Epicureanism

To begin with, we must get rid of an erroneous preconception that circulates and
which is to say that Epicureanism would be (or would be reduced to) a philosophy
of enjoyment. When we say "I am epicurean", it would mean "I love the pleasures
of life, earthly pleasures". It is quite easy to justify, for example, gluttony or the
inclination to alcohol, drugs, flesh (lust), by claiming the philosophy of Epicurus.
This interpretation is wrong because in reality, Epicurus explains that happiness
cannot be achieved in excess. For him, we have a body through which we
experience sensations and these sensations are experienced between two intervals
which are: pleasure and pain.

Man naturally aspires to pleasure, that is to say that when something gives him a
pleasant sensation, he will tend to move towards this thing and conversely, to flee
anything that will be a source of pain. The problem is that sometimes, man is
wrong and often he takes for pleasure, which is more suffering. It's a paradox, but
it can be illustrated very well by concrete examples.

Drinking a glass of wine, drinking a second, a third, finishing the bottle, can be a
lot of fun, especially if it's good wine. It can make us happy, in the moment. For
people who don't drink, it could be, for example, wanting to finish the jar of
Nutella, when you've just started it, it gives a lot of pleasure, but the problem is
that the next day, the pleasure will leave its place to pain: the hangover for alcohol
and the tummy ache for chocolate. In any case, there will be a negative
consequence to this pleasure.

What Epicurus says is that to be happy, it is not enough to run after pleasure, it is
necessary to moderate this pleasure, so that it is only pleasure. Epicurus'
philosophy is first and foremost a philosophy of moderation. It can also be called a
philosophy of balance. If this balance is broken, it means that we are not following
the path of wisdom. We are in a kind of immature pursuit of a pleasure that we do
not control and which, consequently, controls us. There is no happiness possible in
excess. Happiness is the result of moderate, balanced, balanced behavior.

For Epicurus, there is a classification of desires. A little semantic reminder: desire

is not pleasure. Pleasure is the result of the satisfaction of a desire. What is a
desire? A desire is an inner force that pushes us towards an object in order to
appropriate it. In philosophy, the term “object” can apply to a person. Desiring a
person means that this person becomes the object of our desire and this desire,
which is a force, is also a lack, because by definition, we desire what we do not
have. Rousseau said: "the object of our desire ceases to be desired as soon as we
obtain it" and for him, the desire must be sufficient in itself. Desire is not pleasure.
Pleasure is the consequence of the satisfaction of desire. I get the object I want, I
get pleasure from it.

For Epicurus, there are three kinds of desires:

First, the natural and necessary desires (ex: eating, breathing, sexual desire
(reproduction)). Epicurus tells us that natural and necessary desires must be
satisfied.

Then come the unnecessary natural desires (e.g. eating is necessary, but the food
does not need to be refined because the goal is to eat only. A steak and a glass of
wine are not the same something but a piece of bread and a glass of water, when
these will suffice). Unnecessary natural desires can be satisfied in moderation.
Moderation is limitation in the satisfaction of desires.

Finally, there are unnatural and unnecessary desires (eg eating a good steak with a
good glass of wine on a silver plate adorned with precious stones). Those, for
Epicurus, are vain desires. They are an expression of degeneration because
naturally, man does not feel this need. He experiences this need from the moment
he tastes it and when he does not manage to control this desire. In other words,
unnatural and unnecessary desires testify to a disorder, such as a pathology. When
we cross this limit of unnatural needs, we fall into addiction. Alcoholism or drug
addiction, that's it: increase the doses gradually to find this initial sensation that
you can no longer experience from the moment you get used to pleasure. We then
increase the doses and we hurt ourselves even more.

Epicurus' philosophy is not a philosophy of unfettered enjoyment. It is a

philosophy of frugality. It is a philosophy of the economy of pleasures. We are in
this Greek mentality of self-control, balance, reason.

Among the Greeks, there is a term to designate the unlimitedness of desires:

hubris. It is when man goes beyond this natural limitation of the satisfaction of
desires which means that potentially he can desire anything and everything.
Example: a millionaire who harbors the desire to become a billionaire. Then, the
question of motivation arises: what does he want, what does he need that he does
not have yet? A priori, when one is a millionaire, one sleeps serenely. Well, the one
who is in a state of hubris does not sleep peacefully, because he needs more,
always more. We are in the field of pathology.

Pathos means passive and one is passive when one undergoes something. The
millionaire wanting to become a billionaire, he is a victim of his own passion, his
hubris, his own limitlessness. For that man, limitation is something that has been
forgotten along the way and that man will find it harder to become wise. The idea
is that from the moment we no longer control desire, that it is it which controls us,
we deviate from the path of happiness and authentic wisdom.

On a larger scale now. Nowadays, in democratic societies, there is no longer a

tyrant, because there is no longer any need for a tyrant. We are dealing with tutors,
people who guide us and push us in a more or less fine and cunning way, towards
things. And we know that people are all the more governable when they are
themselves their own master. From the moment we replace domination over
bodies (which is the principle of tyranny) with the ideology of desire, we no longer
need to constrain or force. We just have to let the masses follow their wishes. And
if, in addition to that, we condition this mass of citizens well enough to make them
desire vain things, according to the qualification of Epicurus, we obtain a
submissive people. Submitted to their own desires. It is obvious that from the
moment you set foot in a shopping center, it will be much more efficient for the
system, that you obey your impulses, your desires to buy, to consume (we know
how much the act of buying, from a psychological point of view, translates a lack).
We are right in the heart of what Epicurus is talking about: hubris, unlimitedness.
The desire to find outside of oneself a satisfaction that one cannot find inside
oneself. Our society is therefore not an epicurean society, we are even quite far
from it! Modern society has blown up the notion of limits. On a collective scale,
what would the abolition of all limits entail? The jungle.

To conclude: from the moment we have to formulate a law, the law has been lost.
That is to say, it is no longer within us. It would be perfect if we no longer needed
laws, if men governed themselves. However, in a system where we give up our
sovereignty every day to leaders, the law is necessary, because a child who grows
up without rules in a society with rules does not become a free being, it becomes a
little jerk!