On the Sensual

ON THE SENSUAL

“mortal ambitions are attracted by such ceremonies, but god is worshipped by those who truly know him... Although a man hear what limit he should observe in sacrifice, and how far he should recoil from burdensome superstitions, he will never make sufficient progress until he has conceived a right idea of god, regarding him as one who possesses all things, and allots all things, and bestows them without price. And what reason have the gods for doing deeds of kindness? It is their nature”- from Seneca’s Letters

There is a tendency, very pronounced nowadays, to equate the aesthetics of spirituality, tradition, and virtue with the essence of those things. Through the by-now deeply rooted and widely pervasive influence of Hollywood, a common perception of the venerable foundations of western civilization is one encapsulated by the dramatic (and often, melodramatic) vision of a hero in appropriate costume, declaiming in memorable speeches studded with high sounding rhetoric and classical references, and accompanied with crashing or portentous orchestral scores. (Think “Gladiator”).

What is missing is the recognition that while entertainment, and dramatic arts, especially anything that gets people interested in the classics, are in themselves good if well done, it is nevertheless precisely the critique of those acclaimed philosophers of antiquity that such “sensual delights” of spectacle and sound are dangerous. They are dangerous in their potential to mislead the vulnerable and abuse the easily manipulated.

This kind of engineered misunderstanding is not in fact a new phenomenon. The very term ‘propaganda’ comes from the Roman Catholic church in it’s recognition that to sway the greater masses of people, what was needed was the spectacle of piety, the pomp and ceremony, the theatrics rather than the theology of the religion. Had it been otherwise, and without the accompanying censorship of pre-conversion religious ritual, and the threat of violence, torture or ostracisation, it is doubtful that the imported Abrahamic creed would have supplanted the traditional ethnic religions of Europe and elsewhere.

It is precisely in the tendency of a large section of any society to regard aesthetics and performance, the sensual and ceremonial, of or associated with the spiritual and religious that philosophers, from at least the time of Xenophanes saw the danger. They saw how great in number were those vulnerable to being mislead and manipulated by malign (mortal) powers and persons.

And that is also the problem with today’s popular entertainment and culture. It is even more potent a source for trouble, than was for the philosophers and theologians of the ancient world, ambivalent as they were about the poets, playwrights and their epics, seeing perhaps the traces of divine inspiration in their works, but also their potential to be taken in not so edifying ways or abused by charlatans and demagogues.

The last thing I want to be is a hypocrite. Unfortunately, I find myself failing in that direction every day. I too enjoy a good movie, appreciate atmospheric music, and the arresting performances of well written scripts. I was myself a (bad) actor for a time. But there is much to be said against the tendency to assume that what looks, and sounds, and acts like traditional culture is that.

The entirety of so-called ‘bro’ culture reeks of this kind of misunderstanding; it’s something that quite shocked me when I saw it first. I was pretty bewildered by the spectacle of younger men, so focused on their physical appearance as to be essentially the male version of Barbie dolls, who nevertheless regarded this intense materialism and shallowness as somehow ‘spiritual’ and ‘traditional’.

So too with the toxic (and often callous) positivity promulgated by the self-help industry. So too with many such things in neoliberal society where we are all supposed to brand and sell ourselves.

Maintaining a healthy level of suspicion with regards to what appeals to the senses is not easy. I fail constantly.

But it is best.

SAGE ADVICE

“The priesthoods of a plastic age,

in conflict, master sound and sight;

the taste of words, presenting sage,

they cast themselves in noble light

***

Conceiving just the petty scraps;

the wars of irritation waged,

they weaving, lay and set as traps-

forlorn, a nation thus engaged

***

But you and I, we need not go

to hurl us caustic darts with all

the heedless slew, the world we know

be naught apart deceiving pall”