ESCAPISM

 Language
 Watch
 Edit
Not to be confused with Escapology, the art of escaping physical means of restraint.
For other uses, see Escapism (disambiguation).
Escapism is mental diversion from unpleasant or boring aspects of daily life, typically through
activities involving imagination or entertainment.[2][3][4] Escapism may be used to occupy one's
self away from persistent feelings of depression or general sadness.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria was an escapist who used to "escape" into the world of Wagnerian
mythology.[1] A caricature portrays him as Lohengrin.
Contents
PERCEPTIONS EDIT
Entire industries have sprung up to foster a growing tendency of people to remove themselves
from the rigors of daily life – especially into the digital world.[5][6] Many activities that are normal
parts of a healthy existence (e.g., eating, sleeping, exercise, sexual activity) can also become
avenues of escapism when taken to extremes or out of proper context; and as a result the word
"escapism" often carries a negative connotation, suggesting that escapists are unhappy, with an
inability or unwillingness to connect meaningfully with the world and to take necessary action. [7]
Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary defined escapism as "The tendency to seek, or the
practice of seeking, distraction from what normally has to be endured".[8]
However, many challenge the idea that escapism is fundamentally and exclusively negative. C.
S. Lewis was fond of humorously remarking that the usual enemies of escape were jailers; [9][10]
and considered that used in moderation escapism could serve both to refresh and to expand the
imaginative powers.[11] Similarly J. R. R. Tolkien argued for escapism in fantasy literature as the
creative expression of reality within a secondary (imaginative) world, (but also emphasised that
they required an element of horror in them, if they were not to be 'mere escapism'). [12][13] Terry
Pratchett considered that the twentieth century had seen the development over time of a more
positive view of escapist literature.[14] Apart from literature, music and video games have been
seen and valued as artistic media of escape, too.[15]
PSYCHOLOGICAL ESCAPES EDIT
Freud considers a quota of escapist fantasy a necessary element in the life of humans: "[T]hey
cannot subsist on the scanty satisfaction they can extort from reality. 'We simply cannot do
without auxiliary constructions', Theodor Fontane once said".[16] His followers saw rest and wish
fulfilment (in small measures) as useful tools in adjusting to traumatic upset; [17] while later
psychologists have highlighted the role of vicarious distractions in shifting unwanted moods,
especially anger and sadness.[18][19]
However, if permanent residence is taken up in some such psychic retreats, the results will often
be negative and even pathological.[20][21] Drugs cause some forms of escapism which can occur
when certain mind-altering drugs are taken which make the participant forget the reality of where
they are or what they are meant to be doing.[22][23]
ESCAPIST SOCIETIES EDIT
Some social critics warn of attempts by the powers that control society to provide means of
escapism instead of bettering the condition of the people – what Juvenal called “bread and the
games”.[24] Escapist societies appear often in literature. The Time Machine depicts the Eloi, a
lackadaisical, insouciant race of the future, and the horror of their happy lifestyle beliefs. The
novel subtly criticizes capitalism, or at least classism, as a means of escape. Escapist societies are
common in dystopian novels; for example, in the Fahrenheit 451 society, television and
"seashell radios" are used to escape a life with strict regulations and the threat of a forthcoming
war. In science fiction media escapism is often depicted as an extension of social evolution, as
society becomes detached from physical reality and processing into a virtual one, examples
include the virtual world of Oz in the 2009 Japanese animated science fiction film Summer Wars
and the game "Society" in the 2009 American science fiction film Gamer, a play on the real-life
MMO game Second Life. Other escapist societies in literature include The Reality Bug by D. J.
McHale, where an entire civilization leaves their world in ruin while they 'jump' into their perfect
realities. The aim of the anti-hero becomes a quest to make their realities seemingly less perfect
to regain control over their dying planet.
Social philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that utopias and images of fulfillment, however regressive
they might be, also included an impetus for a radical social change. According to Bloch, social
justice could not be realized without seeing things fundamentally differently. Something that is
mere "daydreaming" or "escapism" from the viewpoint of a technological-rational society might
be a seed for a new and more humane social order, as it can be seen as an "immature, but honest
substitute for revolution".
ESCAPE SCALE EDIT
The Norwegian psychologist Frode Stenseng has presented a dualistic model of escapism in
relation to different types of activity engagements. He discusses the paradox that the flow state
(Csikszentmihalyi) resembles psychological states obtainable through actions such as drug
abuse, sexual masochism, and suicide ideation (Baumeister). Accordingly, he deduces that the
state of escape can have both positive and negative meanings and outcomes. Stenseng argues that
there exist two forms of escapism with different affective outcomes dependent on the
motivational focus that lies behind the immersion in the activity. Escapism in the form of self-
suppression stems from motives to run away from unpleasant thoughts, self-perceptions, and
emotions, whereas self-expansion stems from motives to gain positive experiences through the
activity and to discover new aspects of self. Stenseng has developed the "escape scale" to
measure self-suppression and self-expansion in people's favorite activities, such as sports, arts,
and gaming. Empirical investigations of the model have shown that:[25]
 the two dimensions are distinctively different with regard to affective outcomes
 some individuals are more prone to engage through one type of escapism
 situational levels of well-being affect the type of escapism that becomes dominant at a
specific time
DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION EDIT
Alan Brinkley, author of Culture and Politics in the Great Depression, presents how escapism
became the new trend for dealing with the hardships created by the stock market crash in 1929:
magazines, radio and movies, all were aimed to help people mentally escape from the mass
poverty and economic downturn. Life magazine, which became hugely popular during the 1930s,
was said to have pictures that give "no indication that there was such a thing as depression; most
of the pictures are of bathing beauties and ship launchings and building projects and sports
heroes – of almost anything but poverty and unemployment”. Famous director Preston Sturges
aimed to validate this notion by creating a film called Sullivan's Travels. The film ends with a
group of poor destitute men in jail watching a comedic Mickey Mouse cartoon that ultimately
lifts their spirits. Sturges aims to point out how "foolish and vain and self-indulgent" it would be
to make a film about suffering. Therefore, movies of the time more often than not focused on
comedic plot lines that distanced people emotionally from the horrors that were occurring all
around them. These films "consciously, deliberately set out to divert people from their
problems", but it also diverted them from the problems of those around them.[26]
See also Edit
 Bread and circuses
 Daydream
 Sehnsucht
 Primitivism
 Peter Pan syndrome
 Quixotism
 Utopianism
 Wanderlust
References Edit
1.
 Workman, Leslie J. (1994). Medievalism in Europe. Boydell & Brewer. p.  241.
ISBN 9780859914000.
  "ESCAPISM | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary". dictionary.cambridge.org.
Retrieved 2020-03-23.
  "Definition of ESCAPISM". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
  "Escapism | Meaning of Escapism by Lexico". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Retrieved
2020-03-23.
  G. Kainer, Grace and the Great Controversy (2010) p. 35
  Jones, Scott (2018). "Mapping the extended frontiers of escapism: binge-watching and
hyperdiegetic exploration". Journal of Marketing Management. 34:5-6 (5–6): 497–508.
doi:10.1080/0267257X.2018.1477818.
  D. Baggett et al, C. S. Lewis as Philosopher (2009) p. 260
  Quoted in T. A. Shipley, The Road to Middle-Earth (1992) p. 285
  G. Kainer, Grace and the Great Controversy (2010) p. 34
  C.E, D, C.G., Shaffer, Bluoin, Pettigrew (1985). "Assessment of prison escape risk".
JPCP. 1:42: 42–48. doi:10.1007/BF02809199. S2CID 144994751.
  D. Baggett et al, C. S. Lewis as Philosopher (2009) p. 260
  Konzack, Lars. 2018. Escapism. In: Wolf (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Imaginary
Worlds. Routledge. pp. 246-55.
  T. F. Nicolay, Tolkien and the Modernists (2014) p. 79 and p. 66
  Terry Pratchett & Stephen Briggs, The Discworld Companion (2012) p. 329
  Andreas Dorschel, Der Welt abhanden kommen. Über musikalischen Eskapismus. In:
Merkur 66 (2012), no. 2, pp. 135–142
  S, Freud, Introductory lectures on Psychoanalysis (PFL1) p. 419
  Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (1946), p. 554
  D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (1996) p. 73
  Longeway, John (1990). "The Rationality of Escapism and Self Deception". Behavior and
Philosophy. 18 (2): 1–20.
  R. Britton, Belief and Imagination (2003) p. 119
  R.C., D.S.,J, M, I, R, T, Reid, Li, Lopez, Collard, Parhami, Karim, Fong (2011).
"Exploring facets of personality and escapism in pathological gamblers". Journal of Social
Work Practice in the Addictions. 11 (1): 60–74. doi:10.1080/1533256X.2011.547071.
S2CID 143391701.
  Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, United States. Congress. House. (1965).
"Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965: Hearings, Eighty-ninth Congress, First Session, on
H.R. 2". Drug Abuse: 82.
  R, L, S, E, Anderson-Connolly, Grunberg, Moore, Greenberg (1999). "Work stress and
self-reported alcohol use: The moderating role of escapist reasons for drinking". Journal of
Occupational Health Psychology. 4 (1): 29–36. doi:10.1037/1076-8998.4.1.29.
PMID  10100111.
  Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires (1982) p. 207
  Stenseng, Frode; Rise, Jostein; Kraft, Pål (2012). "Activity Engagement as Escape from
Self: The Role of Self-Suppression and Self-Expansion". Leisure Sciences. 34 (1): 19–38.
doi:10.1080/01490400.2012.633849. S2CID 144379054.
 Brinkley, Alan. Culture and Politics in the Great Depression. Waco, Tx: Markham Press
Fund, 1999. http://www.uvm.edu/~pblackme/Brinkley.pdf
ESCAPISM IN LITERATURE
In his essay ‘Escapism in literature’ Olaf Stapledon distinguishes between four types of
literature, or rather four kind of import which any writing may have. They are, of course, not
mutually exclusive, and a particular work of literature can exhibit elements of each at different
levels.
The four kinds of literature are: Creative, Propaganda, Release, and Escape.
CREATIVE LITERATURE: serves “the essential literary function of clarifying and
developing consciousness, of world or self. In so far as this process is cognitive, it will consist in
an apprehending of fresh aspects of world or self, or of hitherto unnoticed relationships between
things remote from one another. Or it may take the form of constructing universes of fiction
which symbolize aspects of the actual universe. In so far as it is mainly affective and conative, it
will consist in the evoking of new appreciations, and in the creation of new and more developed
capacities for action.”
Propaganda literature:
“its dominant motive is not the developing of experience simply for its own sake.” The writer is
concerned to popularize facts, ideas, and emotions; however in propaganda literature, unlike in
mere propaganda, the writer is not just advertising familiar ideas, but “the idea to be propagated
is still alive and growing in the writer’s own mind”.
RELEASE LITERATURE:
the dominant motive and main import are “the assuagement of starved needs, the release of pent-
up forces in the personality”. Unlike creative literature, release literature doesn’t evoke, express,
and satisfy “new and more developed capacities,” but only assuages familiar needs. Further,
“whereas literature of the predominantly creative type generally tends to undermine or transform
the conventional system of ideas and values, “release literature” in the main accepts them, tacitly
and inadvertently.”
ESCAPE LITERATURE:
literature “the main import of which is to protect the mind from unpleasant reality,” in which
release “is used with the ulterior motive of escape,” being “so employed as to make the fictitious
world more attractive and more seeming-real”. Unlike propaganda literature, in escape literature
the motive is mainly unconscious, it is “generally an unrecognized fear, which causes an
unwitting incapacity to face up to reality.” Escape literature’s “main purport is the reverse of
creative. It tends to prevent the development of experience”. Further, “[t]he creative power of the
writer is prostituted for an unnatural end, namely to frustrate creation, to distract attention from
the way of development.” Escape literature “involves a gross limitation of sensibility and an
insincere use of creative power.”
Advertisement
REPORT THIS AD
Importantly, in escape literature (unlike in release literature) “the fantasy purports to be
symbolically true of reality”. This is characteristic of its “morbid blindness, a self-protective and
perversely creative blindness, [which] not only blots out the obnoxious aspect of reality but also
reconstructs the remaining characters into a coherent and lying image. This is the essence of
escapism.” Further, when it comes to reactions to trouble in the unconscious, in escape literature
(unlike creative literature) “there is no self-probing,” no attempt “to probe the self so as to lay
bare and solve the hidden conflict, and to see it in its true relation to the rest of the universe” or
“to relate the self’s torture to the rest of existence”.
Assessing the four kinds, Stapledon says: “Of the four kind of import which any writing may
have, I judge “creation” (as defined) wholly good and “escape” wholly bad.” Propaganda
literature and release literature are neither, their goodness or badness in each particular instance
depend on other factors.
The condemnation of escapism is natural, and especially so if we agree with Stapledon that “[t]o
deny that clarification and development of consciousness is the main function of literature is, in
my view, to make nonsense of literary criticism.”
In closing the essay, Stapledon makes an interesting remark, which I think couldn’t be more
relevant in to-day’s world obsessed with technical (and often proclaiming itself to be scientific)
writing. A kind of escapism, Stapledon says, “characterizes so much of modern “scientific”
culture. Accepting the temper of our age, we tend to withdraw attention from the inner life, and
to seek escape from individual moral responsibility by constructing a fictitious world in which
individuals are wholly the product of external forces, physical or social.”