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p Whereas in its encounters with the dangers we have mentioned the sense of contentedness manages to find means for more solid self-assertion (albeit in its own eyes), in the question of the threat of neohedonism it fears itself. This is not accidental, because in neohedonism, i.e., the summit of refined consumer psychology, it sees its ideal. But the attainment of this ideal does not promise any gratification.

p The following gloomy prospect is drawn of the future of mankind. Machines will satisfy basic material requirements, freeing man from labour, and, it is stated, one fine day man will find himself simply redundant. He will then, as a professional idler, engage solely in pleasure-seeking and consumption. This activity will gradually strike at and destroy man’s finest qualities, above all his energy. Indolence and stupidity will overcome man, who will pine away from inaction in a world of servile automatons and mechanised comfort, and he will degenerate into a pitiful sybarite, a dependant of machines.

p These problems are dealt with in one way or another by many science-fiction writers, who have created so-called anti-utopias, novels serving as warnings (as distinct from the terrifying fantasies of George Orwell). For instance, the menace of neohedonism projected into the future is eloquently shown in Return From the Stars, a novel by the noted Polish author Stanislaw Lem. His personages return to earth from a long space journey and find striking changes: social distinctions, conflicts and wars are a distant memory. Man is pampered by machines: obedient and obliging, they watch over him. Thanks to social changes and to 62 scientific progress, which had eradicated aggressive instincts in man and made acts of brutality and violence impossible, life has been delivered from fear, doubts, distrust and diseases. This is akin to an earthly paradise founded on developed technology. Social equality and finely balanced harmony have become the highest good. Everything serves people reliably and faithfully. Not only dangers but even dramatic situations have been ruled out. Importance is attached only to the satisfaction of refined requirements.

p But deliverance from work, cares and aspirations has made people’s lives meaningless. The most profound passions are sacrificed to enjoyment and comfort. Love has become inconsequential, and ideals and dreams have vanished—everything has been achieved. The spirit of rebellion, the Promethean fire of daring are not needed. Duty has lost its sternness, and the torments of conscience have become an anachronism—there is no use for moral values in a paradise. Where trials and difficulties, the bitterness of defeat and the realisation of hopes are non-existent, there are neither happiness, nor dignity nor meaning in life. In short, the world of these people has become ideal in the odious Benthamic sense, according to which a respectable society does not need heroes.

p Predatory Things of the Century, a novel by the brothers A. and B. Strugatsky, contains quite a few symptomatic characteristics of neohedonism. It gives a picture of the possible consequences of man’s abandonment of creativity and quests in favour of the cult of pleasure. One of the personages, Doctor of Philosophy Opir, who propounds neohedonism, makes a speech in defence of his views. “We were born in the greatest of epochs, in the epoch of the Gratification of Desires___ Love and hunger. Satisfy love and hunger and you will see a happy man. Provided, of course, our man is certain of the morrow. All the Utopias of all ages are founded on this most simple of consideration. Deliver man from his anxiety for his daily bread and from his uncertainty of the morrow and he will be truly free and happy. I am profoundly convinced that children, precisely children, are the ideal of mankind. I see the greatest significance in the amazing similarity between a child and a carefree man, the object of a utopia. To 63 be free of cares is to be happy. And how close we are to that ideal! Within several decades or perhaps even a few years, we shall achieve automatic abundance and shall do away with science as the healed does away with crutches, and all mankind will be a huge happy family of children....

_p “The day of the pessimist has passed, as has the time of people suffering from tuberculosis, of sex maniacs and the military. As a frame of mind, pessimism is uprooted by that selfsame science. And not only indirectly, through the creation of abundance, but directly, by penetration into the dark world of the subcortex.”

p Such is the dismal picture drawn by science-fiction writers.

p Neohedonism is the ideal cherished by the sense of contentedness and appears to be so realistic that already today it is allegedly beginning to grow into reality, and so significant that it is able to nullify any threat or at least blunt and minimise its impact. It seems that nothing can prevent the realisation of this ideal, especially as it is not merely an eager wish: science and technology are most directly the basis for its proliferation. This is how one side of the matter is presented.

p But brought to its logical conclusion, neohedonism catastrophically affects mankind’s destinies. Indeed, if, as Opir says, pessimism is combated by direct intervention into the world of the subcortex, by manipulation from without, it is obvious that the sense of contentedness will be destroyed from within. If I am entirely manipulated, this will leave no room for any attitude of my own to the world and to life. Consequently, there is no sense in asking: Am I satisfied with life, with the world order? There is no hint of anything ideal in the neohedonistic ideal. It is rather the other way round: it is hollow, anti-historical and fundamentally non-heroic. The sense of contentedness thus projects its destiny in neohedonism.

The dilemma confronting the sense of contentedness is: either to choose a grotesque and intrinsically dangerous ideal or altogether to abandon the quest for an ideal. Both the one and the other are disastrous. They therefore look for a hybrid, for a mean that it would be blasphemous to call golden. The “ideal” and the simultaneous salvation 64 from it are concentrated in moderation, which only provides further evidence that the sense of contcntcdness is meagre in theory and helpless in practice.