Art and Wit are Subversive of Civilization; in a ‘Playful Way’

C

coberst

Well-Known Member
Messages
427
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Art and Wit are Subversive of Civilization; in a ‘Playful Way’

The repressions of modern life have lost for us the “primary pleasures of which the censorship disapproves”. Art and wit liberates repressed instinct; both rid us of our inhibitions and open the unconscious for inspection and pleasure. Art and wit are avenues for play.

Art and wit battle against repressive reason and the reality-principle in an effort to regain lost liberties. A special pleasure in wit is derived from an “economy in the expenditure of inhibitions or suppressions”.

Modern life causes us to constantly expend psychic energy in order to repress fundamental desires; in overcoming these repressions and activating the playful primary process both art and wit allow us to divert that energy toward other ends.

Group psychology inclines us to develop subversive groups which become authoritarian ideologies whereas art and wit incline us to form subversive groups which can communicate to third parties and therefore not become authoritarian but inclusive and democratic. “In contrast with the repressive structure of the authoritarian group, the aim of the partnership between artist and an audience is instinctual liberation.”

One result of our successful technology is human longevity. We continue to extend life and often prolong a period of slow and expensive dying. I am 76 and therefore consider myself to be allowed to speak about such things as cessation of this madness of an ever expanding old age. It is time to seriously discuss the fact that we cannot continue with the foolish process that results in an ever expanding population that includes an ever expanding percentage of old folks dying slower and slower.

Quotes from Life against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History by Norman O. Brown
 
coberst said:
Art and Wit are Subversive of Civilization; in a ‘Playful Way’

The repressions of modern life have lost for us the “primary pleasures of which the censorship disapproves”. Art and wit liberates repressed instinct; both rid us of our inhibitions and open the unconscious for inspection and pleasure. Art and wit are avenues for play.

Art and wit battle against repressive reason and the reality-principle in an effort to regain lost liberties. A special pleasure in wit is derived from an “economy in the expenditure of inhibitions or suppressions”.

Modern life causes us to constantly expend psychic energy in order to repress fundamental desires; in overcoming these repressions and activating the playful primary process both art and wit allow us to divert that energy toward other ends.

Group psychology inclines us to develop subversive groups which become authoritarian ideologies whereas art and wit incline us to form subversive groups which can communicate to third parties and therefore not become authoritarian but inclusive and democratic. “In contrast with the repressive structure of the authoritarian group, the aim of the partnership between artist and an audience is instinctual liberation.”

One result of our successful technology is human longevity. We continue to extend life and often prolong a period of slow and expensive dying. I am 76 and therefore consider myself to be allowed to speak about such things as cessation of this madness of an ever expanding old age. It is time to seriously discuss the fact that we cannot continue with the foolish process that results in an ever expanding population that includes an ever expanding percentage of old folks dying slower and slower.

Quotes from Life against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History by Norman O. Brown
Click to expand...
In other words, one must have ample "art" and "wit" within oneself to avoid being suck into "group think"?

I think any solution to halting the "foolish process" would require either voluntary sacrifice by the individual or the imposition of the solution via the tyranny of the majority or dictator.
 
OAT said:
In other words, one must have ample "art" and "wit" within oneself to avoid being suck into "group think"?

I think any solution to halting the "foolish process" would require either voluntary sacrifice by the individual or the imposition of the solution via the tyranny of the majority or dictator.
Click to expand...

I think that art and wit are very useful but there must be an additional component and that component is CT (Critical Thinking).
 
Story = person in pursuit of a goal.

Drama = person in pursuit of a goal while overcoming stumbling blocks.

Epic Saga/Tragedy = person in pursuit of a goal while overcoming MONUMENTAL stumbling blocks.

Comedy = person in pursuit of a goal while overcoming MONUMENTAL stumbling blocks . . . but in a fashion beyond the limits of Logic.

Comedy = Two parties observing a third party who slips and falls = LOL.

Comedy = watching other people [anthromorphised things or animals] experience pain and sufferring.
 
I think, in order to retain a healthy, dynamic, perspective of the world around us, we must occasionally abstract from convention. Laughter is a kind of release, in that sense.

Thought must flow, like water, or it becomes undrinkable.

"...planet Saturn is not alone, but is composed of three, which almost touch one another and never move nor change with respect to one another. They are arranged in a line parallel to the zodiac, and the middle one is about three times the size of the lateral ones."

~Galileo

Now... through his lens, his observation .....it's almost as if he's waxing towards a spherical concept of things. Like the way we see a rainbow, collectively, thus producing a kind of dome, in reality.... but, from an individual standpoint, we see it as a bow or ...as in the case of the garden hose rainbow, a ring.

Depends on how you read it.

Perhaps Saturn's rings are like this as well and the icy "horizon" of it is simply another example of where light has become manifest in a solid, highly tangible way.


To think in terms of dimension is still, at best, 3 dimensional.
Galileo was a heretic.

I know that's not funny but... it is slightly abstract, I guess.
:)
 
(I realize this only makes sense for about a second or two and, then, you have to pull back and recollect your own, individual "observation" of it.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top