Finding Elusive Resonances Across Cultures and Time

Abstract

This chapter is about meaningful connection in media entertainment in relation to the concept of resonance during an era of social and technological acceleration. A hierarchical model is proposed with a desire for pleasure at the concrete foundation and an aesthetic appreciation of meaning at the more abstract and universal level. This range of experience is examined in the context of Greek and Chinese thinking about resonance. For Ancient Greeks, resonance describes interpretative and expressive events where concrete bodily and immersive practices shape experiences that may have ethical and sociopolitical effects. In Plato, it branched into (1) passive reception that mirrors a copy and offers no direct access to truth but might merely condition a person or (2) a communion that reveals the ideal. Aristotle stressed the dynamics of resonance in theater to build a relatively autonomous agent who appreciates and reflects on ways that causes affect human action in the social world. In the Chinese part of this chapter, we examine scholarship related to the concept of resonance during the Six Dynasties period (220–589 CE) as well as its intellectual roots from Confucianism and Daoism. Major issues explored include: the function of resonance in artistic creation and appreciation as well as its social function from a Confucian perspective; the method that helps people experience resonance with nature or cosmos from a Daoist perspective; and finally, the concept of vital energy across the cosmos which facilitates the more profound experience of resonance.

Dialectical relations between culture and religion in self-transcending experiences of sublime and awe: The exemplar case of religious paintings.

“…This is in accordance with previous results showing a heightened caution of the Greek culture as compared to Canadian culture with arousal and the negative (Stamatopoulou et al, 2016), although the pursuit of happiness is not a culturally dominant scheme (Kafetsios et al, 2018). So, Greek Orthodox, by being very sensitive to contexts, while the paintings are not “ambiguous” to activate avoidance (Stamatopoulou et al, 2016) but familiar , actuate reflective moral-judgmental thoughts which are accommodative (see reflective engagement in Cupchik et al, 2021). This effect for Greek Orthodox is pronounced for West Romeo-Catholic, more realistic paintings that augment the painful , which triggers sharper moral reflections on the self in relation to the other/represented in the painting, than the symbolic, more abstract Byzantine figures do (see also Lang et al, 2020).…”

“…This taps into a new altered consciousness, and it has a peculiar pleasure of “oneness” from an elevated level. Here, however, we are almost back to Aristotle and his “aretaic-virtue” ethics within his Poetics (Cupchik et al, 2021) or to the “noetic” sense of revelation and intuitive insight often reported in mystic/religious awe (James, 1922).…”

“…This underlies a symbolization, proto-distancing process that rather grounds intersubjective, than subjective, self-reflexivity-attitude taking of the other from which self-reflection arises while being connected with the other (Cohen et al, 2007;Mead, 1934). This is an accommodative process based on the outward relational projection that turns back to the self as reflective engagement (see also Cupchik et al, 2021) with the transcending, significant/generalized other (see also Japanese awe, here, in Nakayama & Uchida, 2020) and suggests affinities with the Longinus' approach to sublime grounded long ago around the Mediterranean. This indicates that in the experience of sublime, the directionality of perceptual experience (seeing a scene or being in a scene effect; see Yang et al, 2019), the phenomenology of the selfperspectives, and the locus of self-reflexivity that triggers objective self-awareness (through subjective or intersubjective frames) may vary across cultures (Heine et al, 2008).…”

“…It might also be that in the receptive attitude, when the “failure” is actualized as a realization of the inconceivable—the completely unthinkable that taps the limits of the potentialities (control), the outbreak is admitted. This could be restored by realizing and virtually actualizing (reflectively) the essential, beyond potentiality, which brings up what is noteworthy, meaningful, or profound (as entelechy ; Cupchik et al, 2021; Stamatopoulou, 2007). This taps into a new altered consciousness, and it has a peculiar pleasure of “oneness” from an elevated level.…”

One hundred and fifty years after Fechner: A view from the “middle of the storm”.

“…The ultimate value of an aesthetic experience is that merely concrete sensations and situations are elevated to a more abstract level where universal lessons are achieved. This is a very Aristotelian perspective (Cupchik, Stamatopoulu, & Duan, in press).…”