^aSaarbrücken, Germany

Correspondence: Siegfried Zepf, Narzissenstrasse 5, Saarbrücken D 66119, Germany. E-mail: s.zepf@rz.uni-sb.de

¹Original version: Translated by Simon Thomas, London.

Abstract

Irritated after visiting a pop concert, the author raises the question whether pop concerts belong to those cultural goods in which experiences condense with contents from beyond consciousness. He explores the phenomenon of the pop concert in the light of Susanne K. Langer's concept of "presentational symbolism." From this perspective the staging of the pop concert can be understood as a presentational symbol of inexpressible experiences at birth in which unconscious instinctual conflicts are also telescoped. Since we experience pleasure in these stagings, we learn to value our societal system for providing these cultural goods. However, this pleasure has the character of "functional pleasure". That is to say, the pleasure is not generated by the pop concert itself, but by active mastery of previous danger-situations arising from unconscious conflicts in early childhood, so that in the end we value our societal system for irrational reasons.