Skip to main content

What is my utilitarianism?




I am a utilitarian.

Do you know how hard it is to live as a utilitarian these days? You often get mocked in closer circles. In the pretentious places, you are looked down upon. You are generally pushed to feel like a flying swine - strange, curious and out of place.

The problem is the word ‘utility’ in it. The commoners derive a shallow meaning that it is utility before happiness. Utility before pleasure. Stretching it a bit, they think that a utilitarian denies pleasures, leads a boring life of a miser, does not appreciate finer things in life and is generally a philistine.

But utilitarianism is exactly opposite of that. I will be a damned liar if I declare that I am holy and have renounced all the pleasures. The tricky thing, and here in lies a great secret about the art of living, is to understand what pleasure really is. I think there is such a thing as ‘supreme’ pleasure. And by virtue of the existence of a supreme pleasure, there are also ‘inferior’ pleasures. How can we define superior and inferior pleasures?

If I ask you all about the pleasures of a $6000 Longines watch, I don’t think I will get a consistent reply. Because, if your hand is a decorated stand to a $15000 Rolex, the Longines is not up to your mark. But what if I ask you about the pleasures of ‘Dignity’? Freedom of choice? Love? Being charitable? Striving towards uplifting humanity? I hope you are getting the drift. Let me try and make it more explicit.

Life is just a pursuit of pleasures. If there is a pleasure that most of us have no dissonance in agreeing with, then that is the 'superior' pleasure. That is what a utilitarian is after.

As an example, buying into material consumerism for pleasure only works the opposite. Its discontentment at the end of it all. How often do you see people visiting temples but only end up comparing their outfits with others. So, if an utilitarian has enough money, will he buy a home on the cliff overlooking the sea? He will, IF and ONLY IF it would buy him a certain freedom from the hustle when he is working on nobler things in life. Not in a bid to enter into a certain class in the society.

You can all test this in simple things. For the next Valentine’s Day, instead of spending money buying a gift to your woman, try and cook for her!

And that, my friends, is my utilitarianism.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 10, 2011 at 12:33 AM

    I am sorry...while i see where you are going with this and agree partially, I still didn't get the definition of utilitarianism... Can you define it in one line please for us? :)

    Ram

    ReplyDelete
  2. Raja SPMarch 10, 2011 at 8:49 AM

    Thanks Ram, I have updated it :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Date - Part 1

“Good Morning. How is everything? Did you manage to have an early breakfast date with yourself?” I was on the bed in a hotel room in Jakarta when that SMS woke me up. I only managed to get a very few hours of sleep that night. Even in that, my mind went churning non-stop on some meaningless, unconnected things. I was literally aware of all that turmoil in the half sleep, twisting and tossing through it. Back to the SMS. All the SMS I get usually are with a single consistent purpose - my colleagues trying to find my whereabouts. Note - none of them is a hot babe. (This is altogether a different topic - how come no hot chick in this whole damn world manages to become an IT architect!!) Oh, for a change, I do occasionally get some irritating marketing campaigns. So, it is not a wonder that this message sprang me awake like a Maasai Warrior. (Maasai are an African tribe famous for their ability to rise from the deepest sleep to a state of total combat readiness in a matter of seconds)...
2 comments
Read more

Reboot the Universe - Final

It started here Little Trisha has 2 things that I like in her. One - she loves reading. Just that her books have rats as the heroes. Duh!! I have been asking her to grow up. Second - she is random. Radiantly random. This was the recent random thing we did together. That day, she influenced me to a soya milk from the Jolly-Bean’s. Now, soya milk can be boring as sewage. So to give it a bang, they add these ‘chewy pearls’ to it. For the uninitiated, chewy pearls are tiny sweet balls, made using tapioca and dropped lovingly into your drink. If you ever crave to nibble and bite into a soft human body part, you shall try the chewy pearls. So we walked out, bought our cups and started drinking. Baby : Jokes time, Daddy! Daddy : Okay…. Where would a bored cow go? Baby : Where? Daddy : Moooooovie, of course! Ouch!! She giggled at that and got chocked with a chewy pearl. And in a short struggle, she managed to shoot it out of her throat onto the floor. First we thought of cleaning it up. But t...
8 comments
Read more

The Stunts for Attention

Some little distraction here before we get on with rebooting the universe. I heard some comments about the writing style of that post (Reboot the Universe - part 1) from various channels. The notable one came from Dhaks, universally recognized as Maams. He said, “hmm...u were alright when I met you last... ”. The genius-unexplored Henry was seconding Maams that “its the usual (weird?) Raja” . Hahhaha. Well, my sanity seems to have left with you Maams. Hereafter, please don’t leave me and go! (Nah, this is not a marriage proposal by any means :P). But honestly, I had my serious doubts about how that style would be received. Actually, I don’t have any fixed style of writing. Nor themes or subject matters. I deliberately keep it that way. In acting, there is such a thing called ‘method acting’. I gathered that its where the characters prevailing above and over the identity or the mannerisms of the actor himself. Daniel Day Lewis! Check him out in IMDB and compare (his real looks with) ...
7 comments
Read more