Ok so after a couple of days of intense discussions with friends about various stuff, i came up with the following thought: People’s mindset is a mixture of the homo economicus and sexuality.
By “sexuality” is meant the sum of all desires that do not result from immediate economic pressures, such as things that don’t result in money or physical possessions of any sort. According to some 20th century psychologist “Freud” basically all art is the transformed sexuality of people. The english wikipedia article states it badly because it says that this process only happens because the original sexual urge is suppressed or not allowed, while the german literature speaks of it more neutrally, as something that just happens. There’s also a lot of similar concepts such as eros which say:
Eros (/ˈɪərɒs/, US: /ˈɛrɒs, irɒs, -oʊs/; from Ancient Greek ἔρως (érōs) ‘love, desire’) is a concept in ancient Greek philosophy referring to sensual or passionate love, from which the term erotic is derived. Eros has also been used in philosophy and psychology in a much wider sense, almost as an equivalent to “life energy”. Psychoanalysis uses the term to describe the universal desire that drives all innate needs (of the id), which according to Freud is identical to Plato’s conception.
So the process goes something like that: you want to impress the girl next door, but to do that, you need to create some artwork to show her that you’re worthy, thus creating art as a byproduct, which is exactly what is meant: “all art is the result of transformed sexuality”.
The second I hear Freud, my instinct is to instantly disassociate. I’m not a fan of enlightenment era political thought, but I’ll try to engage.
“Homo economicus”, the idea that people act in their own economic self interest makes far too many assumptions about people’s goals and simply isn’t seen in reality. I’d say people usually want peace of mind of SOME kind. Some (like my parents) can interpret that as economic independence in the form of generational wealth, but people can interpret that DRASTICALLY differently. I see our wealth and status as land lords as a curse, where a simple family dispute can end in a random unrelated person losing their home, the polar opposite of “peace of mind” in my book. If you look around especially outside your socioeconomic sphere, you will find exceptionally diverse opinions on this, I’d consider my take still within some semblance of a “norm”.
And if you redefine “desire” as “sexuality” then it’s hardly surprising that what you now call “sexuality” reflects the desire behind one’s “mindset”. I fail to see how this is anything but word play that just makes modern people confused, considering you’re invoking a meaning that is divorced from said word by countless generations, cultures and even languages. In my personal case, my sexual, romantic and intellectual desires have little to no overlap and therefore I find it useful to describe them as such. Their only commonality is that in practice I’d prefer my romantic partner to be able to meet me in the other 2 domains, but I can get both without a romantic partner and vice verse.
Hmm yeah i fully agree with this. I personally don’t really want to be “rich” or wealthy beyond what i need to live myself. Sadly, we live in a world where we can only live a somewhat good life if we have enough wealth to do that. Which is sad, if it weren’t for modern circumstances, i’d consider being a vagabond or otherwise rather poor person just to travel around, do silly things, meet other people, that’s it.