I respond to this with pleasure, does that spoil your thesis, Third?
I prefer this Dr Macabre tune even more though
But yeah i wonder do we ever
really go beyond the pleasure principle - or are these harsh / punitive aesthetic experiences really just a more interestingly convoluted path to the same buzz
Does what goes on inside the head, neurochemically, actually differ from what's going inside the head of someone listening to i dunno Abba?
Take spicy food - I have a very high tolerance, and quite regularly will put myself through culinary ordeals that edge into the "what is the point of a dining experience that you have to
withstand?" / macho extreme zones. But pretty soon, after enough mouthfuls, the brain-heroin starts to pumping and i'm having this floating mystical high.
So it could be that I've just trained myself for this means-to-end, delayed pay-off thing
Is the same thing going on with body-punishment music?
And does anyone ever really subject themselves to things that actively displeasure and distress them?
Even the old pervs in that tabloid story from some years ago, who had a private club where they'd get their foreskins nailed to the floor and their scrotum sacks sandpapered, were still pursuing pleasure in their own way