Heidegger's Aesthetics & The aesthetic judgement of pain
Glenda Jensen
There are two ways to deal with suffering and to distance
oneself from it. One is the scientific form and the other is the metaphysical form. The scientific attitude tends to control the causes and effects of a particular body, to describe the form and under which symptoms it manifests and then to develop methods to eradicate that pain or to suffer. The metaphysical attitude, one would ask for what were the conditions of possibility of that evil, beyond its location in a determined time and space, in a culture or in a concrete time. Rather one would ask about the ontological constitution of the a priori world so that this manifestation of pain is possible. One of the major functions of the great religions, is to provide a doctrine on the meaning of pain as the basis of a teaching. A kind of invitation and education to endure the suffering and ailments in this life. The question that lies behind is how we should behave facing the pain. Every technique that struggles against suffering finds its origins and foundations in religious or metaphysical explanations. Both rely on the endless task of interpreting pain. In Martin Heidegger's words this union would be an expression of the dominance exerted by a technical interpretation of thinking that goes back to the fifth century BC. The history of metaphysics is about the development of techniques and thoughts that have tried in large part to decipher the meaning of the pain. Under the consummation of this doctrine, man has forgotten the original essence of pain as of pleasure or enjoyment. "As if under the dominion of the will of man, the access to both the essence of pain and the essence of joy had been closed." Modernity experiences pain as negativity, as a negative power, which can be eliminated by various techniques. Its treatment as a negative entity is aimed at predicting and increasing power and security. The technician or scientist does not ask about the essence of pain, only applies the procedures, to mitigate it. But behind the veil of prevention that supports modernity with the use of technique, it is hidden that the more exacerbates prevention against pain, the more pain is present. Heidegger attempts to solve the enigma of pain and its objectification by making it a threshold that unites and separates the entrance and exit of the dwelling, the enclave where the gods and mortals meet and separate at the same time. Under various techniques, the development of Western metaphysics attempted to neutralize or give meaning to pain, thus obscuring its essence more and more. The power and security that are made full consciousness and present in the modern subject in order to control the pain goes back to the origins of history. The resistance to the pain consist in the validation and legitimation of the categories of automation and calculation, in Jungers words. The individual freedom at the end enables human existence to resist the perfection of technology, and its categories, is the allowance for human existence to pain. Jungers figure the forest rebel longs of a higher form of life beyong the empty doctrines of nihilism and resist the automatism and not to draw to is ethical conclusion, which is fatalism With the advent of modern science as we know it, a new suffering arises, medical pain, possible to be controlled, and perhaps eradicated. It is about objectification and location in the body of a type of physical ailment. Pain can be a symptom of disease or a disease in itself. In the first case, it is a useful physiological alarm signal; In the second, it has no purpose and can constitute a starting point for another organic or psychological pathology. But under this medical conception of pain, the source of pain departs from its original truth. One might wonder whether letting go of the pain would mean giving up all analgesic therapy. Perhaps the metaphysical interpretations distort the real experience of suffering, but are necessary to ask about the origins of the same and to abstract from the pain that becomes flesh, as much as possible. This could mean a possible way to face it in another way and to be a balm for the mourner. Heidegger's advice is that we should not portray pain anthropologically as a bad or unpleasant feeling, and this statement aligns with his thinking about technique by dismissing his merely instrumental or utilitarian conception. Pain would then be the criterion of differentiation for things and for the world. The pain is also according to the contexts and modes of recognition that there is about it. When do we recognize that there is pain or suffering? From ancient times the expression of pain through images, sounds or objects has been the method to locate it and also to recognize it. The problem is to find which of these manifestations are the most authentic examples of the "true essence of pain." Rather there are pluralities of denominations that approach this concept, paini innomitati nameless pain-as Pietro Verri has called them. That depends on the recognition according to the time and according to the culture that is understood by pain. The reflections on pain presents demands like thinking about the pain, the body that suffers, about which procedures are used for it, whether medical, psychological, religious, and attend a particular social and cultural context. Without chronological location, pain is indefinable.
In order to reconstruct a history of Western pain, it is
necessary to investigate the techniques that have been developed to support it. In order for pain to exist as such, it must be recognized first. Pain is affected by the technical means that are used to eradicate it, pain depends on them to exist. The suffering mitigated by a Hindu shaman is not the same pain as a person who will undergo surgery under the effect of analgesics. Men belonging to pre-anesthetic cultures aspire less to correct the being of pain, living with it. Such pain generates changes in sensitivity, but it is not an intention to discipline pain. Both the redemptive pain, which sanctifies according to Catholicism, the initiatory pain of Buddhism, or epic pain refer to changes brought about in sensitivity but which incorporate suffering without rejecting it. According to Wittgenstein, there is an intercultural constant that occurs in the history of Pain that is the same natural history. The expressions of pain vary according to the time and culture, but pain refers us to a natural common root and on that root, are born different symbolic systems. No interpretation has invented pain out of nothing.
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