The Aesthetic Perspective

March 23, 2008

I have been coming back repeatedly to the essay "Religion as a Cultural System" by Clifford Geertz.. in which he lays out a definition of religion. What has been sitting on my mind is his differentiation of the "religious perspective" from some other common perspectives: the common sensical, aesthetic, and scientific. (That's not meant to be an exhaustive list.)

At one point Geertz writes that

...no one, not even a saint, lives in the world religious symbols formulate all of the time, and the majority of men live in it only at moments. The everyday world of common-sense objects and practical acts is, as Schutz says, the paramount reality in human experience. [119]

So if we imagine religion as a cognitive frame for understanding the world, it is nonetheless not a frame that anyone employs all the time. A saint has to get out of bed, pull on his or her clothes, navigate to the kitchen, and figure out how to work the coffee maker. No matter how much one insists on repeating the names of God or muttering "praise the Lord", these daily actions are not religious in nature and make use of a common sensical frame for understanding the world.

As soon as the saint looks up from the coffee maker and sees a scene on television about a governor who has paid for a high priced prostitute.. well, then the religious perspective snaps into place. The religious perspective could be defined as the cognitive frame that mediates meaning and value in life.. from which we pass down moral judgment and find ultimate purpose. The work of some monastic systems may be to extend this level of religious meaning to every corner of life.. so that even putting on one's clothes has religious significance. But I doubt it would be possible to keep that religious frame in place all the time. There will be times when one just wants a cup of coffee..

Geertz sketches what he means by the aesthetic perspective:

...it involves a different sort of suspension of naive realism and practical interest, in that instead of questioning the credentials of everyday experience, one merely ignores that experience in favor of an eager dwelling upon appearances, an engrossment in surfaces... [111]

So in those moments when we abandon practical concerns as well as the questions of meaning that are related to the religious perspective, we have access to the aesthetic perspective. When someone can look at the sunset and not think about the fact that it will soon be dark.. and without thinking about a creator or moral purpose in the day.. when the scene stands out just as a scene.. a surface.. that is when the aesthetic perspective is in place.

I find that this aesthetic perspective comes naturally.. and I am drawn to a way of living that cuts back the religious perspective.. that cognitive frame that judges and discerns meaning. That may explain why I am fascinated with the process of meaning creation as embodied in religion. But I have no great longing for a discovery of a religious frame.. I am happiest when such a frame is gone and I am able to just perceive. In that state of mind even religious texts.. the Psalms or Augustine or Bob Marley.. become texts that can be enjoyed free of the religious frame that gave birth to them. They become a mere delight.

I am reminded of a poem by Wallace Stevens.. which makes for a fine Easter meditation:

The crosses on the convent roofs
Gleam sharply as the sun comes up.

What's down below is in the past
Like last night's crickets, far below.

And what's above is in the past
As sure as all the angels are.

Why should the future leap the clouds
The bays of heaven, brighted, blued?

Chant, O ye faithful, in your paths
The poem of long celestial death;

For who could tolerate the earth
Without that poem, or without

An earthier one, tum, tum-ti-tum,
As of those crosses, glittering,

And merely of their glittering,
A mirror of a mere delight?

"Botanist on Alp (no. 2)"

The crosses are transformed into "mere delight" as they are perceived aesthetically.. with religious meaning emptied. The convent and the heavens are dismissed as being of any interest. Still there is a need for "poem".. which may point to some kind of meaning even here.. but I will have to think about that a little longer..

Question: this notion that there could be movement between cognitive frames fits in with my sense of what it is like to experience the world, but is this the way humans have historically experienced the world, or is it a product of our modern world? Wouldn't an ancient Egyptian have had more trouble separating out so neatly these realms of experience? Maybe one of the hallmarks of the modern world is the demand of switching quickly between these different cognitive frames.. along with a sense of multiple identities.