Why does man seek entertainment?
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I’m Aziliz Le Corre, I’m a journalist at Le Figaro and in this new episode of Moment Philo, produced by Sylvain Chatelain, I’ll talk to you about entertainment according to Blaise Pascal.
First, a little etymology. The term entertainment comes from Latin entertain which means “to leave”.
In Thoughts, Pascal believes that entertainment is a way for a person to escape from loneliness, which will return him to his sad state.
Every man needs to have fun. A king or queen needs the enthusiasm of his court to forget that he is paradoxically the most miserable of men.
What do you naturally think of when you think of entertainment? A morning jog, your Netflix subscription, or the latest episode of Diane femme cop? Of course.
But for Pascal, the most serious activities, such as politics, study, or even war, are entertainment. We somehow engage in social comedy to distract ourselves from the abyss of our earthly lives.
“When I sometimes undertake it,” writes Pascal, “to consider the various excitements of men, and the dangers and pains to which they are exposed in court, in war, from which arise many quarrels, passions, bold and often ill undertakings, etc., I I have often said that all men’s misery comes from one thing only, which is that they do not know how to relax in the room.
Thoughts
Therefore, entertainment allows us to distract our minds from the misery of our human condition, to avoid thinking about what is troubling us and to avoid the difficulties of reality.
For man cannot be happy in rest and idleness. Why Because man on earth is subject to his passions and is deprived of his only true comfort, his relationship with God.
Entertainment is, after all, the only remedy to the metaphysical emptiness and misery of our existence.
But if fun is very natural and inherent in all human life, we should beware of it, because by investing too much in earthly life, we can forget to worry about our salvation.
Maybe you’ll think about that now on Saturday night when you’re going wild dance floor…
Source: Le Figaro
