Virtues of suffering?
Dec. 1st, 2004 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaTonight I was discussing with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_babalon the strange notion we have in our culture that suffering is somehow more virtuous than pleasure. Of course, few will actually come out and say it that way. But we have sayings like, "No pain, no gain," and in many aspects of our lives, most of us feel guilty for doing things that make us happy.
Many of us act as though taking on extra suffering somehow makes us better people, as if there is an invisible tally sheet in the sky where we are given demerits if we have more than our share of happiness, or if we suffer less than those around us.
On one level, I think there is an innate understanding that we perceive unfairness if those we consider our equals to have a much greater amount of happiness or pleasure than those around us -- and so, for the sake of social appeasement, we mutually cancel out our pleasures with burdens. Similarly, much of the time we develop unhealthy and compulsive habits, like addictions to sex, drugs, or alcohol, which ensure that any pleasure we feel is mingled with excuses for self-loathing. This pattern is also expressed as fear of success.
But I think that there is another, more primal level at work. As primates we sense that we have a natural place in a tribal heirarchy. Our place within the heirarchy determines how much pleasure we are allotted, and so claiming pleasure for ourselves is a way of challenging our position in the heirarchy. Our instincts interpret the feeling of pleasure as akin to direct challenge to authority.
The ultimate authority is God -- and so we find that theonomic or conservative religion is heavily concerned with what sorts of pleasure we experience, and what restrictions we place on our pleasure consumption. We are taught to feel that it is somehow sinful to feel pleasure, that pleasure somehow separates us from God.
But when I examined that notion tonight -- the supposed virtue of suffering, and the supposed sinfulness of pleasure, I realized that it doesn't match my experience. I can't think of any suffering which I have experienced that made me a better, more compassionate person. Indeed, it has been times of happiness, of calm, of increased access to sex, when I have been more inclined to be generous and compassionate.lady_babalon added to this that times of fear and suffering in our lives are generally when one is more inclined to be less concerned with the suffering of others, simply because when one must focus on one's immediate survival, there is less incentive to be selfless.
lady_babalon the strange notion we have in our culture that suffering is somehow more virtuous than pleasure. Of course, few will actually come out and say it that way. But we have sayings like, "No pain, no gain," and in many aspects of our lives, most of us feel guilty for doing things that make us happy.Many of us act as though taking on extra suffering somehow makes us better people, as if there is an invisible tally sheet in the sky where we are given demerits if we have more than our share of happiness, or if we suffer less than those around us.
On one level, I think there is an innate understanding that we perceive unfairness if those we consider our equals to have a much greater amount of happiness or pleasure than those around us -- and so, for the sake of social appeasement, we mutually cancel out our pleasures with burdens. Similarly, much of the time we develop unhealthy and compulsive habits, like addictions to sex, drugs, or alcohol, which ensure that any pleasure we feel is mingled with excuses for self-loathing. This pattern is also expressed as fear of success.
But I think that there is another, more primal level at work. As primates we sense that we have a natural place in a tribal heirarchy. Our place within the heirarchy determines how much pleasure we are allotted, and so claiming pleasure for ourselves is a way of challenging our position in the heirarchy. Our instincts interpret the feeling of pleasure as akin to direct challenge to authority.
The ultimate authority is God -- and so we find that theonomic or conservative religion is heavily concerned with what sorts of pleasure we experience, and what restrictions we place on our pleasure consumption. We are taught to feel that it is somehow sinful to feel pleasure, that pleasure somehow separates us from God.
But when I examined that notion tonight -- the supposed virtue of suffering, and the supposed sinfulness of pleasure, I realized that it doesn't match my experience. I can't think of any suffering which I have experienced that made me a better, more compassionate person. Indeed, it has been times of happiness, of calm, of increased access to sex, when I have been more inclined to be generous and compassionate.
lady_babalon added to this that times of fear and suffering in our lives are generally when one is more inclined to be less concerned with the suffering of others, simply because when one must focus on one's immediate survival, there is less incentive to be selfless.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 12:41 pm (UTC)A lot of it, I think , has more to do with things one has gone through in childhood and how one was raised. Children who are severely abused are more likely themselves to have a lack of empathy because they have poor examples. Perhaps things one suffers in adulthood affect one differently. Just musing, not sure...