Hedonism anyone?

Lately the underlying buzzword is hedonism.

But what is hedonism?

Hedonism is perceived as one of the 5 principles of secularism:

• Vetalism - stresses upon anything that is viewed to have strength and profitable shall be considered good
• Creative - stresses upon something that triggers the creativity and promotes new inventions shall be considered good
• Relative - stresses that there are no concept nor understanding on a fact or theory that is absolute and infinite. Everything can change based on new discoveries and advancement of human knowledge
• Hedonism - stresses on that anything that can fulfill the human needs/desire shall be considered good and anything that brings misery shall be considered bad.
• Majority - stresses on what the majority decides shall be deemed good as opposed to what the minority states.

The Hedonistic culture is beginning if not already encompassing our daily lives. In a nutshell, hedonism promotes enjoyment as the sole fulfillment in life. Extreme form of hedonism goes as far as the mind can perceive and the body to carry it out.

We go onwards to seek enjoyment as fulfillment. Depends on the type of person you are, your level of enjoyment will differ from one to another. Common enjoyment spots would be movies, shopping complexes, karaoke joints, etc. There are also acquaintances of mine that goes to a more extreme form of enjoyment, namely discos, and other activities that I shall not even put in print.

Now, the form of fulfillment will surely differs from one person to another. For me, the joy of spending quality time with my 3 kids is the best fulfillment. What would those social science experts say on that? would that qualify as being a hedonist?


In our daily lives, we listen to songs, irregardless in Malay or English or other languages. Some of us need to listen to songs to do their daily work. Is that a form of hedonism? A very fine line indeed separating hedonism and those allowed by our religion.


Passing by Masjid Al-Syakirin recently, I noticed a banner stating and event "Offline with Hedonism" to be held on 18th March 2010 from 0800-1715. Unfortunately, I've confirmed (with the mosque reps) that the event has been targeted for kids between 12-15 years of age.

That was the trigger point for me to actually blog this. It's been a while since my thoughts dwell on hedonism.

Later....