Art: a means to regain the laughter of infancy

Civilization has become an uncritical style of life that sacrifices the free energies of the citizen to a self-absorbed and largely fictional pattern of social meaning. Free energies can lead us back to the laughter of play provided we gain a comprehension of the possibility inherent in art.

In his book “Wit and the Unconscious� Freud affirms a “connection between art and the pleasure-principle, but the pursuit, through art, of pleasure incompatible with the reality-principle is not despised but glorified.�

Freud recognizes an important connection between art and the pleasure-principle—art makes fun with the reality-principle—art is wit in humor’s clothing—wit recovers our childish behavior and places that playfulness into a form that the reality-principle will accept—the purpose of art is to “regain the lost laughter of infancy�.

When the psyche is not organized for acquiring our essential needs and instinctual demands for mere survival we can let that psyche work for our pleasure just from the mere fact that humans find pleasure in pure passionate activity. Art knows how to rediscover our childishness, our need for play, and our need for disinterested activity pursued merely for the pleasure such activity might bring.

We strive, through play, to reach the euphoria that Carl Sagan express when he said “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy�.

Freud uses the metaphor “art is wit�; we use wit as a means to find our way back to the pleasure-principle that has been hidden from us by our grinding capitulation to the reality-principle, which we have made education to be. We seek through art to regain “the laughter of infancy�.

Quotes from “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History� by Norman O. Brown.

infants are far more likely to cry than laugh. In fact, they come out of the womb crying. There's little laughter in infancy, so the desire to formulate a theory of aesthetics based on an infant's laughter is doomed from the start. Rather, Schopenhauer's theory of aesthetics is closer to the truth, which states that the aesthetic experience is characterized by the subject becoming one with the object during contemplation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schopenhauer's_aesthetics

To suggest any relation between an infant's laughter and aesthetic experience is, I believe, a mistake, as a certain type of maturity is required for aesthetic absorption and full appreciation that bears no relation to anything infantile.

I agree with Schope...Empathy is the type of experience he is speaking of. Empathy is a technique we use to understand another person. Understanding is the creation of meaning. In creating meaning we make the object or person connected to ourself. Carl Sagan sayid "Undestanding is a kind of ecstasy". And you are wrong about infants. I have 5 children and 7 grandchildren and children know what play is all about.

you're probably right. I don't have enough experience with children to say one way or another, though I'm skeptical that the type of play infants engage in is anything analogous to aesthetic absorption and appreciation. Why? Because their brains are not fully developed.

Freud uses the metaphor “art is wit�; we use wit as a means to find our way back to the pleasure-principle that has been hidden from us by our grinding capitulation to the reality-principle, which we have made education to be. We seek through art to regain “the laughter of infancy�.