Notes on Karatani's "Uses of Aesthetics"

“Okakura, with Fenollosa, uncovered the statue Kannon… as art. Previously, it had been hidden in a section of Horyuji Temple called Yumedono for centuries. The whole history of Asia is stylistically condensed in this sculpture.”  

--Kojin Karatani, “Uses of Aesthetics: After Orientalism” (pg. 156)

This quote particularly struck me as an illustration of Karatani’s point, in his article, “Uses of Aesthetics: After Orientalism.” He details the danger of “bracketing”[1] (because it then becomes very difficult to “un-bracket”). He criticizes that aestheticism recognizes only the intriguing, exotic, ornate, and beautiful of another culture—simply another form of orientalism, bracketed into a disillusioned “respect.” In the quote above, Karatani reveals, in action, aestheticism’s failure to “unbracket”: “The whole history of Asia stylistically condensed in this sculpture”—really? The whole history of Asia? And how do you know the idol is art in the first place? According to Okakura, the statue was art; according to those who originally made and kept it, the statue was a holy figure of the temple, not a piece for museum exhibition (“the statue had been the object of religious awe rather than artistic worship” [pg. 157]).  In coining the statue as ‘art,’ although he praised it with the highest admiration, he decontextualized its intended worth, and became a colonialist by assigning foreign interpretation and significance. Though perhaps unaware, he still completely missed a non-European-centered view of this culture; his conception of art was assigned to their world. Regardless of whether the makers had intended it to be art or not, it became art by Okakura’s notion of what art entails. This seems a form of benign imperialism—but imperialism all the same. Instead of approaching a culture with the mentality to hear from its real individuals, we approach with the mentality to assign to its whole what we’ve already heard. In a selfish form of esteem, we pull evidence to fill our established bracket of the “foreign,” and get from it an intensified interest and admiration—which, of course, brings us personal enjoyment. Karatani here critiques the unbalanced non-recognition of individuals. He states that no side—western or otherwise—should dominate; rather, social awareness should guide when to “bracket” and when to not, leading to a balanced appreciation of other cultures, and recognition of each individual’s validity as a real, individual human being.  

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[1] Internalizing an object’s identity based upon what that object’s identity is assigned to be, and therefore “bracketing” other feelings normally associated with it  (pg. 151). We find pleasure—based on the Kantian idea of our interaction with objects—in “bracketing” normally negative or uncomfortable connotations; the greater the “bracket,” the greater the pleasure. (“The act of bracketing displeasure gives pleasure on another level…For instance, an evil that calls for ethical opposition can offer pleasure in the subjective project of bracketing the ethical concern. For this reason, aestheticism rather needs evil or abjection…The aesthetic stance, or aestheticism, gets pleasure not from its object, but by bracketing various reasons to the object.”) (pg. 151)