The Row Boat

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Aesthetic Terms

some clarifications - 12/07/2005 14:35:56
Posted by Nathan

Thanks to BT for his thoughts: "Sometime will have to also ask you (re: the blog post) how or why you see mysticism as dependent on theology (vs. vice-versa), + how or why you see commitment and taste being at odds with each other & all that"

1. Mystical
These terms came out of a discussion on sainthood and my use of "mystical" comes from John A. Coleman (S.J.), for whom the "mystical" character of saints overwhelms the "ethical." By this I take him to mean that the mystical is anything that depends on reference to God or the divine. He means that the saint is understood more through the fact of having a special relation to God than through good works alone. It is in this sense pretty much synonymous with "theological," and it might be best if I simply used this. Where we are getting mixed up, I sense, is between my use of "mystical" and "mysticism," i.e. spiritual practices, whirling dervishes, etc. I don't mean to talk about that at all here, or its relation to theological speculation; as far as I am concerned, it is a wholly different discussion.

2. Taste and Commitment
I guess my idea of commitment is initially that of a person in a society where Christians go around saying Its Either Us or the Fires of Hell. But insofar as religion represents cultural commitments as well, I think it can be thought of broadly. For instance, in a truly religiously-founded society, one who does not participate in the official religion is effectively ostracized from support, marriage, etc. In either sense, one's adherence to the tradition matters in a concrete way, and one's identity is defined in terms of this adherence. This is commitment. Taste, then, is an act within a circumstance of some freedom. One is able to explore traditions other than one's own, read their teachings, and attend their yoga classes. One grows to like their altars and begins to understand what their symbol systems mean (in a Geertzian sense). Further, one can do this without it affecting one's dominant identity. One might be a scholar or afficianado of tradition x, but one remains primarily simply a scholar or afficianado. This is quite different from being a committed adherent of tradition x. Taste and commitment, then, are not necessarily at odds but they are different. One can have a taste for one's own. But one may also retain commitment to one's own while cultivating taste for the other.

re: Aesthetic Terms - 12/07/2005 19:52:10
Posted by Jake

Hello!

Nathan it seems with Aesthetic Theology you've corralled a broad swath of a group. There are many dimensions within that group, and each dimension seems to have a magnitude. For example, you might or might not include in Aesthetic Theology someone who adheres to only specific parts of a religious source. That level of adherence could be given a magnitude from 1 to 10. Cultural involvement from 1 to 10, etc. And as I read you define this term, a pretty little multi-dimensional chart popped into my head plotting people along Aesthetic Theology space.
I look forward to seeing your examples to better understand where your head is at in studying this particular aspect of the religious-secular divide, and to respond.

response to Jake - 12/08/2005 10:19:05
Posted by Nathan

I appreciate your comment! Yes, I suppose the idea here is to find a way to think about religious thought that is not committed, and that could take a tremendous variety of forms and degrees. I imagine, perhaps, a new yoga student at level one and some Jew or Zoroastrian or what-have-you who's got a meditation master in India he visits every year while retaining at least culturally his original identification. The intention is not to overgeneralize but to create a sensible distinction between committed and uncommitted engagement with religious sources.

There comes a time, however, when the distinction might break down. In her essay "The Uses and Misuses of Other People's Myths," Wendy Doniger (the Hindu scholar at Chicago) writes compellingly about how the myths that she studies become her own: "Once we enter other people's heads through their myths, we may find that
we cannot get out again ... their myths become our myths whether we like
it or not." In this sense a psychological commitment develops even when the sociological relation to the tradition remains fimrly optional.

But "aesthetic" is not meant to mean innocuous, just as art cannot be said to be so. Aesthetics are a vehicle of potentially tremendous meaning. Very likely, one who approaches a tradition aesthetically can get more out of it and be more interested in it that someone whose situation and culture makes them committed.

A big part of the hope is to think about the different ways we relate to our traditions and try not to get them confused.

commitment/taste in relation to truth - 12/10/2005 15:11:38
Posted by BT

"...This hermeneutic, incidentally, also resembles the best a charitable reading from one religious tradition can offer another" (Nathan's 12/05 post).

Made me wonder: how would you see "aesthetic theology" in relation to "perennial philosophy," or to some form of comparative religious metaphysics which *would* still aim to be engaging with truth -- not limiting itself to manners of being or art? (Even though such a perspective always risks becoming a watered-down universalism, or a wishy-washy syncretism, there could still be fully-committed perspectives wherein the different traditions are seen as each filtering a common, non-discursive truth, while the uniqueness of each tradition is retained.) ...I guess I tend to agree with your last post re: the commitment/taste distinction ultimately breaking down; that ultimately there can't be a completely uncommitted engagement with religious sources (or, if there is, then it probably misses what's of most value in the sources?).

But luckily there are always different tenors of commitment itself, right? ...Or is the definition of commitment used here assuming that commitment is always arbitrarily coerced to some extent, or a means to just willfully fill a psychological lack -- vs. constituting its own positive power?

re: commitment/taste in relation to truth - 12/10/2005 17:34:14
Posted by nathan

I think that this category could be thought of as an antidote, actually, to perennial philosophies. Where those tend to blur distinctions, this permits the outsider as participant while preserving the peculiarity of traditions, which I believe is worth preserving or at least not forgetting about.

While the taste/commitment distinction does break down in places, I think it still has value even then: it is a question of approach and origin. Or to rephrase it in terms of Gadamer: it is a question of the Question that brought us to the inquiry. Also, membership in the community is key. If I spend my entire life studying Islam but never happen to pray with Muslims or join a community with them, isn't there an important difference? Aren't I freer to abandon my interest and start studying something else?

The assumption of other people's myths that Doniger (quoted in my comment above) talks about, also, and the bleed of commitment and aesthetic means a commitment of desire, not of social pressure.

re: Aesthetic Terms - 12/12/2005 10:59:58
Posted by BT

OK, that makes sense then; I think by default I'd been reading this thread in a metaphysical vein, vs. in a religious-studies/sociological vein... (I like the word "reliquary" more than "aesthetic," though -- just has more apropos associations?)

re: Aesthetic Terms - 11/04/2006 12:56:36
Posted by nathan

I have since modified the idea of aesthtic theology to recognize that pious practice, such as prayer, can and should be included in it.

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