Dissonance and Harmony

Dissonance is typically conceived as a negative phenomenon, often as equivalent to Pain or Ugliness.  One apparent exception is Adorno's analysis, according to which Dissonance and Harmony converge--"Dissonance is the truth about harmony.  Harmony is unattainable", for there is "friction in harmony itself" (Aesthetic Theory, 'Harmony and Dissonance').  However, according to his Dialectical method, the convergence of opposites is the rule, not the exception, so he implicitly agrees that Dissonance is fundamentally negative.  Still, that brief moment of convergence that he does recognize exposes the flaw in his concept of the opposition of Dissonance and Harmony--an unexamined presupposed definition of the latter as a positive moment.  In contrast, Harmony and Dissonance can each be defined as a combination of Attraction and Repulsion, with what is typically denoted by 'harmony' as involving less Repulsion than what is typically denoted by 'dissonance'.  On that basis, their distinction is evinced as one of degree in a range between absolute Unity and absolute Dissociation, as are the Beauty-Dissonance and the Pleasure-Dissonance distinctions.  Accordingly, the similarity between Harmony and Dissonance that Adorno discovers is that each entails both Unity and Multiplicity, e. g. it is the Multiplicity entailed in Harmony that constitutes its "friction".

Dissonance, Artwork, Artist

As has been proposed, Dissonance can be defined as a certain contrast of Repulsion and Attraction obtaining between 1) an observer, and 2) a certain contrast of Repulsion and Attraction amongst the components of some object.  Thus, the Aesthetic evaluation that abstracts from the internal structure of an object, and includes as a factor an hypothesis regarding the intention of effects of the object on an observer, is a judgment about, more accurately, an Artist, not an Artwork.  So, Kant's concept of Aesthetic Judgment, which is an instance of that concept of Evaluation, lacks the capacity to even recognize Dissonance properly.

Aesthetic Dissonance, Cognitive Dissonance, Praxis

Like Aesthetic Dissonance, what is commonly known as 'cognitive' Dissonance involves the compresence of two apparently irreconcilable phenomena, but unlike that of the former, the latter experience often occasions an effort to reconcile them.  However, the difference between the two experiences does not consist in a variation between the two dissonances per se.  Rather, as has been previously discussed, the awareness of Dissonance is itself as dissonant condition--a combination of Repulsion and Attraction, the result of which is an inability to act.  And, while an inability to act enhances Aesthetic Experience, and is generally regarded as necessary condition for the evaluation of Art, it can be detrimental in the context of real-life experience.  Thus, the contrast illustrates that the intellectual need to overcome Cognitive Dissonance is, ultimately, one of Praxis.

Dissonance and Aesthetic Evaluation

Dissonance, as constituted by a certain combination of Repulsion and Attraction, obtains not only amongst the elements of an artistic performance, but between performance and audience, as well.  For example, the dissonant character of Tony Soprano, which viewers both are appalled by and sympathize with, is epitomized by the face of Gandolfini, with its juxtaposition of the eyes of a killer and the grin of a sheepish boy.  The phenomenon of artistic Dissonance is thus the occasion for a paradigmatic Aesthetic Experience, in which evaluation is from a vantage point that is simultaneously engaged in and detached from its object.  That perspective is located between the 'Apollinian' participant and the 'Socratic' critic in Nietzsche's analysis of Tragedy.

Will to Power, Vicious Cycle, Binaryism

Previously here, the term 'Binaryism' was introduced to replace the more traditional 'Dualism', because the latter is used virtually always to denote what is, more accurately, a pseudo-Dualistic Monism--a system apparently entailing two principles. but one of which is privileged either analytically or normatively, e. g. Mind-Body, Spirit-Matter, etc.  In contrast, systems exhaustively constituted by Repulsion-Attraction, or Expulsion-Appropriation, i. e. Dissonance, are Binary, because their principles are mutually independent, and neither is subordinate to the other.  Thus, the formulation, in #13 of Beyond Good and Evil, that the Will to Power is a drive that seeks "above all" to discharge strength, is the expression of a Monist principle.  Furthermore, it follows, from the formulation, that any acquisition of strength both is preceded by the discharge of strength and is a means to the discharge of strength, resulting in a cycle that is not logically 'vicious', though as constituting what some might call 'drudgery', might be evaluated as morally 'vicious'.  Accordingly, Eternal Recurrence is a property of the Will to Power, i. e. is its fundamental pattern, in which case it is subordinated to the latter in what is a Monist system.  However, the formulation plainly does not suffice to explain any growth process, nor even the possibility of affirming the cycle, which requires a perspective outside of it, both of which Nietzsche advocates elsewhere.  Thus, interpretations of him as advocating a Monist doctrine are problematic, at best.

Dissonance, Eternal Recurrence, Will to Power

In #25 of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche briefly suggests that an individual human is a instance of Dissonance, presumably because one is constituted by a combination of the Dionysian and the Apollinian principles, i. e. by impersonal and personal factors.  In contrast, in #37 of Human, All Too Human, he suggests a different dissonant constitution of Experience--it is "Janus-faced", i. e. simultaneously looking backwards and forwards.  Now, an example of the former dimension is the taking full responsibility for all one's previous deeds, while one of the latter is the initiation of a new action.  In other words, the concomitance, in individual experience, of the affirmation of Eternal Recurrence and the operation of the Will to Power constitutes a Dissonance, in which case neither is reducible to the other, contrary to some interpretations of their relation.

Will to Power, Expulsion, Appropriation

Examples of Appropriation are domination, exploitation, and suppression.  Examples of Expulsion are discharge and bestowal.  Now, processes from both groups are, at one point or another, implicated by Nietzsche in the manifestation of the Will to Power.  However, because he neither distinguishes Appropriation from Expulsion, nor methodically develops the Will to Power, he does not systematize those varying expressions of the principle.  He, thus, misses, for example, that any act of domination is preceded by a process of the discharge of strength, which implies that in the structure of the Will to Power qua process, Expulsion is more fundamental than Appropriation, i. e. the latter presupposes the former.  Thus, likewise, Bestowal is independent of any appropriative process.  Accordingly, Empowerment is a more fundamental expression of the Will to Power, as conceived by Nietzsche, than is Overpowering.