Critical Analysis- Terror and “the Sublime”

Posted On 2021-01-15

This was an English class… from Jan 21? Seven-page essays just a couple weeks into a community college semester? So traumatic that I’ve forgotten all about writing this one as well. My sentence structure is a little elaborate at times…

In their individual works, both Edmund Burke and Sigmund Freud explain their respective beliefs about the paramount nature of some fears within human consciousness. The singular emotional experiences they describe would by definition be formative; whether Burke’s fight-or-flight peril or Freud’s neuroses, tapping into either would be a memorable event. The words of both suggest that the learning from such experiences would be considerable, establishing the potential for there to be considerable value in visiting spaces either ‘sublime’ or ‘uncanny’. A question that is suggested then is to what degree can these shared learnings be common? Both speak to circumstances that are accessible to all but experienced by few. This analysis will attempt to explore, in the context of the authors’ work, whether a more universal activity – dreaming – can provide a means for universal exposure to otherwise (fortunately) singular circumstance.

Burke’s concept of the ‘sublime’ is based on the same conceptual or experiential pinnacle with which we currently define the term, but he approaches that peak from a different direction. By positing that fears associated with self-preservation are the strongest feelings within our range, the logical peak becomes those fears associated with moments of true existential terror. While his conclusions resonate, his process is notable for its subjectivity. “I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure” (Burke, The Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime). Perhaps lacking from Burke’s own experience were pleasures powerful enough to leave a mark or lingering hunger, perhaps otherwise his words today would oppose Freud’s rather than harmonize with them? Absent data, one can only speculate.

A conservative politician, Burke’s work does not lend itself to volumes of creative interpretation. Most of Burke’s writings are in response to a particular political need or circumstance (Pappin). There are few outright flights of fancy in which he might indulge his pen on such outlandish subjects as those disparate realities created by billions of unconscious minds. Some logical conjecture is therefore necessary to explore our question. Burke spends little time on the specific subject of dreams, but the subject of metaphysics is a not-uncommon foil in his writing. Representative of abstracted conceptual reality, metaphysics here is projected to be representative of Burke’s sense of the reality within dreams.

To this end he writes with seeming conviction, “Metaphysical or Physical Speculations neither are, or ought to be, the Grounds of our Duties; because we can arrive at no certainty in them” (Somerset). Here the functional nature of Burke’s writing must be taken into consideration- in addressing a different audience, he is receptive to the value of leadership informed by the subjective. “Circumstances are infinite, are infinitely combined, are variable and transient: he who does not take them into consideration is not erroneous, but stark mad (…) A statesman, never losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment, he may ruin his country forever” (Burke, The Works). Later in the same volume he conveniently provides his own analysis of the different perspectives conveyed. Rather than deny entirely the merit of the metaphysical abstract, “I do not vilify theory and speculation: no, because that would be to vilify reason itself…No, – whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded, or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering that it is a false theory is by comparing it with practice” (Burke, The Works).

In assembling these perspectives, we find a Sublime that would seem to be accessible to many but of practical use to few. A conservative pragmatist, Burke put reality first in his profession. The intensity and accessibility of the Sublime are debated less than their applicability. Speaking as he does to his peers, the fellow leaders of state, he encourages receptivity to mystery while insisting that distractions from clarity should be discarded when interacting with the reality of the physical world.

Freud in his exploration of ‘the uncanny’ derived a trope not unlike Burke’s- that there was a level of discomfort that could be felt with greater severity than could any other sensation. Differing in method, Freud’s pseudoscientific conceit considered as paramount those fears that have survived for the longest time in our individual and collective experience. These particular fears compose ‘the uncanny’- a particular subset of things that are ‘scary for whatever reason’. To be sure, the existential crises embraced by Burke are present in Freud’s uncanny bucket, but they have company.

Unlike Burke, Freud explored the subject of dreams in volumes of detail. In Freud’s vision of a layered consciousness, dreams were a necessary outlet or means of expression for thoughts or wishes that were for whatever repressive reason prevented from reaching the surface awareness on their own. Differing fundamentally from Burke’s practicality, “The unconscious is the true psychic reality; in its innermost nature it is as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is as incompletely presented by the data of consciousness as is the external world by the communications of our sense organs” (Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams). The subconscious workings of the mind are presented here as mysterious as well, but of immeasurable importance. Sensation, sensed perception, these are the fabric of Freud’s unconscious reality.

The unknown nature of this ‘psychic reality’ presents a challenge. As poorly-understood as it can be, are there thought-of or wished-for realities that are ‘less real’ than others? Could seemingly ‘uncanny’ experiences be something less, false positives with potentially false lessons being learned? Freud himself suggests otherwise- “For consciousness (…) can be excited in waking life from two sources: firstly, from the periphery of the whole apparatus, the perceptive system; and secondly, from the excitations of pleasure and pain which emerge as the sole psychic qualities yielded by the transpositions of energy in the interior of the apparatus. All other processes (…) are devoid of all psychic quality, and are therefore not objects of consciousness” (Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams). Here he clarifies the boundaries of the unconscious and the inclusion of dreams as a part of that reality. As ‘transportations of energy in the interior of the apparatus [brain]’, the sensations of pain and pleasure incited by dreams contain the psychic qualities necessary to make them objects of reality within the consciousness. As a gateway to all manner of psychic pains, dreams would indeed open a door to the Uncanny through which anyone might pass, consciousness optional.

The approaches applied by each towards their identification of the Big Bad are distinct, but neither are necessarily any more correct than the other. The quantification of social issues will always result in some level of abstraction. That said, Burke’s dubious respect for the metaphysical would likely put him at odds with Freud’s adventures within that space. The multiple fearful paths into Freud’s ‘uncanny’ would certainly seem to credit the scope of human experience with greater depth and complexity than does Burke’s ‘sublime’, but his own words capture the essence of the question of the eventual obsolescence of both- “The Middle Ages consistently ascribed all such maladies to the influence of demons, and in this their psychology was almost correct” (Freud, The “Uncanny”). Freud belittles the thought of the Middle Ages by comparing it to his present, and the achievements of his predecessors are diminished as well. In the years since Freud, many of his own interpretations have become archaic, while other have been left tinged with association. With respect to this analysis, both his words and those of Burke are suspect for their ambiguity, but defensible for the same reason. While fully awake, a feeling can be amorphous and beyond reach; no science in the last century can call an unconscious feeling any more or less so.

In personal experience, it’s difficult to say whether I have earned entry into either realm. The most likely qualifier, and the foundation of this analysis, would be the experience of death (or near-death) in dreams. In previous years, narrative dreams would frequently include a moment where death was a near-inevitable outcome. Years later I remember the paralyzing fear my mind had created to sell me on the reality of these tales. This is not a certain admission fee, however. First, there are ambiguities I could not begin to parse between the ‘reality’ of an emotion felt while dreaming vs its conscious experience. Both Burke and Freud may have made up their minds on the subject, but I remain unconvinced. Second, I’m a slightly lucid dreamer and was usually able to steer myself from death by either changing the story or waking myself. I know when I’m dreaming, and I know I’m (at least in part) an author of the story. So just how authentic could those feeling have been, if I were conscious of a possible ‘out’ from my own psychic reality?

In broader social experience, the accessibility of these levels of dread remains, although the scales have certainly been tipped by years of history. The fear of unnatural animation is certainly an old one, but the cinematic ‘uncanny valley’s creepiness is not quite existential, and guidebooks are easily available on the do’s and don’ts of a zombie invasion. It is unfortunate that the likeliest source of feeling on that level would come from the observation of reality, though that would depend on the individual’s level of empathy for any of the smorgasbord of existential crises on our menus today. Looking at Freud’s words today, he would almost seem to be describing a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. In that context, the many triggers available to the more acute sufferers of that condition would each be able to provide an access point today to that intensity of unfortunate experience.

To the more fragile, any number of creative devices may become fraught with a very non-fictional sense of peril. For the more jaded among us there are options as well- footage of heads cleaved from people who once had a future, of icebergs cleaved from poles on a planet we still hope has a future. Whether awake or in slumber, there would seem to be plenty of room for all, and plenty of learning still to be had, in these dark places.

Works Cited

Burke, Edmund. “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.” Leitch, Vincent B. et al. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd Ed. Norton, 2015. pp 450-460.

Burke, Edmund. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke. Vol. 2. London: F. & C. Rivington, 1803. Web. <https://archive.org/details/edmundburke02burkuoft>.

Freud, Sigmund. “The “Uncanny”.” Leitch, Vincent B. et al. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd Ed. Norton, 2015. pp 824-841.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. 3rd Ed. Vienna, 1911. Web. <http://engl262g-driskill.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/The%20Inerpretation%20of%20Dreams.pdf/547541890/The%20Inerpretation%20of%20Dreams.pdf>.

Pappin, Joseph L. The Metaphysics of Edmund Burke. New York: Fordham University Press, 1993. Web. <https://books.google.com/books?id=rcfImzAWS9kC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>.

Somerset, H.V.F. A Note-Book of Edmund Burke. Cambridge University Press, 1957.