Tolstoy, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard... All accomplished men, all were handsome and rich as well - turned to extreme practices under the name of Christianity such as total sexual abstinence. To them this makes a “good life”. It can't be resentment or coap because they obviously had options. Nor can it be explained as some cultural peculiarity, as their behaviors were even considered unusual by their contemporaries. What explains this?
I believe the psychoanalysts would call this “sublimation” or, with these men, conversion of energies that happens to be expressed as monasticism. This is also sometimes proposed as a reason, among many of course, for Christianity's dominance in Europe as a “civilizing” social technology. I recall BAP makes this argument to justify Buddhism as a “based” faith for warriors out of work, while having avoided the unfortunate fate of getting usurped by cretins for Bomali-printing Christcuckoldry.
It seems also that in places like Brazil even though they're at least nominally Christian they take a much more “lenient” perspective, relatively free from associations of guilt or anxiety. But on the other hand also not sure that Brazil should be taken seriously on such questions... xD
Would anyone happen to know of any writing on the matter in Chinese philosophy? I know there's the jing retention meme in Taoism but I always took that to be a practical matter and less a moral preoccupation.
Never paid attention to history in school so u must forgive if I restate or ask the obvious.
