What Are We Replacing Hedonism With? - A History of Hedonism Part 2
Previously I wrote how hedonism tends to thrive in times of stability, while during social, economic, and political turmoil, societies often turn away from pleasure and instead cling to systems of meaning - frameworks that are meant to provide answers to what matters, who we are, and how to live. In short, we introduce order in chaotic times. Although political grifters sometimes exploit this need, selling order but perpetuating chaos, the fact that we fall for this demonstrates how deep our psychological need is. This essay digs into what is replacing hedonism today as people drink less and live more cautiously - what are these new systems of meaning? Since we are embedded within our systems of meaning, they feel like common sense to us, but common sense is a shared hallucination, not objective truth. Mindfulness and therapy help us see our personal behaviour by providing perspective but to understand social behaviour we need an even broader perspective. By looking at how past societies responded to chaos after eras of pleasure, perhaps we can spot modern parallels. Since I’m repeating some of the themes from last time, I’ve chosen different historical examples.
If you were to pick up some pottery from 7th-6th BCE century Ancient Athens, you’ll notice two things. The nervous looking museum staff calling for security, and the black figures on the artifacts depicted drinking, dancing, engaging in erotic acts, and vomiting. These arew all part of the symposium, a ritualised drinking party blending philosophy, music and excess. Athens then was relatively stable and growing wealthy through trade. Dionysus, god of wine and ecstasy, symbolised this indulgence. But as economic strain and social unrest increased, Dionysus was replaced by Apollo, god of order, control and all-round party buzzkill. Harsh laws, like those attributed to Draco (from which we derive ‘draconian’), appeared. Poets, the influencers of the ancient world, warned against moral decay, not just in personal behaviour but in civic responsibility and collective values. Their verses critiqued greed, corruption, and the erosion of public duty, casting indulgence as a threat to the social order. These themes echo loudly in today’s culture wars, where everything from gender to education becomes framed as a sign of societal decline. I’m not going to add to the online presence of today’s anti-woke crusaders by naming them, but the rhetoric is familiar - a fear that something essential is being lost, and a demand for return to ‘order’, however that’s defined.
Ancient Greek party monster, blowing chunks like a hero
A similar shift occurred in the Burgundian Netherlands and later the Dutch Republic between the 15th and 17th centuries. Prosperous and peaceful times tolerated indulgence; festivals, taverns, and rich arts flourished among the urban elite. However, religious conflict and the Eighty Years’ War brought upheaval. Calvinist values of thrift, restraint, and hard work took hold. Pleasure was not eliminated but redefined. Sobriety became a civic virtue, not just a religious one. Today’s emphasis on productivity and wellness reflects this same impulse: pleasure must be moderated to uphold social integrity. Your employer spying on your social media to evaluate the healthiness of your social habits. Random drug-testing for office employees. The company banning employees from bringing Coca Cola into the office. And yes, that last one was a genuine recent LinkedIn post.
In Germany, the late Renaissance’s music and feasting gave way to the trauma of the Thirty Years’ War, one of Europe’s most devastating conflicts. The war’s famine, violence, and loss reshaped the cultural psyche. Hedonism came to appear indulgent and morally wrong. What was once sophistication or pleasure felt inappropriate amid widespread suffering. Pietism, a deeply personal and austere Protestant movement, gained influence, promoting discipline, modesty, and inward reflection. Meaning shifted from enjoyment to suffering and moral order. Today, similar dynamics appear in critiques of celebrity culture. Lavish wealth and excess are often seen as tone-deaf or immoral during hard times, as the organisers of the 2024 Met Gala found out to their detriment. Like early 17th-century German courtly pleasures, modern luxury can feel indecent when hardship dominates public life.
Headline from Michigan Daily May 2025
From the 1960s to 1980s, Western culture swung from liberation and hedonism to anxiety and order. The freewheeling sex, drugs, and protest of the ’60s gave way to ’80s individualism focused on career, wealth, and discipline. The gym replaced the commune and work replaced protest. If the 60s were the night out, and the 70s were the hangover then the 80s were the ‘new me’ health kick. Indulgence remained, but only as a reward for effort - pleasure became compartmentalised - work hard, play hard was the mantra. This pattern continues today, where pleasure is framed as earned through discipline. Indulgence carries caveats: a brunch justified by a week of clean eating, or a wellness retreat after burnout. Self-care has entered the reward economy, leisure curated to signal virtue - spa days framed as “recovery,” luxury as “balance.” Pleasure persists, but only when paired with performance.
Today, amid climate anxiety, economic precarity, technological disruption, and cultural polarisation, new systems of meaning offer structure and reassurance. Wellness culture frames discipline as healing, productivity culture measures worth by efficiency, and sober curiosity treats abstention as virtue. Non-drinkers were once met with an assumption that they were recovering from alcoholism, whereas now people understand there are many sensible reasons leading people away from something once considered a default activity.
Alongside these are eco-minimalism, digital decluttering, financial austerity, and renewed spiritual practices - all seeking control and purpose amid uncertainty. These frameworks often borrow pleasure’s aesthetic but promote restraint. A protein shake replaces a beer; a cold plunge replaces a warm pub. Earn your pleasure, limit your excess, seek virtue in control. Each seeks answers to those questions: What matters? Who am I? How should I live? Their vigorous resurgence may be the clearest sign that the age of indulgence has passed, and the search for meaning is back. The irony being that true hedonism can also provide answers to those questions. Some of the central tenets of my worldview were formed over beers with friends and moments of divine realisation at raves, but that’s a topic for another time.