Paradoxes of the emotional universum of modern society: anhedonia versus the cult of pleasure

Lobanova Yuliya Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0003-2970-7520 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor of the Departments of "Humanities", Moscow Polytechnic University 107023, Russia, Moscow, Bolshaya Semenovskaya str., 38, of. Moscow lobanova_diss@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The increasing level of globalization of the cultural space and the strengthening of the dynamics of intercultural dialogue in recent decades have led to an intensification of the process of exchange between different cultures of their own orientations, ideals and values. Thus, in particular, due to the prolonged influence of the values of postmodern culture of the Western persuasion and neoliberal character, a certain revision of a number of ideals and values of the national traditional culture took place. "Emotional prescriptions are associated with global phenomena in late modern societies. For example, with the economy and consumer culture, the commercialization of many aspects of life, the cult of the individual Self, the psychologization and emotionalization of social experience (it is interpreted through feelings), as well as the rapid pace of development of many spheres and, accordingly, the perception of uncertainty of the future" ^[13]. Initially, this was greatly facilitated by the actual denunciation of a number of social doctrines aimed at abstract ideals of the future and requiring each individual to actively include him in collective social practices aimed at achieving these ideals only upon forced recognition of his personal devotion to them.

The total destruction of the cultural field of all these ideologies of the last decade of the last century was a direct consequence of their falsity, which at some point was publicly announced. Along with this pseudo-cultural ideology, largely incorporated into the general culture of the society of the "builders of the most advanced social system", almost all collective forms of this culture, more or less associated with ideologically loaded norms, customs and rituals, collapsed ^{[5; 15; 17]}. The place of the denounced collective was almost immediately filled with its antipode – everything individual, personal, among which were new cultural values associated with achieving a state of one's own personal pleasure ^{[12, p. 24]}. The public and largely artificial taboo of the latter during the decades of the domination of communist ideology led to the fact that this process of quickly replacing the "false collective" with a new "true individual" in a short time gained momentum unimaginable from the point of view of previous decades of actual personal unfreedom. Hedonistic personalization began to rapidly displace ideologically bankrupt disciplinary socialization.

The ever-deepening property social stratification also contributes to the rapid change of values. The obvious overabundance of efforts implemented in the direction of following these trends, in fact, led to the emergence and consolidation of their new cult, as well as representatives of subcultural formations professing this cult in the structure of the general cultural system – "new Russians", "domestic celebrities", "cultural bohemians", "golden youth", etc. All of these above were distinguished by the constant demonstration of their own well–being, prosperity, any form of idle pastime and purposeful following of this particular cult - the cult of pleasure. Rather insignificant in number, but turned out to be excessively noisy, irrepressible in their desires, extremely disdainful of law and law, and constantly hungry for publicity at any cost – the subculture of domestic "orthodox hedonists", nevertheless, has had and continues to have a very noticeable impact on the overall cultural situation, thereby changing it, which In fact, it determined the relevance of this study.

The purpose of the study is directly related to its relevance, and is defined as an analysis of the causes of the already formed paradoxes of the emotional universe of Russian culture, mainly reducing to the impossibility of transforming an overabundance of pleasures into a subsequent feeling of happiness and satisfaction with life either on an individual or on a general social level.

Blind and uncritical adherence to hedonism in this new direction eventually led its new adherents to the only possible result, which in English–language literature is usually referred to by the term "overflow". The absolutized desire for any kind of entertainment and pleasure, having crossed all boundaries, has turned from a cultural norm into a pathology – hyperhedonia. A distinctive feature of this phenomenon is the hypertrophy of enjoyment and satisfaction of any, the most flighty of their desires, that is, the creation of an overabundance of such episodes against the background of a lack of skills for the subsequent translation of this amount of accumulated emotions into a new quality – a feeling of happiness and satisfaction with life: there was only a feeling of satiety, but satisfaction due to this satiety – no.

Apparently, in order to make this paradox known not only to themselves, adherents of hyperhedonism advertise their lifestyle to the widest audience (mainly through social networks), thus "recruiting" new supporters and admirers. The far-reaching goal of such advertising is to transform the entire emotional universe of modern society in such a way that emotions associated with pleasure and entertainment form its very core. At the same time, apparently, those who seek to remake everyone under their own modus vivendi have no understanding at all that this initial paradox itself will not disappear from the proposed generalization – and it is impossible to become "happy together" through "unhappy together".

Many sociologists are extremely determined towards the imposed hedonism, asserting the growth of egoism and individualistic attitudes in society in general as significant for the current era ^{[14, p. 7],[4, p. 4]}. Seeing the danger of the entire social structure as a whole in what is happening, the researchers prove a direct link between the destructive hedonistic subculture and the progressive destruction of the traditional institution of the family – the fashion for childlessness, familylessness, unstable or non–traditional relationships - and the depopulation of the population and the demographic crisis naturally following all of the above.

Moreover, the effect of these same changes in the emotional universe of modern society has a direct impact on the emergence of multiple phenomena not only of emotional reduction, which is of a reflex and protective nature, but also of emotional ambivalence, deforming the previously healthy psyche of members of this society. A modern person must simultaneously control himself in an unnatural way – and immediately give free rein to feelings; demonstrate love – and not experience suffering at the same time (this is taboo); be able to experience deep feelings – but without mental costs. The main contradiction that we see is the coexistence of the race for pleasure and a new strong impression with the inability to enjoy pleasure as such becoming more and more clearly manifested in the "narcissist", a modern individualist, careerist. This paradox is stated by the researchers: "... Epicurus and Aristippus warned us that some pleasures can turn into addiction, which is already suffering, not good. Such pleasures should be abandoned without even experiencing them for yourself. The society of consumption imposes pseudo-values, pseudo-pleasures, short-term and superficial on a person. He is deprived of the opportunity and ability to experience true pleasure and joy. The increase in the number of mental disorders is proof of this. It turns out that modern man lives in a world of pleasures without pleasures, in a world of simulacra of pleasures. Happiness as the meaning of life becomes unattainable" ^{[8, p.240]}. We agree with such statements, but we continue to wonder about the nature of this antinomy of modern culture.

Immanently self-contradictory demands addressed to a person by the cult of pleasure form a wide variety of personality defects at the individual level, which then lead the victims successively to loss of emotional adequacy, disability and desocialization. The socio-philosophical forecast in this regard is negative: society will eventually simply disintegrate, all social interactions that are not related to collective pleasure practices will simply cease to be reproduced as unnecessary, after which complete disintegration and anomie will occur in society, where in the end no one will need anyone ^[1].

The cult of pleasure directly parasitizes on two inherent features of members of a healthy society: emotional self–reflection (or introspection), that is, the involvement of individuals in their own feelings, being covered by them, and external emotional reflection, that is, considering the whole of life through the prism of feelings ^[6]. Attempts to restructure the historically established features of the social emotional universe largely result in the denormalization of private emotional manifestations, followed by the tabooing of their "wrong" part, eliminated in the process of this "selection", when "correct" or permitted emotions are proudly displayed. In the terminology of the famous dystopia of J.Orwell ^{[9, p. 113]} the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Love mentioned there should be supplemented by a separate Ministry of Happiness – and then also teach citizens to submit regular declarations there about their emotions and feelings (which will be strictly and thoroughly checked by responsible employees of the Ministry) – and the picture will turn out to be quite reliable. This metaphorical and partly satirical proposal has actually been implemented: social media feeds are such a Ministry that requires visual reports about every day in which our contemporary is obliged to experience happiness – glossy pictures from expensive restaurants, hotels, theaters, fashionable resorts; landscapes; photos from fitness halls, yoga classes, etc.

It must be stated for the sake of justice that we also observe resistance to these inarticulate demands of "happiness reports" and believe that modern social reality has moved in a different way from Orwellian "normalize and control". Further parasitism is directly related to the simple fact that people, as a rule, value their emotions, because through them they position themselves as a whole, specific personality with all its features. In other words, each individual self has its own emotional content ^[11].

The consumerization of emotions leads to their transformation into a commodity that finds its demand, sells well along with other goods and, along with them, acquires the ability to produce purely economic effects. All of the above has long been put at the service of modern marketing, implemented within the framework of those forms of economic (mainly consumer) activity of subjects that modern researchers of all this phenomenology have collectively called "emotional" or "affective capitalism".

However, the irremediable problem here is that even a life orientation towards well–being and achieving ever higher status peaks in the end do not make a person happy - Zh. was the first to draw his attention to this. Baudrillard ^{[2, p. 135]}. The surrogate "to have" cannot be transformed into a full–fledged "to be" just as it is impossible to transform simulation into reality, and the consequence of realizing this impossibility at the individual level are antisocial actions, vandalism, cruelty, addictive behavior – a mirage and an illusion of happiness for those to whom this happiness was promised - and those who were these They are deceived by promises. Individual feelings of overcrowding and satiation with pleasures sooner or later pass through the bifurcation point in the phase of their accumulation – the moment when the internal emotional trigger overturns – and the individual suddenly feels that he is no longer able to experience pleasure at all.

This pathological condition by its nature is called anhedonia, although the concept of "hyperhedonism" used here is more common in research. So, mental health experts talk about the prospects for the development of satiety: "Hot and primitive hedonism with its philosophy of carpe diem, with its slogans "enjoy without restraint", "everything right now", is receding into the past; but instead of unrestrained hedonism, rational, hygienic, enlightened hedonism arises. Technologies are developing in order to bring a person into proper shape, gentle medicine, dietary regimens, relaxation products are being introduced, and a lot of self-care drugs are appearing. The era of hedonism continues" ^[10]. But anhedonia is considered as one of the important, but not the initial (i.e. secondary) components of the clinical picture of many psychopathological disorders (such as hypertension or hyperthermia – ^[7]). Anhedonia is not an independent symptom, and you can not diagnose it alone, but this does not mean that you do not need to deal with those suffering from such a violation in each specific case. If we talk about the social causes of activation of the mechanisms of anhedonia development, then this is undoubtedly the case when a large number of strong emotions, especially of artificial origin, sooner or later turn on a protective reaction in the limbic system of the brain responsible for this area, reducing its susceptibility to strong external stimuli ^[16] significantly below the norm.

Similarly, stable mechanisms of protection against frequent and prolonged stress are generated in the human psyche, or symptoms of emotional burnout arise ^[3]. What could previously serve as a source of pleasure loses this ability, then favorite habits, activities, hobbies disappear, after which a person forgets how to enjoy life at all, begins to experience social deprivation, loneliness, culminating in especially severe cases with the development of various obsessions and phobias, eventually leading to disability and desocialization of the personality, and this – it is a very real payback for numerous previous attempts to "take everything from life." The massaging and replication of hedonistic practices and the lifestyle itself associated with the cult of pleasure, as a result, forms a number of artificial barriers in society, the very appearance of which generates tendencies of its future socio-cultural destruction within society.

Conclusions:

1. Under the influence of Western culture, the axiology of Russian culture was subjected to a radical revision, during which hedonistic personalization began to actively displace disciplinary socialization.

2. The subculture of Russian "Orthodox hedonists" has had and continues to have a very noticeable impact on the overall cultural situation.

3. The main goal of the adherents of hedonism is to transform the entire emotional universe of modern society in such a way that emotions associated with pleasure and entertainment form its core, shifting everything else from the center to the periphery.

4. The social causes of modern anhedonia are associated with an overabundance of strong and artificially stimulated emotions, to protect against which internal barrier mechanisms are activated in the human brain.