Burke Loves Pain

Burke-“Our Ideas of the sublime and the Beautiful” 

                Curiosity and novelty, seemingly positive attributes, lead to momentary breaks from the norms of familiarity. To Burke curiosity and novelty are limited due to their fickle natures that reside on an obsession with the new and unusual. Thus, to prevent restlessness people seek stimulation via other types of passions. We seek pleasure and joy (linked to life and health) and pain and danger (linked to illness, death, and self-preservation). For Burke the latter of these two groups impact the human experience more strongly than the former. However, this is not to say that one is linked to notions of negativity while the other is to be seen as a positive. Burke views both groups of emotions as positives that exist separate of one another and are not dependent on each other. Most of time the human mind is neither in pain nor in pleasure, rather, it is in a state of indifference. Pleasure, by the mere fact that it is an effect of satisfaction and tranquility, leaves us, after its resolution, in a state of indifference similar to that which it found us in before the induction of pleasure (despite said indifference being tinged with the color of the experienced pleasure); because, it’s very founding is that of ease and so it eases in and out of our lives. Whereas, pain is a different type of positive, as it induces feelings of sobriety, senses of awe, tranquil horror, and emotional immediacy that is lacking in traditional pleasure and regular states of indifference.

                Now, one might point out that pleasure and pain, normally, are seen as bi polarities and thus exist only once one is removed. I.E. with the removal of pleasure one experiences pain. For Burke, this is a naïve and rather bass way of interpreting pain and pleasure. For Burke the absence of pleasure is brought about by a natural transgression towards indifference, a break referred to as disappointment, or a removal that speaks to an irreversible loss and this is known as grief. These three results caused by the dissipation, abrupt lack of, or forever removal of pleasure do not lead to a true sense of pain as Burke defines it.

                So why does Burke prefer Pain to Pleasure if they are both defined as positives? He states: 

                “Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is               in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to    terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the           mind is capable of feeling” (459).

To Burke, the ideas of pain are more powerful than that of pleasure because tormented suffering leads to greater effects on the mind and the body than does any pleasure which the mind might contrive. This in turn leads to the greatest pain, that of death. This is not to say that death is Painful in the traditional “owe that hurts” sense, but rather that it is the ultimate fate we must all accept. And what is more terrifying than the acceptance of our own moralities? And then is not Death the ultimate avenue to the sublime?

Burke closes his essay entitled ‘Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful” with a comparison of beauty and the sublime. Although he goes into a rather descriptive comparison of the two (ex: beauty is smooth and sublime is rough) his main point seems to be that the sublime is a result of pain (the greater passion) whereas beauty is the result of pleasure and thus is a lesser to sublimity. Thus despite their ability to unify they are to forever be considered separate entities. 

Personal Response: I found Burke to be a very interesting insomuch that his words enlivened a sense of argumentation within me.  His notions regarding pain and pleasure were interesting and seemingly believable on all fronts, except for one, and that is the idea that pleasure cannot be an avenue to the sublime because the sublime is an effect of pain. The sublime is supposed to be the most complex emotion that the human mind can attempt to touch and its complexity rests on the notion that it can never be fully understood or quantified because its power and expanse is beyond human consciousness. How then can pleasure be said to be disconnected from the sublime? When we mere mortals fall in love, press body to body, and break apart in another’s arms gasping, are we not touching something that is indefinable? Our bodies, in a technical sense, could be said to be copulating so as to produce children; but, most copulation has nothing to do with species regeneration. To me the ultimate pleasure is that of two bodies tangled amongst each other, lost in a world of their own making. When I’m there I feel like I am touching something beyond conscious understanding and I am not alone in this notion. How many artists devote their lives to the complexity found within the pleasures of the body? This is not to say that I disbelieve Burke’s notions regarding pain’s close relationship with sublimity, rather, that I believe both pain and pleasure are routes to the sublime. 

Burke, Edmund. "A Philisophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 2nd Ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.450-460. Print.