 
                         20060820.00

                     Existential esthetics

     For what should money properly be spent?  The question,
why is it or is it not a waste of money to spend $10 for a
bottle of wine raises similar questions: whether, for
example, assuming one is not a music or theater critic, who
needs to know what he/she is writing about in order to make a
living, it is a waste of money to pay $50 for admission to a
musical concert, or to a theatrical performance.

     The prototypical debate on this issue is in Matthew
26:6-12 with the account of the anointing in Bethany, where a
symbolic esthetic act is weighed against its monetary costs.
The canonical answer: the poor you have with you always, but
me you have with you not all the time, may be translated into
the contrast between what is meaningful in an objective
world-historical context, i.e., the feeding of the anonymous
poor who are at hand at all times, and the celebration of the
experience of this unique individual at this particular
moment.  It is the contrast between the conceptual
representation of past and future, of far and near in memory
and imagination one the one hand, and on the other the
immediate experience of this instant of consciousness,
exhaustive and compelling.

     So stated, the question is seen to reflect the duality
of mental processes in general, which inherently focus on the
here and now that is immediately before me, but which must
also, as a condition of social and organic survival, take
account of potential experience over a wide range of space
and time.  Whether the money in issue should instead "be
given to the poor", i.e.  used for charitable purposes is an
unlogical distraction. One might just as plausibly ask
whether this money should not instead be invested in real
estate or in Treasury Bonds, placed in the safe deposit box
or stuffed into the mattress. The issue may also be phrased
in terms of immediate vs. delayed gratification. Money, i.e.
wealth is meaningful only to the extent that it is actually
or potentially spent; and the question comes down to an
allotment. How much should be spent now, and for what, how
much should be "saved" for one purpose or another. The answer
obviously hinges on the total amount of wealth available;
hinges also on the quality and quantity of the gratification
obtained by its immediate expenditure.

     There are also important distinctions in the esthetic
and intellectual benefits obtained. One can begin by
reviewing on the one hand, the spectrum of beverages and
foods potentially available, on the other one may consider
the spectrum of theatrical and museum experiences. One may
ask, for example, why should red wine be preferable to white
wine, or beer to whisky, why should going to Disneyland be
more or less desirable than going to Tanglewood for Mahler's
Resurrection Symphony, to Stratford for Coriolanus and Henry
IV/1, or to Leipzig for the St. Matthew Passion.  And when
one asks these  questions in this way, one sees that there is
no answer.

     Would any fair-minded person deny that Falstaff is a
Disneyland character in the sense that a substantial portion
of Shakespeares audience that delighted in Falstaff's
buffoonery would also have been fascinated by what Disneyland
has to offer them: an important difference being the
circumstance that Shakespeare felt compelled to demonstrate
dimensions that extend far beyond what gives amusement to the
groundlings.

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Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
