Aesthetics—I need some help here!
The last paragraph highlights my need for illumination.
Social unity is a useful goal; there are, however, good and bad ways of achieving such a goal. Social harmony leads to fewer uncritical pursuits of social meaning, i.e. class struggles, economic competition, hatred, and war.
It is said that when Jesus struck down the money lenders in the temple, he was striking at the “root of the uncritical social game that was keeping men apart, keeping their gaze bent on narrow things.
Communal societies have been a consistent goal throughout history; a communal society would “seek to assure shared meanings, communal good, and the highest possible social morality.
How can a society achieve maximum unity, force, and conviction?
Becker says “organisms achieve satisfaction in one basic way, and that is by “merging with nature. In this merger, the organism temporarily stills its appetites and striving, and so finds a momentary peace¦Hegel gave it a large place in his work, by showing how life tries to keep its own distinctive, restless quality, and yet seeks to be stilled at the same time. Dewey developed this ontology, as did Heidegger and Sartre.
Our naturalistic ontology of life is a desire to maintain identity while being a moving and feeling force, which simultaneously seeks to lose this identity in a peace-giving merger with nature. Herein lies the secret of aesthetics; this paradox of movement and merger answers the question of “why man’s play-forms are so satisfying.
Becker says “Aesthetics gives the highest pleasure because it is the category that merges all the others, that pulls all the loose and disparate strands of experience together into one harmonious whole. Intellect, imagination, the whole organism of feeling—thought and dream, flesh and blood, emption and nerves—all are fused into one integrating merger. The aesthetic object draws man’s world together, by drawing the whole man firmly into it. In contemplating the aesthetic object, the totality of the life force is awakened and stilled at one and the same time.
Have you had aesthetic experiences that will give us clarity regarding Becker's meaning here?
The quotes and ideas are from "Beyond Alienation"--Ernest Becker
Aesthetics--I need some help here!
Aesthetics--I need some help here!
When an artist is engaged in a creative act whether with paints, or music, or poetry or prose or any form of creation they are doing what humans love, they are creating. It is in the act of creating that we are at our utmost in action.
Aesthetics--I need some help here!
coberst;554618 wrote: When an artist is engaged in a creative act whether with paints, or music, or poetry or prose or any form of creation they are doing what humans love, they are creating. It is in the act of creating that we are at our utmost in action.
I totally agree, C. And when we accomplish this within the reality of community, where our spheres of influence overlap each other, we are made whole.
I totally agree, C. And when we accomplish this within the reality of community, where our spheres of influence overlap each other, we are made whole.
Aesthetics--I need some help here!
Becker says “Aesthetics gives the highest pleasure because it is the category that merges all the others, that pulls all the loose and disparate strands of experience together into one harmonious whole. Intellect, imagination, the whole organism of feeling—thought and dream, flesh and blood, emption and nerves—all are fused into one integrating merger. The aesthetic object draws man’s world together, by drawing the whole man firmly into it. In contemplating the aesthetic object, the totality of the life force is awakened and stilled at one and the same time.
coberst;554618 wrote: When an artist is engaged in a creative act whether with paints, or music, or poetry or prose or any form of creation they are doing what humans love, they are creating. It is in the act of creating that we are at our utmost in action.
I wasn't completely sure if you meant the artist aesthetic or the mystic aesthetic to start with. There is a big difference.
The next problem I have, if trying to come up with a truism, is that not everyone who puts brush to canvas is expressing something harmonious. Some paintings are violent and angry. Even so, the creative force is flowing through them and into a solid form of expression. This can also be said of poetry or prose on the same level.
There are many ways to create. Building a house or other physical labour can satisfy the same appetite. The artist, if good, is not just creating but communicating. I'm tempted to say that the harmony Becker speaks of is also experienced by those who go to a museum and sit before a painting that speaks to them in a special way.
coberst;554618 wrote: When an artist is engaged in a creative act whether with paints, or music, or poetry or prose or any form of creation they are doing what humans love, they are creating. It is in the act of creating that we are at our utmost in action.
I wasn't completely sure if you meant the artist aesthetic or the mystic aesthetic to start with. There is a big difference.
The next problem I have, if trying to come up with a truism, is that not everyone who puts brush to canvas is expressing something harmonious. Some paintings are violent and angry. Even so, the creative force is flowing through them and into a solid form of expression. This can also be said of poetry or prose on the same level.
There are many ways to create. Building a house or other physical labour can satisfy the same appetite. The artist, if good, is not just creating but communicating. I'm tempted to say that the harmony Becker speaks of is also experienced by those who go to a museum and sit before a painting that speaks to them in a special way.
Aesthetics--I need some help here!
koan
I know nothing about mystic artists.
I know nothing about mystic artists.