In Aesthetic Theory (written between 1956 and 1959 and published posthumously in 1970), sociologist and philosopher Theodor Adorno, a member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, wrote “Foreignness [Fremdheit] to the world is an element of art.” However, such a statement is no longer true when considering contemporary artistic trends. In contemporary society, we have witnessed an expulsion of otherness, as philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han’s book The Expulsion of the Other suggests. This attitude toward foreignness or alterity has extended to various spheres of society from politics to psychiatry to culture and art. It is largely based on what Han calls likability, a cultural phenomenon that developed recently in today’s society of positivity.
In his 2020 publication, The Palliative Society, Han claims that our society is “increasingly a society characterized by a mania for liking. Everything is smoothed out until it becomes agreeable and well-liked.…. Nothing is meant to cause pain. Not just art but life itself should be instagrammable, that is, free of rough edges, of conflicts or contradictions that could cause pain.” Contemporary society, Han argues, is one that is excessively algophobic. He writes, “Today, a universal algophobia rules: a generalized fear of pain. The ability to tolerate pain is rapidly diminishing. The consequence is a permanent anesthesia. All painful conditions are avoided.” The culture of likability follows this algophobic societal trend, as artistic forms are anesthetized. They are forced to become agreeable and well-liked, which implies both a removal of pain and an adaptation to prevailing tastes. This phenomenon assimilates art and homogenizes it into a culture of positivity and sameness, leaving no space for negative alterity or foreignness.
The revolutionary potential of art, then, its core of negativity, has been stripped from it by likability. “Art,” Han states, “must be able to alienate, irritate, disturb, and, yes, even to be painful. It dwells somewhere else. It is at home in what is foreign. It is just this foreignness that accounts for the aura of the artwork. Pain is the tear through which the wholly other can enter. It is precisely negativity that enables art to provide a counter-narrative to the dominant order.” Art’s creative and revolutionary potential relies on negativity. The purpose of art is not to benefit wellbeing or be free of rough edges; it is to disrupt and cause pain. This art provides counter-narratives and critiques the dominant order; it does not adapt to likability and assimilate into a homogenous cultural mass of sameness. It diversifies and revolutionizes; it introduces what is wholly other into the world, which causes pain to the status quo.
However, the status quo of excess positivity and algophobia anesthetizes art, which causes us to miss out on art’s radical purifying potential. “What has been forgotten is that pain purifies,” Han writes. “It has a cathartic effect. The culture of the likeable and the agreeable lacks any opportunities for catharsis. We are thus suffocated by the residues of positivity which accumulate beneath the surface of the culture of likes.” The culture of likability represses what is painful and excludes any potential for otherness, resulting in residual harm from excesses of the Same. Painful art, on the contrary, embraces otherness; it possesses the element of foreignness Adorno speaks of. This negativity cathartically purifies and revolutionizes the social order, which is currently trapped in an excess of positivity .
Now Gimme a Kiss...!
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