We Slaves

13) Pity as an Aesthetic Experience, Part 1

Now, Let us consider the assertion of those famous words of progress: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Let us consider the great error we face in reducing that which is property to that which is point—that is to say, reducing that which happens necessarily to purpose—and further, reducing a purpose exclusively to that which is self-conscious, intentional, and which possess the faculty to deduce a meaning of existence.

We must not be hasty. We cannot condemn one man—and surely not for a mere note-to-self which had not been prepped for publication and may, just as well, never have been intended for publication. Instead of attacking the reasoning of this claim, we should investigate its appeal. Consider those in which this pathos has stomped out all mystery and doubt, and has given those thousand thousands a morality in which all inquiries into their books must cross-reference.

I find little difficulty in diagnosing the psychological state which finds pleasure in this claim; one does not even need to refer to clinical research since evidence has been recorded in the greatest books of the world. To dissect this aesthetic experience we must first know that our consciousness is a composition of relationships which relate our environment to us. Next, we must acknowledge the degree of similarity or the degree of difference that one establishes in a relationship. Imagine when one observes the silhouette of an apple, then immediately following, observes someone eating that apple. The observer will establish one of these two figures as more similar than the other.

While the absolute-different is not an altogether separate discussion from the relative-similar, investigation of that side of the spectrum will provide us with little depth here. Instead, we must concern ourselves with the experience of the familiar, and also the difference which keeps the familiar from being something which is identical.