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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." *
Freud's Aesthetics3/08/2007 15:59:45This is a little note extending some earlier postings about something called "Aesthetic Theology": a meaning-reading of theological texts apart from religious commitment, if that is possible. For earlier posts on this subject, see the links in A Theology of Art. Around page 31 of the Norton edition of Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents discusses the difference between art and religion. Both are illusions, images created by people apart from reality by redirected libido in order to create worlds that make living more bearable. The difference, however, is in their sense of what reality is. Art is made of illusions "which are recognized as such without the discrepancy between them and reality being allowed to interfere with enjoyment." In turn, "the mild narcosis induced in us by art can do no more than bring about a transient withdrawal from the pressure of vital needs, and it is not strong enough to make us forget real misery." Religion, in contrast, goes a step further. "It regards reality as the sole enemy and as the source of all suffering." The world that it creates does away with the sense of "discrepancy" that art allows. The benefit religion offers so far as alleviating misery goes, therefore, comes necessarily at the cost of declaring reality to be the enemy. For Freud this is obviously unacceptable. In a sense this outlines the movement I suggest aesthetic theology represents: from Freudian religion to Freudian art. It removes the insistence on a false reality and says that the creation can be salvific (perhaps in a less immediate sense) regardless. I make this proposal not necessarily because I think it is good, but in order to see where it goes. I am interested in exploring what religion (particular religions) means when it talks about sacred reality. How real is this reality? How aware can we be of multiple realities? Can a biblical reality, for instance, operate on a parallel plane within a person as a secular one? I am searching for ways to formulate these questions. In such a way that will reformulate the conventional answers. |
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