JFK's Grandson Sucks
What's the point of hedonism without pleasure?
JFK’s grandson has entered the chat. Recently, he has periodically shown up on videos in my various feeds. He looks a lot like JFK Jr., which is to say hot, and he knows it. His Aristoractic upbringing is undeniable. Looking at this man, you can tell he knows fine dining and good blow. This is why the most recent video of this man that the internet has thrust upon me makes me despair for humanity.
In this video, JFK Jr.-Jr. (I don’t even know his name) angrily complains about dining at a restaurant, lamenting that one must READ! READ! to get food. He doesn’t want to talk to the waiter. He doesn’t want to be limited by options on a menu. He doesn’t want the uncertainty of whether the meal will be any good. He doesn’t want to spend time at restaurants “…when you can spend a minute and a half eating something that is good for you.” When asked what he would rather do with that time, he lined up invigorating activities like “Do work” and “Lie Down.”
At the core of his rant is that eating is a chore that he would like to get over with rather than an experience to be savored. This guy definitely used to drink Soylent. But I was also so completely unimpressed with his alternative activities. Instead of breaking bread with others, you want to lie down? This attitude seems paradoxically hedonistic and absent of any pleasure. Yet, it's also an incredibly familiar attitude: the notion that we deserve to have our every whim satiated without any requirement on our part.
What makes food most pleasurable isn’t just the tastes and textures, the balance of acid and salt, or the wine. However, the wine helps. The most pleasurable foods require effort. Effort on behalf of the farmer, the cook, and yes, even you, the eater. The best meat comes from ranchers who are obsessed with how they take care of their cows. The best meals are often slow-cooked over many hours. And the best dinners are when we commit to being present with those around us and the food we consume.
In truth, all great pleasures require a type of effort. Great art asks viewers to consider a world they may have overlooked. A great book envelopes you in the author’s world. Great sex requires any number of efforts. Pleasurable experiences are pleasurable exactly because your presence and participation are essential. Yet, we’ve traded in pleasure for a passive hedonism. Asking to be spoon fed - literally and metaphorically - only that which can delight us without our active engagement. This is also why movies and literature have become so literal. There is hardly a film put out without a scene where a secondary character explains the point of the film in explicit terms. Audiences can’t be expected to engage in the art, just like JFK Jr.-Jr. can’t be expected to read a menu. We’ve scrolled, binged, and optimized ourselves into a world where everything is nice, but nothing is actually great.
In the realm of food, hedonism without pleasure is most on display in America’s destructive love affair with highly processed food. It’s easy to make fun of American processed food. And god knows that I do. But it’s not just the Hamburgers and hot cheetos. I see hedonism with no pleasure in fad diets and juice cleanses. I see it when people put edible gold leaf on a plate. Like, what are you even doing? That doesn’t taste like anything. It’s all just a self-indulgent disregard for the craft of food for the sake of its consumption.
I don’t know if there is a way back or if people want one. But I can’t help but ask: What’s the point of hedonism if no one is having a good time?