Analysis of pleasure experienced as an attack of self (PSA essay)

[LoBagola]

“One of the distinguishing characteristics of a work of art (including literature) is that it serves no practical, material end, but is an end in itself; it serves no purpose other than contemplation—and the pleasure of that contemplation is so intense, so deeply personal that a man experiences it as a self-sufficient, self-justifying primary and, often, resists or resents any suggestion to analyze it: the suggestion, to him, has the quality of an attack on his identity, on his deepest, essential self.”

 

 

The Romantic Manifesto, "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art” p. 16

 

What does the "it" in "analyze it" refer to? The art work itself, or the pleasure derived from contemplating the art?

 

I don't see why one would experience analysis of an art work that elicits a response as possessing the quality of an attack on one's own identity. 

 

When I think about the times I experience pleasure I do like to analyze why. Not in the moment, but later. Why did I derive pleasure from that? But I don't think I've ever experienced this as an attack on my identity.

 

Do you think this has any connection to sense of life? Because I can remember many specific instances where people have told me they don't like to break down and understand a personality, they don't want to know what specific qualities the other person possess which elicits a positive response; they just want to experience it and have it be "mysterious". I'm not sure how relevant this is but I've also heard the process of trying to understand someone with reason experienced as "trying to put me into an equation".

Edited June 22, 2014 by LoBagola

[splitprimary]

this is a continuation of her denunciation of the modern, mystical view of art. she's saying that is how they will experience the suggestion to analyze their response to art, and that this resistance is why art isn't progressing like the physical sciences are.

before that paragraph is:
"the humanities have been virtually abandoned to the primitive epistemology of mysticism... a phenomenon such as art has remained a dark mystery... today's epistemological savages take art for granted, as an irreducible primary not to be questioned or analyzed, as the exclusive domain of a special kind of unknowable demons: their emotions."

​their philosophy (altruism) induces, “willingness to... repress the personal (non-social) needs" of the soul, which art deals with. so they are unaccustomed and uninclined to introspection, and this can feel like a personal attack because "art is of passionately intense importance and profoundly personal concern".

 

she does not think that analysis should have this effect, or that art should not be analyzed. she's diagnosing why it hasn't been.

 

and she is moving into:

"so intense an emotion" cannot be "causeless, irreducible and unrelated to the source of emotions (and of values): to the needs of a living entity's survival." "To understand the nature and function of art, on must understand the nature and function of concepts." -running a connection back through the other branches of philosophy that aesthetics depends on, so that the response to art can be understood.

Edited June 22, 2014 by splitprimary

[epistemologue]

at the end of the chapter:

 

"The reason why are has such a profoundly personal significance for men is that art confirms or denies the efficacy of a man's consciousness, according to whether an art work supports or negates his own fundamental view of reality"