How Are Community Aesthetics and Screen Technologies Affecting The Personalities Of Those You Love?
“The enjoyment of nature is the mark of a good soul” –Immanuel Kant– Richard S. Waguespack Jr., BTH, MSW, LCSW 2.21.22 Last Revision “Insufficient facts always invite danger.” — Spock Aesthetics In the past, Aesthetics has been mostly confined to fields such as art and philosophy — addressing constructs of beauty, taste and how they relate to judgements, values and morals. However, in the past couple of decades those studying psychology, art and other humanities have become increasingly motivated to relate Aesthetics to perception, human development and other areas, particularly the sciences. In this essay, I hope to point to a broader constellation of essential variables to relate aesthetics to personality development, motivation, and community dynamics. This is so very important to understand as it relates to how people form basic likes and dislikes in many varieties of human expression – from movie productions, music, paintings, video games and photography to architecture, interior design and landscaping. All these components and more make up the emerging Metaverse of online communities. For starters I would like to conditionally affirm Palmer and Shimamura’s inference (2012) that “Aesthetic experiences drive hedonic responses” – as basic human processes that drive emotions. At the same time I think it important to point out that a person’s deep experiences with certain varieties of artistic beauty can certainly be transcendental and even transcendent. Deep imprints on personality, motivation and emotion are tied to aesthetic experiences and in some sense aesthetic choices, both within an introverted personal level and within group dynamics. In both philosophy and psychology perennial questions of aesthetics tend to revolve around why a person, group or community prefers exhibit A more than exhibit B, C or D. On a developmental level, we certainly understand that when one’s child or daughter hangs around a certain group, the prevailing collective “taste” and aesthetic decisions for good or ill will definitely affect his or her sense of aesthetics. Will this not be partially influenced by the group’s perceptions and penchants as well as the emotions and memories associated with the group experiences as they are recounted within a group of solitary recounting of the experiences? Community Aesthetics Mainstreaming and fortifying the construct of “community aesthetics” should be of great help to parents, teachers, counselors and others looking to reform or improve culture and to help fortify the optimal development of personalities of those they love. It is a way to constructively evaluate the learning and social environments of children, adolescents and adults of all ages, including those who have retired to a nursing home. When artists, including authors, musicians and filmmakers display or attend their work over decades they are in a sense “creating culture”. If they become celebrated enough, their hometown, friends and teachers as well as other places where they have lived become interesting to a wide range of followers. When interviewed, the inquirers often want to know what their intentions and related thoughts were at any given interval. After a celebrated artist passes away, some communities seek to preserve his or her property and form foundations to keep their memory alive. Somewhere along the way people explain what they liked or found interesting about the figure and in some cases what they disliked or found uninteresting. As our highly diversified culture continually expands and partitions various categories of aesthetics (entertainment), living persons with families may have to decide whether the artists being evaluated as well as many other influences on their children are to be approached or avoided. This includes food and various restaurants. On a primal “hedonic” level, each person prefers some food over other food and most people have foods they strongly like and dislike. Moving up the scale, people like some media more than others and prefer some types of prayer services over others. We find “good” aesthetics something to be grateful for and “bad” aesthetics something to be uneasy or even alarmed about. If you took your family to a special symphonic orchestra one week you are probably not going to be happy if your teenage son and daughter decides to attend a decadent heavy metal ‘concert’ in a big field outside the city limits the next week. What is their motivation? It might start off being “cool” and “with it” for peers but after they attend together for hours and hours in a peer to peer experience, they now have memories reinforced by the “music”… and then when they relive the “adventure” at various times in the future, the imprint on their taste and judgment might be long lasting. One thing that aesthetics may study in psychology in the future is why certain people have a very wide and developing taste in music and others, even in their 60s or 70s have been focused on “rock and roll” that with certain groups like Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones or “Grateful Dead”. When it comes right down to it, they are not particularly interested in most Christian music and many other genres available. They seem “stuck” in their likes and their likes are very narrow and in the minds of many “distasteful” and “juvenile”. Yet these very same people could very well be high functioning businesspeople, scientists, teachers, professors or school principals. There is some mystery here, but the reality of these people’s taste influencing future generations is quite significant if not formidable. In one high school environment I saw a high school band learn how to play a particular song almost soley because the principal was a big fan of the painted rock band that created it! In a number of other instances I have seen how leader’s aesthetics was something quite influential if not contagious among many students. In the most lamentable scenarios, I have seen at least one high school theatre teacher produce a school play with immoral and amoral undertones and overtones so thick you could cut them with a knife In such environments it can be quite uncomfortable to challenge entrenched ‘affinities’ and cultural acceptance or