To be an Epicurean, one must have the notion that going out on a tuesday night and getting very drunk is totally acceptable (as long as you enjoy it). However this happy-go-lucky lifestyle can have a negative toll on an epicureans well-being. What if a paper was due the following day? What if that paper determines your grade in a college class? What if that grade is the difference between getting hired or not? There are other aspects to life other than basking in pleasure, and sometimes you must suffer in order to reach a higher level of contentment.
On the other side, there is Stoicism. Although a society would surely get things done in a swift and efficient manner, there would really be no heart put into anything. Everyone would simply do there duty and then move on to another passionless task. Instead of going out on a tuesday and partying it up, they would never go out at all (only celebrating if it was their duty- like a birthday).
While the first lifestyle seems to overly pursue pleasure, the second avoids and deny's such urges. In the regular day-to-day life a normal person would usually follow both Epicureanism and stoicism: Letting lose on the weekends and working hard when necessary. In that sense life can be enjoyed in many different ways.
The pursuit of short-term happiness (like getting drunk on a Tuesday night instead of doing one's homework) is typically associated with Hedonism, not Epicureanism. No Epicurean has a stress free life, free from sadness or anger. Remember, they actually have to give up things that provide only short term happiness. What Epicureans are trying to do is to minimize their exposure to these other kinds of emotions, placing happiness on a pedestal, as it were. Are you arguing that those other emotions--ones most of us see as negative--are just as worthy of being on the same pedestal as happiness? If so, you are a Stoic! At any rate, Epicureans must experience other emotions, so it's not really accurate to say they don't suffer.
ReplyDeleteYour point about Stoics missing out on happiness also needs to be teased out a little more. Remember, a Stoic's life isn't necessarily devoid of happiness; the Stoic just chooses not to have it as a goal, believing that personal happiness is no more special than any other feeling. In other words, a Stoic can enjoy a surprise birthday party but he's not going to hint to anyone that he wants one because he doesn't. A Stoic can have a drink on a Tuesday night but he'd be just as fine without one. Does this make him "passionless"?
Remember, what a Stoic is passionate about, what makes life worth living as it were, is the belief that what happens in life as happens for a reason. Whether what happens in life makes him feel happy or sad isn't important. The mere fact that it happened makes it sacred. Thus, his own survival in light of what life throws at him, not his own happiness, is what he concerns himself with. He accepts the ultimate rationality of life by not giving up, no matter how it makes him feel.
It all boils down to what do you see as a sounder core value: to endure as best you can or to be as happy as you can? Which should you follow (or do you follow a third)?