Ascetics vs Aesthetics; the theory of aesthetics as a reflection the divine

There are some interesting contrasting views regarding the relationship between aesthetics and morality in the readings for this week. In Weber’s article “Religious Ethics and the world: Sexuality and Art” he uses terminology such as “sexual intoxication” “orgy” and states that “the erotic orgy appears in religion as an undesired consequence of ecstasy produced by other orgiastic means, particularly dance” and makes the unexplained assumption that temple dancers were simply “temple prostitutes”. In terms of spirituality he states that this “state of sexual orgy” can be sublimated into erotic love of god.

In Weber’s view the primary group against this eroticism are the mystics and ascetics who adhere to various forms of chastity (anti sex). Chastity for these religious practitioners is the highest type of behavior that acts as a vehicle for the development of abilities that allow access to the “divine”. It is also links to renunciation of the world and its pleasures among them sexuality (bodily pleasure) and states that for example for the Hindu ascetic the rejection of all sexual relations was a pre-requisite for complete salvation. . In terms of the fundamental primitive force that binds one to the world is grasping at sexual pleasure. Another interesting point Weber makes regarding the ascetic life is that it is based on rigid control and he defines the sexual act as “”ultimately and uniquely unsusceptible to rational organization. He concludes that as a result of this äll non prophetic priestly systematization of religion without exception concern themselves with sexuality from such motives…..terminating in hostility toward sexuality”

In terms of art, art and religion were originally inextricably linked, in the structures of temple, images and icons, religious music and dance. The separation of the two in Weber’s opinion is tied to the independent nature of artistic expression when it is appreciated intellectually rather than through pure religious sentiment. He terms this the “religious devaluation of art”.

By contrast Paul Guyer’s article “The Origins of Modern aesthetics: 1711-35” begins with Baumgarten and his “naming of “the subject of aesthetics defining it as “the art of thinking beautifully, the science of sentive cognition)”. From this standpoint the discussion focuses on beauty, the sublime in both art and nature. In terms of Kant’s moral philosophy the aspect of the freedom of the imagination, the moral freedom to conduct ourselves autonomously by a law legislated by our reason. In terms of the enjoyment of pleasure in nature and aesthetics this experience of beauty itself is seen as a symbol of marality, it is both the manifestation of the freedom of the imagination and the representation of freedom as an expression of the imagination.

The very antithesis to the dichotomy of aesthetics and ascetics is posited by Shaftesbury who held the view that the very pleasure of beauty and virtue was a natural reflection of our response to the order of the cosmos and our love for forms of beauty and virtue, order and proportion is not simply an admiration of the object itself but rather the crative intelligence, the divine intelligence which is behind this manifestation, even behind the human creator and is a natural response to the underlying divine intelligence.

The interesting restraint is that in this discussion the pleasure associated with physical pleasure and sexuality, in other words the ecstatic is not specifically addressed but rather the more formal and intellectual aspects of aesthetic appreciation so the two discussions do not have the same ground for either resolution or direct analogy of argument. It is Wolterstorff’s article that most clearly tries to resolve this issue of the art and religion. Art is seen as transcendent in the sense that the evocation of aesthetic emotions such as joy begins from beautiful form and results in aesthetic exaltation”. The form expresses the emotion of the creator as being inspired by “pure forms” which are a reflections of ultimate reality “the god in everything”. Art is therefore akin to religion. The physical universe for the mystic as for the artist is a means to ecstasy.

So in the end we are back at the beginning and are left with the puzzle is ecstasy transcendent or primitive…? Does the transcendence reached through the objects of the world fundamentally differ from the transcendence reached through renunciation of the objects of the world?