Sunday 2 March 2014

WHAT DRIVES US

'...an orientation toward a particular vision of the good life becomes embedded in our dispositions or "adoptive unconscious" by being pictured in concrete, alluring ways that attract us in a non cognitive level ... By "pictures" of the good life I mean aesthetic articulations of human flourishing as found in images, stories, and films (as well as advertisements, commercials, and sitcoms). Such pictures appeal to our adoptive unconscious because they traffic in the stuff of embodiment and affectivity. Stories seep into us - and stay there and haunt us - more than a report on the facts. A film like Crash gets hold of our hearts and minds and moves us in ways that textbooks on racism never could. This is because it is a medium that traffics in a wavelength, as it were, that is closer to the core of our being. Such compelling visions, over time, seep into and shape our desire and thus fuel dispositions toward them.' 
James KA Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, p.58.