In our sex-obsessed decadent society pornography is everywhere. Would you expect to find pornographic images cheek-by-jowl with a technical discussion of Gottlob Frege's dialogue with the Protestant theologian Bernard Pünjer on existence? Probably not. But take a gander at this site which I stumbled upon while looking for the aforementioned dialogue on the Web.
The proprietor of the site, Willis Domingo, seems at one time to have had some association with the University of Notre Dame. Anybody know anything about him?
The juxtaposition of philosophy and pornography is nothing new, of course; one finds it in the Marquis de Sade. But Domingo's side-by-side of philosophy of logic and porn may be a first.
As for the Marquis, he seems to have picked up some themes from old Callicles, as I document here.
But the combination (analytic style, porn) is original.
Parts of Alex Pruss's blog (analytic style, philosophy of sex, critique of porn) present a sort of a contrast to Domingo's site.
I will have to look at Pruss' critique of pornography.
One argument against porn is that a mind clouded by this stuff is rendered incapable of discerning higher truths.
I’ve long thought that Nietzsche’s fundamental distinction between moralities understood in terms of ‘good/evil’ vs. ‘good/bad’ is germane to pornography. As a rough and ready generalization, it seems that traditionalist or religious conservatives tend to view pornography as approaching ‘evil’ – something dangerous and menacing, worthy almost of a kind of fear. But surely it’s closer to the mark to say that it’s contemptible? (‘bad’ in the Nietzschean schema).
Aristotle offers a complementary notion when he speaks of the ‘man of high standards’. Simply put, it’s difficult to imagine that a man of high standards spends much time looking at porn. To do so seems frivolous, petty, low, weak – ignoble, in other words. To draw out the extremes, and certainly at the risk of caricature … the man of high standards responds to pornography with “don’t waste my time,” whereas the ‘traditionalist’ in effect says “don’t tempt me!”
Does the man of high standards never look at porn, then? That conclusion seems overdrawn, but surely such indulgence is not in any way central to his ethos, that is to say, character.
Just the other day I stopped in at your blog and saw that you haven't been posting.
Your comment is a good one. Certainly pornography is base, contemptible, schlecht. I'd have to check, but I think that is the word N. uses for 'bad.' And one could argue that one who is tempted by it is weak unlike the self-realized, proud, noble man of Aristotle and Nietzsche.
But how one views pornography depends on one's underlying metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. Spiritual eyes blinded by lust cannot discern higher truths, discernment of which is necessary for achieving our true destiny. If that is right, then pornography is not merely bad but evil.
And wouldn't you say there is something Nietzschean about de Sade?
Regarding your point that pornography, qua impediment, merits being called “evil,” I think it makes a certain amount of sense to speak that way. However pornography ceases then to be a special case; presumably anything which distracts or prevents one from realizing oneself would be similarly regarded.
As I read Nietzsche, one of his central points regarding the contrast of “slave morality” and “master morality” is that each represents a fundamentally different sense, and experience, of life. The prototypical master’s sense of life entails feelings of strength and efficacy. By contrast the prototypical slave’s sense of life entails feelings of weakness and enervation. Transmuting these notions into modern psychological jargon, self-confidence predominates in the one, and self-doubt/fear in the other (not to mention ressentiment).
It’s an interesting argument to make, since it seems to involve a certain circularity, but my position is that there is more to admire in one who takes an attitude about porn “from a height” (viz., with due contempt), rather than viewing it primarily as something that is “threatening” (back to Aristotle: contrast megalopsuchia and micropsuchia).
If I remember correctly, “the spirit of gravity” is one of Zarathustra’s enemies, and he is wont to seek revenge against this nemesis in joyous song and dance. Humor and lightheartedness can be playful, less “heavy” forms of contempt, and one of my favorite passages from Daybreak has Nietzsche wondering why one can’t respond to unwise sexual urges with good-natured resistance, rather than - here I take great liberty in my paraphrase - having the desperate sense that one’s salvation is on the line.
There are many things I admire about religion and religiosity, but the sensibility that spiritual snares and traps are always near at hand is not one of them.
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