14 - Aesthetics in Friendship and Intimacy

Summary

Abstract

Aesthetic matters are important in friendships and intimate relationships. But aesthetic tensions strain relationships if they are not managed. A close relationship between members of different societies is just a special case among close relationships generally. Every individual has a unique aesthetic biography, and the person's tastes and aesthetic repertoire are shaped by many cultural influences, some of them coming from the micro-cultures to which the person belongs. This ensures that complete accord between two individuals’ aesthetic sensibilities is exceedingly unlikely. People who are close frequently disagree on matters of order, decoration, and style, and this is especially obvious among those who share a home. The strategy of separating spheres of aesthetic control can sometimes mitigate conflict, but managing aesthetic tensions often requires creativity. Fortunately, love for another often leads one to develop affection for his or her quirks, and optimally this extends to the peculiarities of the person's aesthetic tastes.

Keywords: friendship, aesthetic sensibility, aesthetic experience, aesthetic judgement

Accounting for Aesthetic Differences

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera depicts a pair of ill-matched lovers, Sabina and Franz, whose relationship ultimately dissolves because of the many ways in which they misunderstand each other. Kundera's narrator proposes as an explanation the fact that they met only relatively late in life:

While people are relatively young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together andexchange motifs …, but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.

The narrator proceeds to offer a “short dictionary” that highlights some of the characters’ different understanding of words and what they name, with entries such as “Woman,” “Parades,” and “The Beauty of New York.” In each case, Sabina and Franz have radically different reactions. For example, Franz, an idealistic professor from Geneva, associates parades with the demonstrations he participated in as a student. They make him feel connected to the “real world” of other people and political events. By contrast, Sabina, an artist, associates all parades with the obligatory May Day parades of her student years in Czechoslovakia, in which people were compelled to march in lockstep.