Hedonism :)

"Hedonism is a school of thought which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. This is often used as a justification for evaluating actions in terms of how much pleasure and how little pain (i.e. suffering) they produce. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize this net pleasure (pleasure minus pain)." - taken from wikipedia

As we see here, Hedonism is a belief that pleasure is of utmost importance in life. People who believe this strongly, tend to place it above other values, and therefore end up endulging in the material and selfish pleasures of life. These pleasures can be good for one in the right amounts at the right times, but once the persuit of these things becomes ones purpose in life, they can become quite dangerous.

Alcohol is an example of one of these pleasures, and advertisers acknowledge this when reaching out to their target market.

So why is the idea of indulging in alcohol so attractive to so many people? We were discussing this in our group yesterday, and we decided that here are some of the main reasons:

1. It takes away bad feelings (stress, sadness, guilt, fear) and replaces them with feelings such as happiness, power, peacefulness and enjoyment. It is therefore used as an escape from the bad things in life.

2. It is a social thing to do, it helps people to feel more relaxed and more confident.
People don't feel as self concious when they are drunk, so they do things they wouldn't usualy do in front of other people. In this sense, it is used to break free from the limitations in ones personality. When they are drunk, they can be whoever they want to be.

xx Hannah