恐怖及其观众:伯克崇高论中的情感、政治与伦理

Terror and Its Spectators:Emotion,Politics and Ethics in Edmund Burke’s Aesthetics of the Sublime

伯克的崇高美学中存在一个令人困惑的问题:人们为什么能够从观看酷刑、示众等关乎他人受难的权力展演中体会到审美的快感?对这个问题的探索,既关系到伯克崇高论的情感观核心,即恐怖与畏惧等负面情感何以能够转化为审美的欣喜;也关系到文学艺术领域的恐怖诗学与暴力美学,即人们阅读哥特小说、观看恐怖电影的乐趣从何而来;此外,还联动着对美学研究的视域拓展,即伯克崇高论中隐含着怎样的政治编码、预设了何种伦理立场。本文期待通过对这一系列问题的解答,能够有助于厘清伯克崇高论中情感、政治和伦理之间的复杂缠绕,也为诸多征用了伯克式崇高美学的文化现象提供更为立体的阐释视角。

There is a perplexing question in Burke’s sublime aesthetics:why people can take aesthetic pleasure from watching the tortures and other public displays of power that involve the suffering of others?The exploration of this question is related to the emotional core of Burke’s theory of the sublime,that is,how negative feelings such as terror and fear can be transformed into aesthetic delight;it is also related to the poetics of horror and the aesthetics of violence,asking about how pleasure is aroused in reading Gothic novels and watching horror movies.In addition,it is also related to the questions about how and why politics and ethics are encoded in Burke’s theories of the sublime.By answering these questions,the paper hopes that it can help clarify the complex entanglement between emotion,politics and ethics in Burke’s aesthetics and provide a more vigorous perspective for the interpretation of the cultural phenomena employing the Burkean sublime.