Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part LII

“We are trying to evaluate the suggestion,” Itwethey says, “of beauty being ‘sublimated’ sex. What we are talking about here is the ‘raw’ feeling or flash: ‘this is beauty’ rather than the judgment, after reflection, comparison, or abstraction ‘this is beauty.’ This is the feeling or perception of beauty being ‘sublimated’, before energies (drives, impulses) are transferred or directed into creation of art works or other cultural or socially-useful activity. In other words, this isn’t the Freudian conception of sublimation, nor is it, at this point, a correct Kantian use of ‘sublime.’” (Itwethey feels there is something baffling—almost as if there was an intent to confuse by Freud-- in reusing the same term or word root: Freud’s ‘sublimation’ and Kant’s ‘sublime.’ Was Freud somehow responding to Kant? Or is the use of the word coincidental? As a coincidence, it’s remarkable. These are very different concepts, and yet—related? If so, strangely so. These are things Itwethey has not considered before, and probably does not understand very well, and maybe not at all.)

“We are trying to test the idea that such a sensation or perception or flash or ‘raw’ feeling as beauty is intuitive, (this use of the word intuitive is,Itwethey believes, very in tune with the way the word is used by AoA, which is very different from the way the word is used by Kant, and if so, this is of interest to Itwethey. Itwethey can’t remember any writings by Freud on the subject of intuition, and it is her opinion intuition is outside the purview of psychoanalysis. (If there’s anyone out there reading this crap who knows better than Itwethey or I-I-I about these matters, please chime in.) If there is an intuition of beauty as intuition is understood by the AoA, beauty doesn’t require reflection, judgment, and there isn’t a need or justification for aesthetics.

“We don’t need to know if something is beautiful, or why, or how. We know something is beautiful because we know. The answer to an array of questions is, ‘Because!’ (As when, prior to Galileo and Newton, objects moved the way they did because that’s the way they did move (‘according to their nature’, as if that explained anything (does it? Itwethey doesn’t mean to be hasty or nasty)), as if it was ‘self-explanatory’ (was it?)) It’s beautiful because it is beautiful and we don’t need to know how we know that—we might even damage our experience of it by enquiring into it. (Itwethey is not ridiculing this.))

“It worries me that so much of what is being said appears to repeat a critique of romanticism, and maybe the AoA are better named and criticized as romantics, as whatever is being criticized about AoAs is already understood within the critique of romanticism,” Itwethey remarks. “It worries me, because if that’s all it is, Guest will be bid welcome, but will never be welcomed.”