Some thinkers affirmed egoism as enjoyment rather than condemning it.
Evidence
Certain thinkers, in opposition to the dominating ethos, have neither concealed egoism nor minimized it nor attacked it: they have supported it. Not as the miserable, abstract fiction it appears to be in some economists and in Jeremy Bentham, but as enjoyment, as the greatest measure of happiness, in which the satisfaction of cruel urges is also included. These thinkers have not idealized any of the original instincts history has given theminstead, they have denounced the distortion of the instincts caused by official ideology … — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 202
Categorization
- XREF: Names Aristippus, Epicurus, Mandeville, Helvétius, de Sade, and Nietzsche, the exact lineage the Frankfurt School history treats as the hedonist counter-tradition to ascetic morality. — connects to: Dissolving the ego-boundary through psychedelics is experienced as relief, not terror — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 478; Horkheimer defined good egoism as the unconditional, unjustified demand for happiness. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 201; Condemning egoism shields the successful from doubts and leaves inequality untouched. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 201 (+3 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Dissolving the ego-boundary through psychedelics is experienced as relief, not terror — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 478; Horkheimer defined good egoism as the unconditional, unjustified demand for happiness. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 201; Condemning egoism shields the successful from doubts and leaves inequality untouched. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 201 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Horkheimer saw a hedonist philosophical lineage vindicating egoism as true enjoyment, not abstract fiction.
#corroborates(0.93) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 742