The Rolling Stones and Philosophy_ It's Just a Thought Away - Luke Dick [49]
A Rolling Stone Gathers … Happiness?
Cyrenaic hedonism thrived in Greece for about a hundred years. Even after it died out, core hedonistic principles remained in the air. After about fifty years, another Greek philosophical school, led by Epicurus, decided to give hedonism another shot. The Epicureans followed the Cyrenaics in understanding pleasure as basic, but they argued that pursuing pleasure on the basis of sensation alone was inadequate. Cicero (106–43 B.C.), a Roman Epicurean, and one of the movement’s most well-written spokesmen, explains that running headlong after pleasure in the manner of the Cyrenaics is flawed because, “great pains result for those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally.”27
Where the Cyranaic recommendation was to grab hold of as many pleasures as quickly as you can, Epicurus recommends a careful study of the pleasure that awaits you before you decide to indulge. This is because, Epicurus points out, sometimes pleasures, though good in the moment, carry with them negative consequences as well. If a pleasure will lead to a future pain that is worse than the original pleasure was good, it makes sense to avoid it. Since the goal is to net as much pleasure as possible, it’s foolish to reach for pleasures that bring along a negative balance of pain by the time all is said and done. What’s more, sometimes it makes sense, according to Epicurus, for a hedonist to choose to engage in a painful action.
While this point would have been inexplicable for the Cyranaic hedonist, it has a clear logic. Some pleasant activities have negative consequences later, such as the small fortune Keef has spent on his drug-related legal woes. Conversely, some painful activities have pleasant consequences later, such as the cold-turkey aches, pains and messes, of kicking a junk habit that later enable the pleasure of raising children. Epicurus says, “We sometimes pass over many pleasures in cases where their outcome for us is a greater quality of discomfort; and we regard many pains as better than pleasures in cases when our endurance of pains is followed by a greater and long-lasting pleasure.”28
The Epicureans differ from the Cyrenaics in other ways too. The Epicureans recommend learning to live very simply, as they believe that those who are unaccustomed to luxuries will derive the greatest pleasure when they do attain them. This is, of course, antithetical to the high-flying rock’n’roll lifestyle epitomized by the Stones, and exemplified in their songs.
Why would the Epicureans think that a life of quiet simplicity is to be preferred to the life of a rock star? Working from the belief that the intense pleasure of high luxury carries with it an unacceptable amount of pains as well, they advise us to find pleasure in simple, easy-to-attain goods, arguing that humbler joys actually end up amounting to more pleasure once you subtract all the pain that results in harder-to-get goods. The simple life is better, according to the Epicurean, because it removes the hassle and anxiety that always follows the thrill-seeker who has no time to rest before he is compelled to continue the hunt for his next pleasurable experience.
Again, Keef is a prime example. The pleasure obtained from heroin is followed by incessant search for more fixes. Once a hedonist becomes accustomed to the intensity of the hard-to-attain pleasures, his taste for simple pleasures will be dulled, and he will no longer be able to derive satisfaction from those things. This is the desperation of 1971’s “Sister Morphine” from Sticky Fingers: “Tell