December 27, 2014

Roger Scruton's "Why Beauty Matters": In One Piece

Beginning:At any time between 1750 and 1930 if you asked educated people to describe the aim of poetry, art or music, they would have replied “beauty.”

And if you had asked for the point of that you would have learned that beauty is a value, as important as truth and goodness. Then in the 20th century beauty stopped being important. Art increasingly aimed to disturb and to break moral taboos. It was not beauty but originality however achieved and at whatever moral cost that won the prizes. Not only has art made a cult of ugliness. Architecture too has become soul-less and sterile. And it is not just our physical surroundings that have become ugly. Our language, our music and our manners are increasingly raucous, self-centered and offensive as though beauty and good taste have no real place in our lives. One word is written large on all these ugly things and that word is “Me.” My profits, my desires, my pleasures. And art has nothing to say in response to this except “Yeah, go for it!”
I think we are losing beauty and there is a danger that with it we will lose the meaning of life. I’m Roger Scruton, philosopher and writer. My trade is to ask questions. During the last few years I have been asking questions about beauty. Beauty has been central to our civilisation for over 2000 years. From its beginnings in ancient Greece philosophy has reflected on the place of beauty in art, poetry, music, architecture and everyday life. Philosophers have argued that through the pursuit of beauty we shape the world as a home. We also come to understand our own nature as spiritual beings. But our world has turned its back on beauty and because of that we find ourselves surrounded by ugliness and alienation.
I want to persuade you that beauty matters; that it is not just a subjective thing, but a universal need of human beings. If we ignore this need we find ourselves in a spiritual desert. I want to show you the path out of that desert. It is a path that leads to home....... Full Transcript Here

Posted by gerardvanderleun at December 27, 2014 7:26 PM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Beauty, like morals, occupy no small place in the universe. Beauty is critical and for only one reason, which is that it points to God. No God? No motive for beauty.

Still, Scruton steps on the baby in defense of higher things. If you ask me what the kernel of art is, I'd say innovation. That means creation, which also points to God. The new thing. If an artist is motivated by hate, or depravity, then please go ahead and paint that. Isn't freedom also the outwork of an ordered universe? Certainly.

My take-away (as ham-handed as it is) is that the post-moderne indictment of beauty was wrong and overbearing,. People sense that. Bring back beauty, but don't trample on the elemental parts of creativity, which include generation and expression.

Posted by: Casey Klahn at December 28, 2014 7:04 AM

Sorry, Gerard. Serious internet hiccups these days.

Posted by: Casey Klahn at December 28, 2014 7:08 AM

Hence my life-long annoyance and despair at the ubiquity of rock "music."

Posted by: Rob De Witt at December 28, 2014 7:32 AM

The preamble at the link is worth the price of admission.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at December 28, 2014 7:43 AM

"Beauty: A Short Introduction", by Roger Scruton
http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Roger-Scruton/dp/019955952X/

Posted by: pst314 at December 28, 2014 8:06 AM

And so we reap the whirlwind of radical materialism.

Posted by: Donald Sensing at December 28, 2014 9:37 AM

Art and music have a core set of values that are expressed with words like nice, beautiful, pleasant, soothing, something that says "it is good".
Those values are constant, not changed with the passing of time. A woman, a flower, a bridge, whatever the subject the feeling provoked is "ahh, nice".

Art and music can also be described with more temporal values like shocking, scary, jarring, obscene, profane.
The artists are using the canvas to express secondary feelings of outrage, indignation, scorn, usually negative and temporal, almost always and purposely opposed to the core values of beauty.

Art and music that ascribe to the core values endure centuries.
Art and music used to convey a message endure um, maybe a couple years.

Posted by: chasmatic at December 28, 2014 10:11 AM

Exactly, Chas. Which is more likely to be sold out? A performance of J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor, or a concert of some modern "composer" that sounds like a baby playing with pots and pans? No prizes for the right answer, we all know which one it is. Everyone does, even those fooling themselves about how "edgy" the modern hack's "music" is.

Posted by: waltj at December 28, 2014 10:30 AM

John Muir wrote an opinion, or repeated one for all I know, which has shaped my imagination about the relationship of earth and heaven: That which is excellent remains forever a part of this universe.

So heaven is perfect understanding, but the universe is never complete, never can be complete; it collects great beauty as it goes. Beauty is formed in adversity, and earth is adversity, the crock pot of invention. Beauty is not only great art in all it's forms, but great love; and great love is that which admits to sacrifice. Whatever of it is excellent then becomes part of the universe.

As to the twentieth century and modernity, we did not notice that greatness is only ever formed in inequality because we now worship at the altar of equality seven days a week.

Since we cannot obtain greatness, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it--
Montaigne

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