The Pursuit of Pleasure

One of the battlefronts of the culture war is what I describe to be the struggle between futility and meaning. This consists of the abandonment of the longest range purposes or ultimate purposes, or what some may call eternal purposes, and thus Meaning, for something short-range, and less meaningful, i.e., Futility.

Take for example the ultimate purpose of sex. At its very foundation, sexual distinctions between male and female support the long-range purpose of procreation, reproduction, and perpetuation of the human race, with male and female roles being in harmony with the underlying anatomy and physiology particular to each sex. Sexual pleasure is merely a by-product in the fulfillment of the eternal purpose of sex, which is procreation.

The modern mind has elevated pleasure as the ultimate purpose of sex, and has treated procreation and the perpetuation of the race as an incidental purpose. It has even treated reproduction as a nuisance of a consequence in the pursuit of pleasure. The enthronement of pleasure is the triumph of Futility and the defeat of Meaning. Pleasure does not accomplish anything. That is why it is futile. Sex has lost its ultimate meaning. Biological differences between male and female are meaningless. Only the pursuit of pleasure matters, and all the institutions and traditions must now be readjusted to support this new "value".