In the novel, Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas believes that pleasure keeps one from understanding the true meaning of philosophy. Philosophy is an intellectual subject. One needs to think out of box to understand philosophy. Therefore, Aquinas proclaims that pleasure is sinful because it aims to physical things and not to God. Pleasure does not allow one to understand God through one’s senses. In conclusion, one can only find God if separated from his or her senses. Ultimately, pleasure chains one to his or her body. Surprisingly, Aquinas’ description of how pleasure affects a person physically, mentally, and emotionally, reminds me of the movie, Mean Girls. This movie is based on the lives of high school students. Their world is revolved around gossip, around physical appearances, around cliques, and around social statuses. The main character, Cady, leaves her hometown in Africa and moves to a chaotic public school. She makes new friends, called the plastics. Regina, the main plastic, initiates her as one of their own and gives her all these rules that she must follow. Although knowing that accepting these girls as her friends is not morally and ethically right, she becomes a part of their clique in a heartbeat. As time goes on, Cady begins to think, act, and feel like a true plastic. Unfortunately, this makes her loose all her true friends, her bond with her family, and it causes her to fail some of her classes. She is more focused on boys, clothes, popularity, and other pleasures. Cady’s new image is what brings her true pleasure. The fact that she had attention, popularity, and superiority made her extremely happy. When she begins to become more popular than Regina, the main plastic decides to take her down. Therefore, she gets the burn book they have all made and turns it in to the principle. When confronted about the authors of the burn book, Regina blames Cady and all the other plastics. Cady ends up questioning the kind of person she has become; self centered, morally and ethically corrupt, and sinful. Fortunately, she learns from all her mistakes and apologizes for the way she has been acting. For the true Cady finds true pleasure beyond the physical aspects in life. The godly intellect that God has provided us with helps Cady realize that true happiness is not found in the physical and sensual pleasures. It is found when one has morals, ethics, priorities, and god like behavior. The only way Cady was able to find God was by letting go of her senses “more over, God is the ultimate end of everything, as is clear from the foregoing. That then should be accounted man’s ultimate end by which he especially draws near to God. But by the pleasures in question a man is impeded from drawing closest to God, for that comes about through immerse a man in sensible order, thereby drawing him away from intelligible things. It is not in bodily pleasures, therefore, that human happiness is to be brought” (273).
Hibakreidie's Blog 