These kaleidoscopic times churn and turn up new/old insights.
I've been re-reading the rich works of cultural historian
Morse Peckham (1914-1993).
Here are my notes and underlinings from one of his books:
Art
and Pornography
(1969)
Art is the exposure to the tensions and
problems of a false world so that man may endure exposing himself to the tensions and problems
of the real world”
Anarchy is the mother of Order Source of
Tension: Libido always trying to control the Ego which was
trying to absorb the Libido. Freud
Art offers not order but perceptual disorder or discontinuity, contact with chaos
Art is rehearsal for the orientation that
makes innovation possible
flickering between need for stability predictability
control and innovation risk (free energy)
Story-Making 85 is a near instinctual activity forward, backwards, always adjusting
All discourse is
equally fictional. Putting changing, meaningless bits into a meaningful
context Managing
multiple, shifting social
roles/personal (archetypal) needs Making meaningful organization of Materials
via the Imagination Contact with the Unpredictable
Porn is a
Storyline, like political propaganda and religious art: simplified
view/fairy dust sacred
Human beings prefer stability to innovation… 99.9%
of genetic variations are dysfunctional. Stick with ones that work 132 Human beings have two primary but
divergent and irreconcilable interests. to stabilize the cognitive model; the other is to compensate for the necessary
inadequacy of the model correcting and improving through innovation
Exemplary thinking 156 is a relief from explanatory
and theoretical thinking, so mediating
non-verbal thinking is a further relief
157
No aspect of the
empirical world is meaningful until it elicits a behavioral response
Unreal = inability to organize it into an available belief system vs Rational/real = cooperates with known belief
system 165 Interest=activity that serves to smooth the adaptational process
Cognitive Overload 177 precedes powerful innovative
thrusts/breakthroughs
Need for Multiplicity of roles/models 179
Man is free and freedom threatens
stability/predictability two aspects of
same thing: 181
Paradise 189 = no disparity between
cognitive and sensory data, (Ego and Libido)
Harmony between remembered,
projected and perceived realities, The
Head, Hand, Heart
No social management necessary, futility of anarchy,
trance, cult, religious deference of personal authority 192 “vacation from cognitive tension” Issues of hierarchy, dominance,
authority competition for scarce resources
NEED to disengage from controlled society (stability/predictability) 298
Beliefs in how much stability/Innovation is tolerable,
or destructive Art-Making can effect that 300
