Estetyka polityczna. Szkic projektu

Abstract

Toward a Political Aesthetics. An Outline of a Project

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to sketch out a conception of political aesthetics. The purpose of the conception is not so much to provide some more theoretical tools capable of conceptualising and explaining the well-known phenomena of the aesthetization of politics, as rather to point out that aesthetical needs, strivings, ideas and values are constitutive for all human types of endeavor, including the political ones. As a starting point, I attempt to undermine the dominant belief according to which an aesthetical perspective cannot play any significant role in a proper understanding of the politics. In my opinion this conviction is an obsolete leftover of both the traditional understanding of politics, as well as of the traditional understanding of aesthetics. The outlined conception is based upon a claim of the fundamental role played by the aesthetical sphere for other spheres of human life. I argue that aesthetic needs, experiences, ideas and values are intrinsically dynamic; I also sketch an argument demonstrating their crucial role in the processes of the production of social spaces. The argument in favour of the intimate relationship between the aesthetical and the political is based upon an analysis of the concept of order, which plays a crucial role in both of them.

Keywords: aesthetics, politics, production of space, order.