excreationist
Married mouth-breather
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOZqGUCrje8&t=465sThe reason Alan Watts brings up the decadent antics of Nero and his absurdly extravagant games was because it horrified contemporary Romans.
"....the next minute they would release wild lions into the arena to eat up all the slave girls. They [the crowds?] got a big sadistic kick out of that because you see pursuing pleasure beyond a certain place takes you in to what are the Buddhists call the Naraka world - that is to say the hells - when you have explored pleasure to its ultimate limit the only thing you can get a kick out of is pain...."
It seems like the crowds got a sadistic kick out of it - they weren't just horrified....
And Alan Watts is saying it is normal for people who have explored pleasure to its ultimate limit to look to pain... (other's pain?)
I got the impression that the crowd were entertained seeing the slave girls being eaten. And I might too in an uncomfortable sort of way - if I had been pursuing pleasure and power to its limit and was getting bored... after all, this is what some people do in the Sims: (though in that simulation the people can't really feel the pain)....I agree with both Allan Watts and the Roman people. Feeding slave girls to lions isn't cool.