undoing

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Wolfgang Welsch

'He forgets that the original perceptual metaphors are metaphors and takes them to be the things themselves.' (43) We do in-deed produce our realities but we hide this from ourselves or forget about it - and the appearance of objectivity arises in this way. (44) The fabric of reality in general rests on primary aesthetic or poetic projections- it is founded on 'free inventive' human activ-ity, and thus an 'aesthetics relation' (45) - but usually it's precisely this which we don't admit, but rather forget and suppress. It was Nietzsche who made us aware of this suppression of the basic aesthetics pro-cess.… like artists or virtuosic constructors we produce our system of understanding, erect artistic constructions, which although they refer to reality, do so not through rep-resentation, but invention, and which take account of the non-fundamentalism of re-ality altogether: 'The is no "reality" for us […].' (47)So according to Nietzsche our sketch of reality not only contain foundational aes-thetics elements, but are altogether aes-thetically tailored: they are generated po-etically, structured by fictional means, and in their entire mode of being of that sus-pended and fragile nature which one had traditionally attested to and throughout possible only for aesthetic phenomena. With Nietzsche reality and truth in general become aesthetics.

nietzsche: the aesthetic-fictial charaacter of knowledge of reality.

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CREATIng OUR

OWn REAlITIES

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plEASURE,

AmUSEmEnT,

EnjOYmEnT

WITHOUT

COnSEQUEnCE

The cheapest form of behavior towards the new and pressing topicality of the aesthetic consist of simply de-nying the phenomena - because what's not permissible cannot be; and because what one doesn't perceive doesn't exist. People all too easily make use of the con-ceptual trick of speaking of aesthetics per definitionem only with a view to art. Such escapism may well be nec-essary for anxious souls… It is important to look at the diverse Aestheticizations unabridged, to differentiate and to reflect.

Let's look back again at the tableau of ‘Aestheticiza-tion processes’. Aesthetic elements are on the advance at a superficial level in both objective and subjective reality: faces are becoming prettier, shops more anima-tor, noses more perfect. But Aestheticization reaches deeper too, it affects foundational structures of reality as such: of material reality in the wake of new material technologies, of social reality asa result of its media-tion though media, and of subjective reality as as result of the dissolution of moral standards by self-styling. 'Aestheticization' basically means that the unaesthetic is made, or understood to be, aesthetic. This is exactly what we are currently experiencing all around.

This Aestheticization might not follow the same pattern everywhere, and the type of aesthetic glaze applied to the non- aesthetic can be different from case to case: in the urban environment Aestheticization means the ad-vance of what's beautiful , pretty, styled; in advertising and self-conduct it means the advance of staging and life-styling; with regard to the technological determina-tion of the objective world and the mediation of social reality through the media 'aesthetic' above all means virtualization. The Aestheticization consciousness ulti-mately means that we no longer see any first or last fun-daments, rather that reality for us assumes a constitu-tion been produced, being changeable, unobligating, suspended, and so on. In this details,. then, Aesthetici-zation results in varying ways, but taken collectively the result is a general condition of Aestheticization.

Aest

heti

cizat

ion

as a

gen

eral

tre

nd,

but

in v

aryi

ng w

ays.

PREVIOUS PAGEAESTHETICS IS EvERYWHERE

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Ethical Hedonism is the idea that all men have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. It is also the idea that every man's pleasure should far surpass their amount of pain. Along with those ideas ethical hedonism supports that idea that it is morally and ethi-cally right to do what is needed to achieve such pleasure.

Aristippus of Cyrene [1]. He held the idea that pleasure is the highest good [2]. He also said that everyone should try to attain pleasure at every time they possibly could.

Hedon

ism

as a

new

cul

tural

mat

rix

[1] (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, pg. 567 vol. 6)[2] (pg.567 2nd paragraph)

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bEAUTY DEnOTES THE pERFECTIng FORm OF

THE SEnSUOUS AnD THIS pERFECTIOn COnSISTS OF A FREE jOInIng OF THE pIECES TO A WHOlE, THAT IS OF RECOnCIlIATIOn.

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In SUmmARY: THE DIFFEREnT USAgES OF THE ExpRESSIOn ‘AESTHETIC’ ARE OvER-lAppIng AnD CROSSCOnnEC-TIOn bETWEEn EACH OTHERS THE DIvERSITY OF mEAnIngS.

...but there are good reasons to escape from the aesthetics: artistics equation or to quote Wittgenstein again.

‘TO SHOW THE TO THE

OTHER FlIES, THE WAY

OUT OF THE FlY-bOTTlE’

(8) Ibi

d., p. 103

e [3

09].

— Thi

s is

how

Wit

tgen

stei

n an

wser

ed the

qu

esti

on as to

wha

t is

‘ai

m in

phi

loso

phy’

was

.(1

6) mor

re in ‘aes

thet

ics an

d an

asth

etic

s’ in ae

sthe

tic Tk

inki

ng.

(17)

Cf. the

ess

ay ‘Co

ntem

porar

y Ar

t in

publ

ic Spa

ce: Ab

Feas

t fo

r th

e Ey

es or an

Ann

oyan

ce?’

in th

e pr

esen

t vo

lume

.

(8)

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We where convinced that a globalization of aesthetics would altogether improve the world. Is this so?Consequently old aesthetic dreams are being redeemed in the present anesthetization. But the irritating fact which demands explana-tion is that the results today are quite different from the original expectations. They are, at the very least, disappointing. What was meant to endow our world with beauty ends up in more prettiness and obtrusiveness, and finally gen-erates indifference or even disgust — at least among aesthetically sensitive people. In any case, nobody would dare to call the present anesthetization straightforward fulfillment. Something must then be wrong with this re-demption of old aesthetic dreams. Either the current application of old programs is inad-equate, or these venerable programs them-selves already contained a flaw, one which has just redemptions can equate to revela-tions. This, I think, is the case with the current anesthetization./What are the reasons for disappointment with the present anesthetization? What are the critical points to be highlighted by an aesthetic reflexion on these process? I want to mention three points.Firstly, fashioning everything as beautiful de-stroys the quality of the beautiful. Ubiquitous beauty loses its distinguished character and decays into more prettiness or becomes sim-ply meaningless. You can't make what's excep-tional a standard without changing its quality.

Secondly, the strategy of globalized anestheti-zation falls victim to itself. It ends in anestheti-zation. The globalized aesthetic is experienced as annoying and even as terror. Aesthetic in-difference then become a sensible and almost unavoidable attitude in order to escape the importunity of this ubiquitous aesthetic. Anes-thetization - our refusal to continue to perceive the divinely embellished environment — be-comes a survival strategy.(16)

Thirdly, instead of this a need for the non-aesthetic arises — a desire for interruptions and disruptions, for breaking through embel-lishment. If there's still a task for art in public

space today, then it consist not in introducing ever more beauty into already over-embel-lished environment, but in stopping this aes-theticization-machinery by creating aesthetic fallow areas and deserts in the midst of the hy-per aesthetics. (17)

/Aesthetics has usually praised beauty and beautification, and believed it had good rea-sons for doing so. But it never considered the consequences of the globalized beautification which it advocated and which we are today experiencing. It never even considered that globalized embellishment might disfigure the world - instead of perfecting, or even redeem-ing, it. Moreover, the acclamation of beauty championed by traditional aesthetics has re-peatedly served as rhetorical support for the current anesthetization processes. The tradi-tional passion for beauty kept us from consid-ering the negative effects of anesthetization, even when these had long since become obvi-ous. The supportive, legitimating and idolizing power of traditional aesthetics is at least partly responsible for the modern tendency toward anesthetization, as well as for the blindness to-wards its negative effects.

Some flaws in the globalized anesthetization.

breaking the stereotypes

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IS IT THE TRUTH, ‘WHAT YOU SEE ?’

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Comparable observations are to be made when one goes from material and social reality over to subjective reality, to the form of individuals' existence. Here too there is a superficial and obvious aes-theticization, but this too is underlain by a deeper aesthicization.

The current aestheticization could even be said to attain its perfection in individu-als. We are experiencing everywhere a til-ing of body, soul and mind- and whatever else these fine new people might want to have (or acquire for themselves).

In beauty salons and fitness centers they pursue the aesthetic perfection of bod-ies, and in meditation courses and Tos-cana seminars the aesthetics spiritual-ization of their souls. Future generations should have it easier stright away: genetic engineering will already have come to their aid, this new branch of aesthetici-zation which holds out the prospect of a world full of perfectly styled mannequins.

Individuals' interaction with one another is also increasingly being aesthetically determined. In a world in which moral norms are disappearing, table manners and etiquette — the correct choice of glass and of the suitable accompaniment to the respective occasion — still seem to hold firm the most easily. Aesthetic com-petence — propagate by lifestyle maga-zines and acquired in etiquette courses — offsets the loss of moral standards.

In such processes, homo aesthetics is be-coming the new role model.(4) He is sen-sitive, hedonic, educated and above all of discerning taste — and he knows that you can't argue about taste. This affords new security amidst the insecurity which exists all around. Free of fundamentalist illusions, casually distanced, he enjoys all life's opportunities. The Kierkegaard lit-erature waxes one again (5).

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(4) Cf. here for a critical consideration: luc Ferry, ‘Homoa estehticus’ (paris: grasset 1990). (5) Its affiramtive version today stems from Foucault, who is all too sweepingly rated as being subversive. Faucault’s aesthetics of existence is largely an acclamation of aesthetic selfstyling in contemporary spirit. Although Foucault thinks that independent and resistant subject would emerge in this way, de facto they instead turn out adapted and fit themselves into the objective aestheticiza-tion like decoratice puppets. (michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality vol. 2: The Use of pleasure, translated Robert Hurley, nY: vintage 1990, p.11).

ExpERIEnCES, InDEED ARE nOT AnY mORE TRUE Ex-pERIEnCES — THEY ARE RATHER WEAk, EmpTY. THAT IS WHY pEOplE

QUICklY START TO SEEk THE nExT ExpERIEnCE AnD THEREbY THEY RUSH FROm OnE DISAppOInTmEnT

TO AnOTHER. bEAUTIFUl FORmS DRIFT InTO pRETTInES, AnD SUblImElY InTEnDED STAgIng DESCEnDS

InTO REDICUlOUSnESS. IS THIS AIm OF bEAUTY?

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The aestheticization of eve-

ryday life' has become a com-

monplace term, one which

often merely scratches the

surface of contemporary cul-

ture. This study illuminates

the deeper dynamics of aes-

thetic reality from a philo-

sophical perspective.

Welsch, the author of the

influential Aesthetics Think-

ing, develops an important

analysis of contemporary

culture with philosophical

bite. He examines global aes-

theticization phenomena,

probes the relationship of

aesthetics for contemporary

thinking. The book also ar-

gues that modes of thought

from the aesthetic realm

comprise fundamental par-

adigms for understanding

today's reality. The implica-

tions in studies of architec-

ture, advertising, the Inter-

net and our perception of the

life world.

text written byProfessor Scott Lash

undoing

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