"The Art of Life" : Meditations on Virginia Woolf & Sigmund Freud
The following is
derived upon meditations of Sigmund Freud's essay titled "Civilization
& it Discontents" (1929) and Virginia Woolf's successful novel
called "To The Lighthouse" (1927).
I wish to establish that both thinkers observe art as being used as a healing/palliative measure, however Freud regards it as a mere substitution or fantasy, and hence sort of an escape, whereas Woolf regards art as primary, something beyond the art itself, and hence subscribed-prescribed it for life.
The turn of the nineteenth century towards the twentieth was seen as a melting pot of culture, and a turn from social towards individual self.
Freud believes that the human life is built on the pursuit of pleasure principle. That humans have desires, and seeking and fulfilling it gives pleasure.
To Freud, there seems to be three sources of suffering: the body, the nature and the relations.
However, these renunciations take form of repression, aggression or guilt. And their memories manifest in human thinking and behavior. It is here that Freud offers a way of thinking about the past, basically the aspect of how do desires and their memories play a role in human life. In his essay on Dreams in 1900, he examines dreams as those desires that make humans suffer. A close examination of the dreams, because one's own censor is not working in dreams, reveals deeper selves, truer selves. And because these renunciations accumulate over a period of time, it creates pathology. Hence Freud sees one's history as creating one's pathology.
Furthermore, Freud observes that humans resort to three strategies as palliative measures, that is:
While Virginia Woolf with her extra-ordinary repertoire of understanding politics, family life, aesthetics, wrote a wonderful piece called “To the lighthouse”. This piece shifts us from the chase of really real towards knowledge as intimacy…finding thing that we can be closest to and connected with.
During the naturalistic revolution, she was a part of a group called the Bloomsbury group, of intellectuals, artists and writers, who shared political convictions for greater equality and less violence, arts and friendship. (Bloomsbury group had thinkers like George Moore, Keynes, Lytton Stracher, etc)
Woolf, while being the publisher of Freud's books in England, was also inspired by the great analytic philosopher George Moore. George Moore along with Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered as founding father of analytic tradition of philosophy.
George believed in ethics and aesthetics as primary and fundamental, and not as emergent property of some other things. He emphasized that no amount of deduction of the "good" will be compelling or correct. Good is intrinsic, good in of itself. "Good" is not inter-related, nor systematic. We can’t deduce it from others. Intrinsic good like friendship, love and art stood on their own and helped structure other beliefs.
"To The Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf, uses this and begins by establishing two characters, one the rationalist, objective, logic, oriented Mr. Ramsay, and the other believer, hopeful, reassuring, intimate Mrs. Ramsay.
Meanwhile, Lily Briscoe is a young woman who has taken to painting, and in my opinion sort of the voice of Virginia Woolf in the novel. Being a painter, she busies herself to get things right in art. The finer details of colors, distance between objects, shadows, etc in the painting. This has been used metaphorically for life where she struggles to find the right distance in relations to other people or object.
We all constantly experience this phenomenon of "should we maintain a distance or should we go too close to a person?". How to connect to others without losing or submerging oneself? Woolf and other thinkers, tell us that there are no consensus answers on this one.
Humans have this innate need to explain the world to one self, or else you cannot tread through it.
One way is through reason. But "To The Lighthouse" cites through several characters, the limitations of reason. The other way is through beauty and love. For both naturally connect and establish relations.
However, it still doesn’t reveal the greater real (which was the magnum duty of the Renaissance period). Mr Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay constantly battle with what is real. Both try different route, reason versus connection, and yet remain quite unsure.
These writings from both the thinkers came around world war one. Seventy two million people were drafted in the war. And in the immediate next year, there was epidemic of influenza that killed almost twice the numbers of people killed in the war. During war, all the concerns of reason, love, and beauty faded away in the downpour of the darkness.
The novel closes on the never-to-be found real meaning of life. Certainly not as great revelations. Perhaps as small points of illuminations. Things and people change over time and over distance. Woolf tries to settle with not wanting the really real, but only a small light through smally, tiny encounters. I believe she meant this to be an art.
Freud and Woolf see art as a solace, the former as fantasy and temporary, and the other as intimate and indicative. Both Freud and Woolf wants us to have ahistorical perspective of life, where we practice self-awareness and look for connecting with people and things in a loving way, and not get overwhelmed by either the norms of the society or the conflicts of desires.
I wish to establish that both thinkers observe art as being used as a healing/palliative measure, however Freud regards it as a mere substitution or fantasy, and hence sort of an escape, whereas Woolf regards art as primary, something beyond the art itself, and hence subscribed-prescribed it for life.
The turn of the nineteenth century towards the twentieth was seen as a melting pot of culture, and a turn from social towards individual self.
Freud believes that the human life is built on the pursuit of pleasure principle. That humans have desires, and seeking and fulfilling it gives pleasure.
To Freud, there seems to be three sources of suffering: the body, the nature and the relations.
- Body has needs for survival and reproduction, hence also challenges of sexuality and mortality
- Nature is unpredictable and unfathomable, and requires co-operation to manage
- Relations are mode of co-operation, but they also place demands on oneself.
However, these renunciations take form of repression, aggression or guilt. And their memories manifest in human thinking and behavior. It is here that Freud offers a way of thinking about the past, basically the aspect of how do desires and their memories play a role in human life. In his essay on Dreams in 1900, he examines dreams as those desires that make humans suffer. A close examination of the dreams, because one's own censor is not working in dreams, reveals deeper selves, truer selves. And because these renunciations accumulate over a period of time, it creates pathology. Hence Freud sees one's history as creating one's pathology.
Furthermore, Freud observes that humans resort to three strategies as palliative measures, that is:
- Deflection: where we put our will and energies in direction of desires that have a path of least resistance.
- Substitution: compensatory forms for not being able to achieve pleasure elsewhere.
- Intoxication: becoming insensitive to displeasure or its suffering.
While Virginia Woolf with her extra-ordinary repertoire of understanding politics, family life, aesthetics, wrote a wonderful piece called “To the lighthouse”. This piece shifts us from the chase of really real towards knowledge as intimacy…finding thing that we can be closest to and connected with.
During the naturalistic revolution, she was a part of a group called the Bloomsbury group, of intellectuals, artists and writers, who shared political convictions for greater equality and less violence, arts and friendship. (Bloomsbury group had thinkers like George Moore, Keynes, Lytton Stracher, etc)
Woolf, while being the publisher of Freud's books in England, was also inspired by the great analytic philosopher George Moore. George Moore along with Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered as founding father of analytic tradition of philosophy.
George believed in ethics and aesthetics as primary and fundamental, and not as emergent property of some other things. He emphasized that no amount of deduction of the "good" will be compelling or correct. Good is intrinsic, good in of itself. "Good" is not inter-related, nor systematic. We can’t deduce it from others. Intrinsic good like friendship, love and art stood on their own and helped structure other beliefs.
"To The Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf, uses this and begins by establishing two characters, one the rationalist, objective, logic, oriented Mr. Ramsay, and the other believer, hopeful, reassuring, intimate Mrs. Ramsay.
Meanwhile, Lily Briscoe is a young woman who has taken to painting, and in my opinion sort of the voice of Virginia Woolf in the novel. Being a painter, she busies herself to get things right in art. The finer details of colors, distance between objects, shadows, etc in the painting. This has been used metaphorically for life where she struggles to find the right distance in relations to other people or object.
We all constantly experience this phenomenon of "should we maintain a distance or should we go too close to a person?". How to connect to others without losing or submerging oneself? Woolf and other thinkers, tell us that there are no consensus answers on this one.
Humans have this innate need to explain the world to one self, or else you cannot tread through it.
One way is through reason. But "To The Lighthouse" cites through several characters, the limitations of reason. The other way is through beauty and love. For both naturally connect and establish relations.
However, it still doesn’t reveal the greater real (which was the magnum duty of the Renaissance period). Mr Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay constantly battle with what is real. Both try different route, reason versus connection, and yet remain quite unsure.
These writings from both the thinkers came around world war one. Seventy two million people were drafted in the war. And in the immediate next year, there was epidemic of influenza that killed almost twice the numbers of people killed in the war. During war, all the concerns of reason, love, and beauty faded away in the downpour of the darkness.
The novel closes on the never-to-be found real meaning of life. Certainly not as great revelations. Perhaps as small points of illuminations. Things and people change over time and over distance. Woolf tries to settle with not wanting the really real, but only a small light through smally, tiny encounters. I believe she meant this to be an art.
Freud and Woolf see art as a solace, the former as fantasy and temporary, and the other as intimate and indicative. Both Freud and Woolf wants us to have ahistorical perspective of life, where we practice self-awareness and look for connecting with people and things in a loving way, and not get overwhelmed by either the norms of the society or the conflicts of desires.
"The Art of Life" seems to be in finding and creating life by "connecting more" than "correcting more".
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