Dialogue with a Hedonist

Part of an ongoing conversation.

I have been accused recently in this space of exaggerating the claims I make about the mental, moral and philosophical condition of the modern world, or the extremity of the emptiness.

As if perfectly to show how no exaggeration was made, now appears in my comments boxes comments that so perfectly follow, without deviation, the orthodoxy of the nihilist that I fear I might be accused of inventing them for my own purposes.

But, not so: the comments given below are unsolicited and written by hands other than mine, and, it is assumed, sincerely made by those who submit them for their value as true statements.

Here is a snip of recent dialog with first commenter, who rejoices in the somewhat Cucurbitaceaen name of Watermelonyo

I wrote:

“… there are addictions and sins and humiliations which produce much false and transient pleasure without occluding the health, but which are nonetheless self evidently moral wrongs.”

He replies:

It is far from self-evident to me that any pleasurable activities that do not occlude the health are morally wrong. This is what you must demonstrate for your argument to carry any weight. Declaring it self-evident doesn’t help you.

Let me in this place write a reply. The other points the writer raises must be answered at another time: this one, by itself, is so outrageous, and yet so easy to disprove and dismiss, as to merit taking some length to answer.

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