intellectual comfort zones. That being said, the avoidance of pleasure seems more like a fear of drug withdrawals…like you are afraid of being addicted to pleasure again so you avoid it. Magnus may no longer be enticed by the drugs of the world, but noone is above pain…nobody gets shot in the kneecaps and enjoys it, not even Jesus, and Jesus was a god.

It all boils down to purpose. Hedonists see purpose in everything, everything gives them novelty, they are easily entertained. Non hedonists see purpose only in things which interests them or follows their ideals, they get bored unless it is part of their current interests.

But you don’t. I do not wish I could envy hedonists. Only hedonists incapable of envy do so.

It is black and white. You are trying to annihilate clear distinctions in favor of “degrees” which is what people who cannot think clearly resort to in order to tell us who stupid they are.

There is a clear distinction between hedonists and non-hedonists. You, however, do not understand the difference, even after I’ve made it perfectly clear by explicating the concepts of avoidance-based and advance-based goals.

There is indeed a biology of hedonists and a biology of non-hedonists. I already explained the crucial distinction between the two. It is people like you who are the problem, people who want to muddle the issue because they are too arrogant to admit that they do not understand the distinction. You are taking your own confusions and assuming that they are also mine. This is how arrogant you are.

I don’t think scorning anything is a necessary component of envy so when you say ’ official definition" I can’t help wondering what you’re referring to.

What are you? Some kind of viking warrior robot?

It is perfectly possible to be envious without being greedy.

Try listening to your instinct a bit more, you might come across more like a Human Being rather than a machine.

I could argue that both hedonists and idealists have a mix of both traits. A shoddy argument, my dear.

For example, hedonists pleasure seeking is the advanced based goals, its just their advanced based goals are usually stupid, like getting money with no ideal other than that. Idealists such as you, who try to avoid fear, could be argued as avoidance based. Idealists who want to reduce the amount of pain in the world, could be argued as avoidanced based. Your model does not hold up in water, it tries to oversimplify things.

Most things in life are a spectrum, rocks are made up of the same material as everything else, therefore things tend to be a spectrum since things are just a repeat of the other.

You tend to make labels. A lot. You see to make them on the fly, presenting them as absolute truths, when really they are weak models, like something you’d see in a propoganda pamphlet from church, or a psychiatric newsletter to describe behavoirs. Its psuedoscience, quackery.

As for my statement about you wishing you could be envious of hedonists, it was more or less a joke, but i still think a part of you wishes to be unconscious (hedonist), it is an embedded drive.

I am your dad.

In your fantasies, yes it is.

Try not listening to your instinst instead, and you will see, it is people who are dominated by instinct that are machine-like, not the other way around.

It is sad how perverted your way of thinking is. But more sad is the fact that you’re an arrogant imbecile.

Go fuck yourself.

I honestly think that you have no idea how stupid this makes you sound.

I would say that it is possible to be envious without being greedy. Modern envy usually arises from a gluttony, ie. The Guy With A Nice Home, envious of the Guy Next Door who has a lamborghini he doesn’t need. This is gluttony type envy, chasing type envy.

The other type of envy is oppression type envy, for example starving people, who are envious of those who oppress them.

Yes, that’s a shoddy argument.

No matter how many hedonistic traits an idealist has within himself, he never ceases to be an idealist, this is because there is a clear hierarchy among his traits, with idealistic traits being dominant.

You are muddling the issue, as I said, you are muddling it because you are confused and cannot shut the fuck up for a moment and think.

Pleasure seeking is rarely, if ever, advance-based, it is avoidance-based. Pleasure seeking does not start with a clear defined end, it starts with a clear defined state to be avoided. Pleasure, for this people, means being as far from these dangerous states as possible.

Pleasure seeking can be advance-based, but only in theory. In reality, pleasure seeking is avoidance-based.

Furthermore, such a pleasure seeking would be a different kind of hedonism, a kind of hedonism we are not speaking here, because Erik’s motivations are avoidance-based, and that’s all that matters.

Please do try to stay on topic for once, I love you.

I am not avoiding fear, for christsake, what a load of bullshit. I am avoiding avoidance which, by negating the negative, cancels avoidance and becomes advancement.

My, how confused you are.

It is you who are oversimplifying things by bastardizing what I am saying. You are too abstract and when you are too abstract everything becomes meaningless. You need to “bring yourself down to earth”.

If I posit no pain as an end then that’s apparently not avoidance-based because I have a clear defined end and undefined, derivative, states to be avoided.

For fuck’s sake!

Sad? Sadness is an emotion, which is something I wouldn’t have expected you to admit having.

I thought you would have been able to hold out longer than this before you let your instincts get the better of you.

…and his instincts have earned him a warning and a one day ban.

I am now.

I suppose it could be argued that people who chase after money are avoidance based, because the only reason they want money is to avoid what they deem to be negative. However, it could be argued that those type of people are also advancement based, because they are religious, and heaven is their goal. But it could be argued that their religion is only avoiding punishment. But if their religion is only avoiding punishment, then avoiding the religion would be avoidance too, because it is distancing yourself from the punishment of religion. Therefore all people are mix of different states, sometimes avoiding, sometimes advancing.

Only total animals who never think about a better world or future ever, those who have no future ideals, would classify as 100 percent hedonists. Hipsters and yuppies do have future ideals, only their ideals are stupid. Black communities have ideals, only their ideal is make their community richer. It could be argued that this is an avoidance, blacks want wealth to avoid what they deem as negative, and women want feminism to avoid anything which rubs against their fragile bubble. But are the idealists ideals any different? The idealists ideals are certainly more wise, thinking moreso into the future, but they are also avoidance based, as I said before. Your ideal is justice, and justice is sometimes, avoidance based, because it is the notion of reducing the pain for loved ones, removing bad influences etc. Vengeance, is sometimes avoidance based too, because you feel fulfilled after you do it. Justice, is often avoidance based, sometimes justice makes the world a better place, sometimes it doesn’t. Some type of justice is instinct based, other types are a conscious deliberate attempt to make the world a better place. Its still avoidance factors, the definition of a better world is a world with less pain, increasing quality of life parameters which you define in the definition of hedonism. Justice is on enabled when quality of life is reduced, when quality of life is not reduced, there is no reason for justice. Erik’s goal of engulfing the world in darkness and war, seems to be neither avoidance nor advancement based, neither here nor there. What it is who knows, I don’t even think he knows.

I will go easy on you since you are banned, i await your response after your one day ban.

Arbiter,

This isn’t always the case. As a matter of fact, I’d say there are more intelligent hedonists than intelligent ascetics;
most people who are ascetics are religious ascetics, you know, the type who waste their lives believing in delusional BS.

Even though these religious folk are, according to our standards, dumb…they nonetheless practice a life of
self-discipline, abstinence from worldly desires, from sin. Instead of yielding to immediate pleasure, they
hold-off, choosing the future kingdom of heaven instead.

Now, on the other side of the coin, we have the intelligent hedonists, those who don’t
acquiesce to religious nonsense about going to an eternal hell, if one lives hedonistically.
These people see through the stupidity of such a doctrine and such a way of life. They
can appreciate worldly desires, without fear of divine punishment.

The right path is to have a balance of hedonism and asceticism.
Even though I am more like Dionysos, I do believe in self-discipline.

Self-discipline is the mark of kings and conquerors.

But my point is that ascetics, such as Magnus, often despise hedonism so much that
they go very far to the other side, becoming overly-wary of even minor indulgences.
They lose the ability to enjoy worldly pleasures.

It doesn’t seem a conscious choice Magnus makes…it is a function of intelligence. Intelligent people require a complexity to match their own…they get bored without it. Now you might say that “why not play a space sim or strategy game” well its pointless, because there is no goal behind it. Also the functions seem essentially linear, for example warcraft and starcraft are linear processes, a management simulation of worker drones. Useful as a training tool, but is it satisfying?

So if you take this concept and apply it to sex, Magnus is like…why do sex? Why chase after ephermal pleasures? It’s pointless. The absense of hedonism is related to the function of intelligence. That being said, intelligent people dumb themselves down on purpose for hedonistic purposes. The mechanism of love does this automatically…it is clinically proven that is a struggle for males to think clearly while around women they are in heat for. So some of these hedonism properties are automatic, and Magnus seems to refer to the meta, that he is a meta-nothedonist by not just avoiding intoxication, but potential traps of intoxication as well, such as never allowing himself to have a drink, he removes the potential for his hedonistic desires to overcome him.

Intelligence is IQ, which is to say, the ability to solve problems. Intelligent people may be less prone to religious delusion, but being religious does not make one “dumb”, and holding a “dumb” belief to be true is usually characteristic of dumb people, but it doesn’t make a person dumb. It’s just a very weak indicator of intelligence, weak because human psyche is structured in a way which makes it vulnerable and prone to religious delusion.
Most of the hedonists who are atheists, and I’m mostly speaking of the degenerate leftist kind, disbelieve not because they’ve researched the issue and came to conclusions based on rational thinking and observations, but because the concept of God, usually including religious values - asceticism - intervenes upon their pleasures.
The proof of this is the fact that they simply switch from one delusion (Christianity, usually) to the next (Secular humanism/liberalism).
Both are delusional, the latter is just more permissive of their degeneracy.

Intelligent people tend not to be hedonists precisely because they are intelligent and they would see animalistic indulgence as degrading to them. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any intelligent hedonists, just that they are very, very few and tend to be less extreme. For an intelligent person, never progressing beyond hedonism would be like never progressing beyond basic math for a person who is mathematically apt - it’s simply unsatisfactory and a wasted potential, so very few will do it.