Imagine a young person in their room, in the middle of the night. Phone in hand, endlessly watching short videos. Every few seconds, a dopamine hit; instant pleasure, quick and effortless. An hour passes, two hours, three hours… When they finally put the phone down, what feeling replaces the anticipated joy and satisfaction? Emptiness. Exhaustion. A sense of wasted time.
This scene is not an exaggerated portrait of one individual; it is the narrative of millions of young people living in the age of “cheap dopamine.” An age where pleasure is abundant, but happiness is scarcer than ever. This startling paradox raises a fundamental question: Why must we speak of pleasure today? The answer lies in the crisis of meaning that has ensnared contemporary humanity.
In this essay, we will answer why pleasure has become a vital issue for today’s human and how one can break free from this paradox.
Why Must We Speak of Pleasure Today? The Happiness Paradox in the Age of Cheap Dopamine
Framing the Issue: Three Signs of the Crisis of Pleasure in Today’s World
To grasp the depth of this issue, we need only look around us. Three clear signs proclaim the crisis of pleasure in the contemporary world:
1. **Consumer Culture and Extravagance: An Endless Race**
Today’s society is caught in an endless race for material pleasures. Consumer culture traps the human being in a “hedonic treadmill”; the more one acquires, the more one feels a sense of lack. Commercial advertisements define models of success through the accumulation of goods and pleasurable experiences, without allowing for the question of the “authenticity” of these pleasures.
2. **Social Media and the Intensification of Dissatisfaction**
The phenomenon psychologists call the “hedonic treadmill” has reached its peak in the age of Instagram and TikTok. Users constantly compare their lives to the idealized images of others, and this comparison plunges them into a vortex of dissatisfaction. Pleasure, in this space, has become a comparative and fleeting thing.
3. **The Crisis of Meaning in the Midst of Material Abundance**
Here’s the astonishing part: Simultaneously with the accumulation of material pleasures, the question of the “meaning of life” and “authentic happiness” has become a more serious issue than ever. Sociological studies show that increased material welfare in developed societies has not necessarily led to an increase in feelings of happiness and life satisfaction.
**Key Point:** Despite all technological advancements, contemporary humanity is helpless in finding inner peace and the “tranquil soul,” and this helplessness manifests in various forms of anxiety, depression, and feelings of emptiness.
Why Return to the Question of Pleasure? Three Fundamental Reasons
If the crisis is this severe, why specifically turn to “pleasure” today? Three fundamental reasons justify the necessity of this return:
**Reason One: The Crisis of Secular Theories of Pleasure**
Materialistic schools, particularly Utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill), introduced pleasure as the ultimate criterion for ethics and happiness. In this view, the goodness or badness of actions is measured by the amount of pleasure or pain they produce, and the ultimate goal of life is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
Erich Fromm, in his book *To Have or To Be?*, provides a fundamental critique of this view, demonstrating that having more and mass consumption not only do not lead to authentic “being” but alienate humans from their very selves.
**Thought-Provoking Question:**
*Has it ever happened to you that after buying a new item or experiencing an instant pleasure, instead of satisfaction, you felt a sense of emptiness?*
**Reason Two: The Cultural Assault of Extreme Hedonism**
The contemporary world is witnessing the emergence of a kind of hedonistic culture where individual pleasure becomes an absolute value, transgressing ethical and spiritual boundaries. This culture, rooted in the worldview of YOLO (You Only Live Once), insists that maximum pleasure must be experienced in this worldly life alone.
In such a space, the question of pleasure is not an abstract philosophical one but a vital question about the ethical and spiritual boundaries of living. It is essential to be able to distinguish authentic pleasure from superficial pleasure amidst the multitude of offered pleasures and to establish a conscious relationship with it.
**Reason Three: The Vacuum of Indigenous Theorizing**
The Islamic world, despite possessing a rich heritage regarding pleasure and felicity, has yet to formulate a coherent theory responsive to the issues of contemporary humanity. What has been proposed as “pleasure” in Islamic jurisprudence, mysticism, and philosophy has often remained within traditional frameworks and has not engaged with the language and needs of today.
**Primary Goal:**
*This essay, and the book it introduces, is a step towards filling this theoretical void.*
The Clash of Tradition and Modernity: What is the Core Issue?
This essay aims to formulate the issue of pleasure anew within the field of the “clash of tradition and modernity.” By this clash, we mean the confrontation between two different discourses on pleasure:
On one side, the **Islamic tradition** with three main narratives:
– **The Jurisprudential Narrative:** Pleasure within the framework of *halal* (permissible) and *haram* (forbidden).
– **The Mystical Narrative:** Pleasure in divine proximity (*qurb*) and annihilation (*fana’*) in the Beloved.
– **The Philosophical Narrative:** Pleasure as the perception of perfection and the actualization of existence.
On the other side, the **modern discourse of pleasure**:
– Rooted in ancient Epicureanism.
– Manifested in contemporary secular philosophies.
– Defines pleasure within an this-worldly, individualistic, and sensory horizon.
Conclusion: From the Crisis of Pleasure to a New Theory
What has been presented in this essay shows that the question of pleasure has become a vital issue today for three reasons:
1. The crisis of secular theories of pleasure, which have failed to meet the spiritual needs of humans.
2. The cultural assault of extreme hedonism, which has transgressed ethical boundaries.
3. The vacuum of indigenous theorizing in the Islamic world concerning pleasure and happiness.
Contemporary humanity is trapped in the paradox of “abundance of pleasure and lack of happiness,” and to escape this impasse, it needs to reconsider the meaning of pleasure and its relationship with felicity.
**References**
– Frankl, Viktor. (2018). *Man’s Search for Meaning*. Tr. Nehzat Salehian. Tehran: Darsa Publications.
– Fromm, Erich. (2015). *To Have or To Be?*. Tr. Akbar Tabrizi. Tehran: Morvarid Publications.
– Seligman, Martin. (2016). *Flourish*. Tr. Amir Kamkar. Tehran: Darsa Publications.
– Durant, Will. (2017). *The Story of Philosophy*. Tr. Abbas Zaryab Khoei. Tehran: Elmi Farhangi Publications.
– Motahhari, Morteza. (2010). *Collected Works* (Vol. 24). Tehran: Sadra Publications.
– Motahhari, Morteza. (2006). *Philosophy of Ethics*. Tehran: Sadra Publications.
– Gheibi, Vali. (2011). “The Relationship between Pleasure and Felicity from the Perspective of Epicurus and Mulla Sadra”. *Qabasat Quarterly*. No. 60.
– Shakeri Zavardehi, Rouhollah. (2017). “An Intra-Religious Analysis of Epicurean Hedonism”. *Ethics Research Journal*. Vol. 10, No. 35.
– Naraghi, Hassan. (2016). *Sociology of Ourselves*. Tehran: Akhtaran Publications.
– Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (2017). *Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience*. Tr. Mehdi Nasrollahzadeh. Tehran: Nashr-e Now Publications.
