Arguments for the prosecution and defense of religious and aesthetic sentimentality in times of crisis

Abstract

We can observe today the widespread neo-Thomistic criticism of religious sentimentality and contemporary criticism of aesthetic sentimentality. It seems that aversion to sentimentality is today the only thing which connects critics of religion and critics of contemporary art.

The aesthetic degradation of the concept of sentimentality began with a determined, rationalist criticism made by Kant. Since then, sentimentality has been a determinant of bad taste and a paradigm of bad art.

In the 1920s, Polish theologian O. Jacek Woroniecki proposed a decisive criticism of religious sentimentality. In his opinion, religious sentimentality is harmful due to the specific features of feelings, such as subjectivism, egoism, passivity and individualism.

The article presents the above-mentioned and other selected positions of critics, as well as a few defenders, of sentimentality. I analyze the social consequences of such attitudes and ask about the possibility of rehabilitation of a sentimental attitude in contemporary art and religion. In view of the broadly understood crisis of culture, which manifests itself, inter alia, through difficulties in mutual communication and understanding – a reinterpretation of delicate feelings such as pity, compassion and empathy could become deeply meaningful.