I enjoy my life in a while traveling cultural places, tasting delicious foods, experiencing various arts, shopping for new products, etc. All of these have been peacefully done for my pleasure. I merely spend my time for enjoyment in terms of living my own life that I might say. And, many of us are in the same boat for sure. I do not see anything wrong here, and also something weird in a general sense. Because this should be “normal” or “an expectation” what modern culture treats me to be happy in my life. I guess that there are no reasons for me to live in the world except to be happy. My relatives, friends, co-workers, or even my professors hope that my life pleasures me in happy moments. It is the fact that I was not even an awareness of my pleasure or happiness that becomes the goal of my life until graduate school.
I first met the strongest discourse and powerful thoughts while reading contemporary philosophy and literature that usually focuses on “violence.” If you like, I may point out Micheal Foucault an example, though there is no place for him in this context. In the beginning, the term “violence” becomes an ordinary word at all with an overall dictionary description as a physical or psychological force that intends to hurt or damage someone or something; but it is more than that. By the time my readings increased and expended its meaning, such as domestic violence, sexual violence, state violence, and so on. The term takes place in almost every piece of academic writing I realized. For me, this is a little bit strange that intelligentsia deeply focuses on the origin of “violence” more than other issues or problems. Maybe this is the fact that it gives a cause to “pain,” which is in opposition to “pleasure.”
There is no doubt for me that contemporary intelligentsia efforts to decrease the “pain” of humankind and to increase the “pleasure” of a person in criticizing “violence” in the context of social science. But how is it possible that “pain” has never decreased in World History? According to Thomas Hobbes, humankind has two basic instincts that pleasure and pain. When one naturally seeks his own “pleasure” that self-defeating from “pain,” he or she acts like a selfish to reach out his or her benefit that the right of nature. From that departure point, is it possible that requesting more pleasure may only cause more pain? Let me ask my question in a different way; did I unwillingly or unconsciously hurt anyone in terms of my benefit?
