Affective Images

Smith explores the power of narrative in media (as well as narrative in advertising, in ”iconic” representations at a mall) as ”affective images,” which, in turn, affect our telos, the direction of our desire. (58) Further, habits are trained by ritual, precognitive actions of the body. He states:

Over time, rituals and practices--often in tandem with aesthetic phenomena like pictures and stories--mold and shape our precognitive disposition by training our desires. (59)

Interestingly, Smith suggests that, thinking back to Christian education, if the religious academy is concerned with "worldview," it might also want to be concerned with the "unconscious" (residing close to the sites of desire), which informs it. (61)