the schuyler: a dialogue on pleasure

Hm? Yeah, it was last Thursday. No, not a weekend or anything. It was just one of those days where you get up and don’t feel like doing anything. I figured I might as well get outside at the very least — it was still early afternoon, and I thought I could get some good wandering in at this point —so I was sitting in the park sipping Yanjing beer, watching the old women practice their dance moves, and that’s when Socrates came by. You could tell it was him at a glance: poorly dressed, dusty, just all-around unkempt, and of course ugly as sin. I was glad that, it being afternoon, I had the sun on my side and didn’t have to stare him full in the face. Judging by the way some of the parents herded their children towards the park exit I was guessing others weren’t as lucky.

“Hoy, Socrates!” I called out. “Where are you headed to!” because even if he was a little hard to look at the man had a talent for finding interesting things, and I thought I might tag along and see what he was getting up to.

“Oh, Schuyler!” he said, turning to me, “I didn’t see you there, lost in thought as I was. I’m heading down to the gym, since I want to watch the young men wrestling. Care to join me?”

Now as you know I’m not a huge sports fan, but at this point I figure anything is better than hanging around in an empty park (because everyone else had quietly exited by now), so I shrugged and got up to join him. And we’re walking along Fengtai East Street and I’m eyeing the McDonald's across the road, because at this point I’m a beer in and I’m thinking a sundae might be really nice on a warm day like this. Socrates, of course, catches me looking over there, since for all his faults he’s perceptive when he wants to be, being I figure due to all that time he spent in the war and all, and he guesses immediately what I’m on about. “Thinking of buying a sundae, are you?”

“So what if I am,” I shrugged defensively. “It’s a nice day for it. It’ll make me feel happier.”

“Indeed it is a nice day,” says Socrates. “But will a sundae really make you happy? Last time we were walking this way, I seem to recall you weren’t very happy with your purchase. Didn’t you keep frowning at your stomach afterwards and weren’t you saying, if I remember correctly, ‘Wow, I really shouldn’t have eaten that’?”

“Socrates!” I cried out. “I know what you’re up to! Don’t hit me with this eudaimonia shit again, making me think about everything I buy — who are you, Marie Kondo? Sometimes I just want some goddamn ice cream, it’s not a big deal.”

“Well,” he said, “this makes you truly rare among men indeed, if out of all of them you are the one who considers happiness ‘not a big deal’. In fact, I’m quite impressed. For me, living the best life is always at the forefront of my thoughts.”

“Now you know that’s not what I mean,” I grumbled. Frankly I was glad that none of the people walking by could speak Ancient Greek so they wouldn’t know I was about to be schooled by this ugly old man, but even so we were getting some odd looks (though they might have been for him, not me). “Of course happiness is important to me. I suppose what I mean isn’t that ice cream will make me happy per se, but rather that it will provide me with physical pleasure.”

“Oh?” he said. “And is physical pleasure equatable to happiness?”

“Well, Socrates,” I said, scratching my head, “that’s a bit of a tricky question, semantically speaking. I would say that all pleasure has a physical basis, since all perceptions of pleasure which we experience come from mechanisms that originate within our physical bodies, but I feel like you’re referring more to ‘pleasures of the body’ — sex, food, etc — as opposed to intellectual pleasures like art or philosophy. However, even this is too vague of a definition. I mean, I enjoy art, reading, and discussing philosophy, but isn’t the pleasure derived from these things just an extension of our physical senses of seeing and hearing, translated into emotion in some way by the brain? Is it really any different than eating a sundae?”

“Well,” said Socrates, “that is a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it?” At this point we were far past the McDonald’s, which I assume was his intention all along. “But wouldn’t you say there’s a different sort of mechanism associated with these two pleasures? For example, if you’re having sex or eating food, where does the pleasure come from?”

“Well, Socrates,” I said, “I suppose it comes from the action.”

“Exactly so! Whereas if you’re having a discussion, or reading a book, or looking at art, do you think you feel pleasure simply from the action of being there, from being present? Or would you say that the pleasure is derived not from the activities, but from your experience and reflection of these activities, and your conscious engagement with them?”

“Well, Socrates, if I had to choose one I suppose it would be the latter. I would have trouble enjoying and engaging in those things unless I could consciously reflect and contribute to them.”

“Well!” he said, “then it seems that there might be some difference between these two pleasures after all, don’t you think?”

“That does seem to follow, Socrates,” I admitted, “but then who’s to say that one pleasure is better or worse than the other? Why not just eat ice cream all day?”

“Why not indeed!” chuckled Socrates. “Well, let’s examine this. We seem to have established that the defining difference between these two pleasures is one’s ability to be consciously involved in their execution. With physical pleasure, you don’t have to invest yourself — you just need to show up. I’m sure at this point some people would say ‘Socrates, I don’t like effort at all! The way you’re talking makes it seem like physical pleasure is the more preferable of the two!’ But let’s consider what happens after the fact. What happens after physical pleasure?”

“Well, Socrates, once again that’s a very broad question. Lots of things can happen. You’re full, you’re tired, you’re happy or sad. I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“That’s very true, Schuyler. But let’s examine it, once again, in terms of comparison with the second kind of pleasure. When you have finished a good book or debated a philosophical point do you simply feel happy, sad, or tired, as you do when engaging in physical pleasure, or is there some other result?”

“I suppose there are more results than just that, Socrates. Often I feel like I’ve grown or have the ability to explore the world in a new way. But those things can come from physical pleasure as well, in the right circumstances!”

“Surely it may,” admitted Socrates, “but it seems to me that what we have termed intellectual pleasures, by virtue of what we were discussing earlier, necessitate this kind of growth in a way that physical pleasures do not, since with intellectual pleasures it is necessary to engage yourself consciously and put your views and identity on the line, whereas physical pleasure lends itself to largely passive experience. Does that sound correct?”

“Yes, Socrates, that seems to follow.”

“Then in that case, if we assume that the prime goal of life is to grow and flourish and become the best versions of ourselves — a goal which I strive to personally follow every day — then it would seem that intellectual pleasures are better suited to achieving this goal than physical pleasures, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, Socrates, that makes sense.”

“Well, it looks like we may have figured something out after all, which I, at least, am always happy to do. To celebrate, why don’t we split a sundae?”

“Socrates, you old fart!” I shouted. “We left McDonald’s behind a mile ago! Now I’m going to have to hang around the gym while you watch oiled-up young men grapple each other, and I have nothing to show for it.”

“Not quite,” smiled Socrates. “You have knowledge, which is the greatest gift of all. For me, watching oiled-up young men is still one of the physical pleasures I find myself quite attracted to!”