(This started as a book review but became a melding of classical associationist psychology with psychoanalytic theory, with some evolutionary theory. Its a book review as well as theoretical work.)
The introduction on taste is the longest section of the work and understanding the section is crucial toward accepting his conclusions. Burke sets up the work telling us that the standards of taste are the same among all humans and that differences are more "apparent than real." If there were not some standard, we could not communicate with each other as we do on a regular basis. We accept certain measures as objective like money or the law, but continue to declare things like beauty or taste to be "in the eye of the beholder." We have this notion of taste, if there was nothing behind it, its invocation in discourse would be quite absurd. Burke defines taste as the faculty of mind which is affected by something. That something is an object, through sensation. We can safely assume that we humans all experience things the same way. If not we would assume that "the same cause operating in the same manner...will produce different effects, which would be highly absurd."
Language follows this commonality of experience in how we describe certain tastes. Sweetness is pleasant, sourness is unpleasant. Burke then asserts something like Hume's copy principle by saying that the original impression is stronger than any imagination which derives ultimately from the impression. "The power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired relish remains to the very last." Nobody can think that tobacco is sweet. If one does so, we "immediately conclude that the organs of this man are out of order, and that his palate is utterly vitiated." We can however derive pleasure or pain from the same tastes, dependent on our individual habits and temperament, but not different tastes.
So far this is associationist psychology; our aversion and attraction to things is reinforced by prior experiences. Tobacco is desirable to some because of its effects other than taste "things do not spontaneously present themselves to the palate...they are generally applied to it...they often form the palate by degrees, and by force of these associations."
Besides sensation, the mind can also represent at will ideas of things as they are in memory or create new associations between them. This is imagination, which cannot produce anything new. What imagination does is form expectations about things we experience, such as fear or hope. Intelligence consists in comparison among different experiences.
We prefer similarity in our train of thought (which is why it's so frustrating when music skips). We are more struck by resemblance, as completely different things require no more explanation between them than that they are different (law of excluded middle). "Men are much more inclined to belief than to incredulity." It takes mental acuity to differentiate things. Good taste doesn't depend on greater judgment or intelligence, but knowledge from experience. The difference among taste is a difference in degrees of knowledge. But all have common he criterion of pleasure and pain. And "so far as Taste is natural, it is nearly common to all." We can be more sensitive than others or be more familiar with certain tastes, while all having the same basis for judgement.
(Jeremy Bentham would later say that "pushpin is as good as poetry", which would would only be true if one has the knowledge necessary to understand poetry. John Stuart Mill came up with the great retort "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.")
We then arrive at a fuller definition of taste. Taste because it requires some degrees of knowledge isn't just a "simple idea" or single impression, it is a synthetic unity of sense, imagination, and judgement. "The groundwork of all these is the same in the human mind."
Burke sets out an objective, "scientific" or materialist criterion for discussing aesthetics, in line with the associationist psychologies of John Locke and David Hume. He establishes that it is possible to make rational inquiry into what is usually seen as subjective, provided its basis is in sense impression which for empiricists is the substance of reality.
The main body of the work begins on the surface of emotions; novelty. Novelty or curiosity is the most superficial of emotions as it is chiefly concerned with its object. Once we get to know something, it doesn't grab our attention as something unknown, even if said thing is of worse quality. It is an active feeling, which it can be said motivates us into action like hardly anything else. If we want to learn something, it helps to be curious and not familiar with the subject matter. "Some degree of novelty just be one of the materials in every instrument which works upon the mind." Aristotle himself told us that philosophy begins with wonder.
Next we move to the foundational emotions discussed in the taste section; pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain are simple ideas. They cannot be reduced to another; pain is not the absence of pleasure and pleasure is not the absence of pain. Burke labels delight as the absence of pain. The mind can also be in a state of indifference, which is probably the most common state says Burke.
This all struck me as very similar to Freud's nirvana principle, aka the constancy principle, in which the quantity of excitation is zero. This means that stability is the goal of mental processes, an equilibrium. This is also a state of indifference, though stated in thermodynamic terms. A difference between Freud and Burke is that pain and pleasure for Freud are reducible or explainable by disturbances in equilibrium rather than unique positive states. Freud writes in An Outline of Psychoanalysis "It is probable, however, that what is felt as pleasure or unpleasure is not the absolute degree of tensions but something in the rhythm of their changes." The first law of thermodynamics states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system can be transferred to one form to another, but neither created nor destroyed. Pleasure and pain can be interpreted as excitations in the bodily organs from this transfer of energy. Both pain and pleasure for Burke arouse us out of a state of indifference, being at least novel. There is that in common. Freud might have agreed that pain and pleasure are unique conscious states, while maintaining a common physical/unconscious cause for both. Burke however is interested in a more phenomenal treatment of emotions.
So far this is associationist psychology; our aversion and attraction to things is reinforced by prior experiences. Tobacco is desirable to some because of its effects other than taste "things do not spontaneously present themselves to the palate...they are generally applied to it...they often form the palate by degrees, and by force of these associations."
Besides sensation, the mind can also represent at will ideas of things as they are in memory or create new associations between them. This is imagination, which cannot produce anything new. What imagination does is form expectations about things we experience, such as fear or hope. Intelligence consists in comparison among different experiences.
We prefer similarity in our train of thought (which is why it's so frustrating when music skips). We are more struck by resemblance, as completely different things require no more explanation between them than that they are different (law of excluded middle). "Men are much more inclined to belief than to incredulity." It takes mental acuity to differentiate things. Good taste doesn't depend on greater judgment or intelligence, but knowledge from experience. The difference among taste is a difference in degrees of knowledge. But all have common he criterion of pleasure and pain. And "so far as Taste is natural, it is nearly common to all." We can be more sensitive than others or be more familiar with certain tastes, while all having the same basis for judgement.
(Jeremy Bentham would later say that "pushpin is as good as poetry", which would would only be true if one has the knowledge necessary to understand poetry. John Stuart Mill came up with the great retort "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.")
We then arrive at a fuller definition of taste. Taste because it requires some degrees of knowledge isn't just a "simple idea" or single impression, it is a synthetic unity of sense, imagination, and judgement. "The groundwork of all these is the same in the human mind."
Burke sets out an objective, "scientific" or materialist criterion for discussing aesthetics, in line with the associationist psychologies of John Locke and David Hume. He establishes that it is possible to make rational inquiry into what is usually seen as subjective, provided its basis is in sense impression which for empiricists is the substance of reality.
The main body of the work begins on the surface of emotions; novelty. Novelty or curiosity is the most superficial of emotions as it is chiefly concerned with its object. Once we get to know something, it doesn't grab our attention as something unknown, even if said thing is of worse quality. It is an active feeling, which it can be said motivates us into action like hardly anything else. If we want to learn something, it helps to be curious and not familiar with the subject matter. "Some degree of novelty just be one of the materials in every instrument which works upon the mind." Aristotle himself told us that philosophy begins with wonder.
Next we move to the foundational emotions discussed in the taste section; pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain are simple ideas. They cannot be reduced to another; pain is not the absence of pleasure and pleasure is not the absence of pain. Burke labels delight as the absence of pain. The mind can also be in a state of indifference, which is probably the most common state says Burke.
This all struck me as very similar to Freud's nirvana principle, aka the constancy principle, in which the quantity of excitation is zero. This means that stability is the goal of mental processes, an equilibrium. This is also a state of indifference, though stated in thermodynamic terms. A difference between Freud and Burke is that pain and pleasure for Freud are reducible or explainable by disturbances in equilibrium rather than unique positive states. Freud writes in An Outline of Psychoanalysis "It is probable, however, that what is felt as pleasure or unpleasure is not the absolute degree of tensions but something in the rhythm of their changes." The first law of thermodynamics states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system can be transferred to one form to another, but neither created nor destroyed. Pleasure and pain can be interpreted as excitations in the bodily organs from this transfer of energy. Both pain and pleasure for Burke arouse us out of a state of indifference, being at least novel. There is that in common. Freud might have agreed that pain and pleasure are unique conscious states, while maintaining a common physical/unconscious cause for both. Burke however is interested in a more phenomenal treatment of emotions.
The other link with Freud's drive theory is that the most powerful impressions deriving from pain and pleasure are also dual; the sublime and the beautiful. These two powerful feelings derive from two needs; self-preservation and society. Self-preservation turns by pain, from the state of danger which from expectation of said state brings terror. Society aims at continuing our own existence through the species by generation, and living together in general.
The sublime and the beautiful are for Burke powerful emotions, and he doesn't venture much further than that. He takes the experiences as given and seeks to ground them in sense impressions. His main argument is that the sublime and the beautiful are distinct experiences which can be explained by material/sensual factors.
Self-preservation and the sublime are analogous to the death drive. The death drive aims at equilibrium of the individual with the surrounding environment to reduce excitation. An organism will cannot forever resist this return which takes effort to overcome, making it a very powerful drive. For Burke, pain is a stronger emotion than pleasure, though he doesn't provide an explanation for this other than direct experience. From this he reasons that death is more arresting than pain, by comparison. We are more ready to suffer most pains rather than death. His reasoning I think is from self-preservation. Painful things are harmful to our existence and disrupt a chain of thinking, as Burke said before we prefer similarity to difference and new things to familiar things. So pain puts us into action to return to either indifference or pleasure. Burke said before that indifference is the state we are more often in. By death he probably means the experience of dying and not the actual state of non-existence. Freud's death drive manifests itself in unpleasant emotions and aggression, but aims along with the love drive at a state of indifference. Burke follows the utilitarian logic of action being done to gain pleasure and avoid pain, with indifference being a state of inaction rather an something which takes effort to maintain (equilibrium).
The sublime has its basis in pain, but operates on terror which is an expectation of pain. The sublime is so powerful because it takes hold of all our thoughts, mostly by imagination and expectation. Because of the imaginary and reckoning aspects, at a certain distance, the sublime can be delightful. We can experience the power the terrible holds over us while not being in pain or danger of our lives. The power is our attention because it is disruptive and different. It removes us from a state of indifference without introducing pain, and so can be a source of delight (though not pleasure). By being held in the mental state of terror by the sublime yet not experiencing pain, we can experience delight while avoiding danger.
This ambivalence toward the terrifying and is not unlike feelings toward repressed desires or the superego. In the case of repressed desires like socially unacceptable sexuality or aggression, we still desire to act on them but because we are not allowed to develop an unease when they are aroused or indulged in. Freud wrote that the superego allows aggression to enter into the decision making of the ego, causing this ambivalence as means of extending social control (originally from parents).
The other need is society, the aim of the beautiful, which is divisible into sexual society and general society. Both aim at species life, through generation and maintenance of society. Generation of the species is of course sexuality which has its origin in "gratifications and pleasures." These pleasures are so strong that their loss produces violent and turbulent effects on us which aim at reestablishing said pleasures. These pleasures which seize the mind can be described as love, which like terror forms expectations about its objects and a mental dependency. The pleasure of sexuality and love is far greater than health and maintenance of life. This has to be so, for "the generation of mankind is a great purpose,named it is requisite that men should be animated to the pursuit of it by some great incentive." Without such a reward, it is unlikely that we would undergo the great difficulties in its performance. In this way, love has an aggressive element which introduces ambivalence because it can conflict with our other needs.
The beautiful comes from love which is grounded in pleasure. Brutes and animals attract to each other sexually, but out of instinct rather than choice. For humans, the pleasure others provide us captures our imagination and gives us the need to always have access to them. Love produces expectations for continuation, and to varying degrees reciprocity. "They inspire us with sentiments of tenderness and affection towards their persons; we like to have them near us, and we enter willingly into a kind of relation with them, unless we should have strong reasons to the contrary."
The other social need, to belong with others in general, gives "no positive pleasure". This is puzzling since humans are social creatures. Total isolation, Burke notes, is very unpleasant. From this Burke reasons that social life is motivated more from pain than pleasure. Alienation from society is unpleasant, but keeping in mind that the absence pleasurable is not painful, there is an element of ambivalence in that we do as Burke said require some time to ourselves even while long term isolation makes us unhappy. This ambivalence brings to mind Freud's superego which regulates individual behavior by pain and uneasiness. "When the superego is formed, considerable amounts of the aggressive instinct become fixated within the ego and operate there in a self-destructive fashion."
Another difference between Burke and Freud is that Freud sees our social needs (along with the ambivalent feelings) as also grounded in sexuality. Freud differed from the more established and common view of sexuality, where sexuality is seen as genital pleasure linked to reproduction chiefly if not only among adults. Sexuality Freud argued was dynamic and only becomes linked to the genitals and reproduction later in life in accordance with mental, physical, and social development. Sexuality is at root the pursuit of pleasure in all of its forms (polymorphically). The greatest misunderstanding of Freud lies in the confusion of sexuality with genital pleasure and reproduction, making his claims of infantile sexuality and incest seem strange and perverted. Vis a vis pleasure, social acceptance and rejection are instrumental. It would only be by being able to thwart gratification that we would care about social restrictions since they do inevitably constrain us. Thus, social needs are created by internal acceptance of the negative feelings others have toward your sexual behavior and aims.
The beautiful is like Eros, a formative drive. Eros maintains life in its individual forms, by continually striving to resist equilibrium with the environment. The ultimate aim is the preservation of the species, though this develops later in life and is fraught with difficulties for the individual. Self preservation Burke argued works by pain and danger. Species preservation cannot work like this because the good of the species does not always align with the individual and often runs counter. So there had to develop a way of bringing the individual in conformity with species-life. This parallels with modern evolutionary theory (Neo-Darwinism) which seeks to answer why an individual acting only with the survival of their genes would develop altruistic behavior. This begins with kin altruism as our relatives are genetically close to us. But over time these behaviors become reinforced and moored from their original purpose to apply to others.
This process Freud and earlier Friedrich Nietzsche called sublimation. Sublimation channels socially unacceptable desires into socially acceptable desires, without conscious awareness. In society, only a portion of our sexual energy is free to do with as we will. The rest of our sexual energy is prevented from expression. But rather than being bound up inside of us, which is destructive, we channel the remaining free energy into other socially acceptable ways.
Burke lists three social passions which can be viewed as sublimation; sympathy, imitation, and ambition. Each are ways we can enjoy others while at the same time being separate from them. Sympathy as opposed to empathy involves imagining being someone else, rather than feeling the same as they do. It is a simulation, a substitution. The pleasure gained is from a safe distance where we can either imagine ourselves in another's good situation or avoiding their worse situation. Which is why we enjoy reading or watching the lives of fictional characters. Imitation (or repetition) identifies ourselves with others by copying their behavior and appearance, but by our own will. It is a voluntary identification, a multiplication of the other. This is how we often learn, and knowledge gives us power. Ambition manifests an aggressive impulse towards others, but which is aimed at other's approval or recognition of us, a fixation. "Men must remain as brutes do." This domination is largely imaginary, as we depend on the approval of those separate from us. We cannot overpower them to the point of annihilation as we won't gain their recognition if death. This all reminds me of both Thomas Hobbes' diffidence and glory among men in the state of nature, and Hegel's master-slave dialectic. Both deal with the intersubjective and conflicting nature of our desire to command nature to our needs.
The sublime and the beautiful can be understood as repressed or inhibited means of indulging in primal impulses, as sublimation. Sublime experience puts us in the presence of power external to our own. The sublime connects us to the vast universe, as a sort of reunion. Burke lists greatness, obscurity, and infinity as belonging to the sublime. Freud described religion as providing an oceanic feeling, of limitless, and it is no wonder that the vast ocean is a common source of the sublime. This power derives from our initial connectedness to the world, primary narcissism. At a very young age we haven't divided the world into living and non-living, self and other. As we develop, we lose that direct connection to survive, as ourselves and with others. To return to that state would be self destructive, a major regression. The sublime experience is powerful because it brings back the sensation of that lost power without actually destroying us. The sublime is not comprehensible or controllable. It controls us, and it is only that power over us that makes it attractive.
The beautiful in contrast is small, graceful, elegant. Burke maintains that beauty isn't in proportion or perfection. As beautiful things can be frail or very striking. Babies are weak but are found to be pleasing, and giraffe necks are not in equal proportion with their bodies, but are not considered to be grotesque. What is beautiful, it seems, relates to what we grasp, physically and mentally. We want to keep the beautiful, we want to control it, and we are able to comprehend it in thought. The enjoyment is not from power which makes the beautiful less compelling than the sublime, but more sought after. "For the enjoyment of pleasure, no great efforts of power are at all necessary." We can have power over beautiful things to keep them, for out of our control they are not as beautiful as the expectations associated with beautiful things produce a fear of loss.
Beauty and love drive us to continue and extend the struggle for existence; the sublime and terrible drive us to escape individual existence by experience of both reunion with the world and destruction of the self.
No comments:
Post a Comment