The African Aesthetic in World Creativity: Anthony Braxton's Philosophy of Vibrational Affinity Dynamics
Abstract
With a focus on the African aesthetic in the context of world creativity, this article explores the conception of “vibrational affinity dynamics” formulated in Anthony Braxton's Tri-Axium Writings. From an African-centered position that exposes the historical and cultural interconnectedness of all modes of knowledge in world culture, Braxton's conceptual tools are examined in conjunction with a critique of the negative implications of Western culture that are associated with the tendency to suppress the multiformity of knowledge types that are perceived as Other. Braxton's related notion of “affinity insight” is analyzed and compared with related models from the European postphenomenological tradition. Braxton's affinity concepts are shown to facilitate the comprehension of the role that African culture has played in the re-spiritualization of Western culture—especially through creative music—in the past century, as well as the continued role that Africa will play in the positive transformation of world culture.
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1.
1. For an example of Braxton's understanding of the concept of race and its relationship to affinity dynamics, see Braxton (1985a, pp. 135-139; 1985b, p. 59; 1985c, p. 173).
2.
2. Graham Lock offers some insightful critical comments on Braxton's use of the word vibrational (see, in particular, Lock, 1999, p. 171).
3.
3. Braxton mentions Chancellor Williams and Yosef Ben Jochannan as examples of authoritative scholars on the history of the progressional development of African civilization.
4.
4. It is important to note that Braxton resists making the claim that African civilization, by way of Egypt, is the absolute beginning of history. He recognizes the “chicken-or-the-egg” absurdity of positing such a beginning, mentioning, albeit in passing, the possibility of the anteriority of Atlantis. This does not diminish, however, the central importance that Braxton attributes to African civilization for the understanding of the dynamics of world culture.
5.
5. Relevant to Braxton's (1985b) understanding of culture here is his notion of “high culture,” which he defines in the following passage: “If we would view a given segment of people as the vibrational resultant of the composite beings of that group and also the physical universe coordinates of the region that group existed in, then it would be possible to also view the high culture solidification of that group as an affirmation of the composite particulars underlying what these dynamic factors cosmically meant—I call that resultant center (or cultural center) and from that basis I have come to refer to a given sector with respect to its `vibrational-center-factor'” (p. 90).
6.
6. See, for example, Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Plato; Heidegger identifies in Plato a separation between the Idea and Being, a separation that has had ramifications for the destiny of post-Platonic Western philosophy and that Heidegger claims was directly responsible for the emergence and dominance of modern scientific thinking over the properly philosophical engagement with the question of Being.
7.
7. Braxton views the Western affinity alignment from the time of Plato and Aristotle up to the modern period of the past century as culminating in what he terms existentialism, resulting from a progressional disconnection from spiritualism. Braxton (1985a) also sees what he calls Western art music as developing in parallel to Western philosophy: “The basic thrust projection of western art music would move to become an existential expansion” (p. 63). Braxton draws the connection between “the early transfer junction concerning Pythagorean use of number” and “the gradual forming of the functional science of western music” (p. 49).
8.
8. Braxton discusses the suppressive tendencies of Western culture in terms of his notion of “spectacle diversion”; see, in particular, the section entitled “The Spectacle Diversion Syndrome” (Braxton, 1985b, pp. 1-51).
9.
9. See, for example, Gadamer's conception of “effective-historical consciousness” that he offers in his Truth and Method.
10.
10. For a discussion of the implications of Heidegger's method of destructuring the history of Western philosophy, see Bernasconi (1995).
11.
11. Heidegger's views with regard to modern science in terms of what he calls “the mathematical” perhaps find their most concentrated discussion in his writings on the philosopher Emmanuel Kant (see, in particular, Heidegger, 1967). For Heidegger's treatment of technology and the “enframing” of knowledge, see Heidegger (1977).
12.
12. See the section titled “Creativity and Science” (Braxton, 1985c, pp. 51-87).
References
Bernasconi, R. (1995). Heidegger and the invention of the Western philosophical tradition. Journal of the British Society of Phenomenology, 26(3), 240-254.
Braxton, A. (1985a). Tri-axium writings: Vol. 1. Oakland, CA: Frog Peak Music.
Braxton, A. (1985b). Tri-axium writings: Vol. 2. Oakland, CA: Frog Peak Music.
Braxton, A. (1985c). Tri-axium writings: Vol. 3. Oakland, CA: Frog Peak Music.
Heidegger, M. (1967). What is a thing? (W. B. Barton, Jr., & V. Deutsch, Trans.). Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.
Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology. In W. Lovitt (Trans.), The question concerning technology and other essays (pp. 3-35). New York: Harper & Row.
Husserl, E. (1970). Crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology (D. Carr, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Lock, G. (1999). Blutopia. London: Duke University Press.
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Article first published: November 2007
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