NEW ACROPOLIS presents WHY BEAUTY MATTERS . . .
In the course of study techniques I always ask about intrinsic knowledge. Here he talks about intrinsic beauty: it is the same idea: What is intrinsic knowledge? We are human beings.
Are we interested in knowledge itself? Or to pass a public contest or the university entrance examination? Public recognition, get a degree, but is knowledge the way to reach our goals?
A way I should say, rather difficult. (If it was possible to deviate from it, it would be a lot better! ) A human being is different from other forms of beings, exactly for the love of knowledge, wisdom, the ability to qualify life through wisdom, to consider knowledge as a hindrance, and that the purpose of life is not knowledge, is at least strange.
He's going to say the same thing about beauty: Is intrinsic beauty worth it? Or does it have a hidden purpose ? Sexual desire, utility, whatever it may be .
. . And several related issues.
For example: is beauty relative or absolute? This is one of the biggest issues since the 18th century. Since the great classical rationalism .
. . Are things really beautiful?
Or does "Beauty lie in the lover's eyes"? And there is nothing beautiful in itself. Is it a mere cultural belief devoid of true value?
A series of issues that will be turned up, according to the creeds of classical thinkers and which can be very practical, very interesting. Let's go through some of them. Natural beauty: another quote from our dear Immanuel Kant.
Natural beauty is endless compliance . . .
Sounds like a meaningless sentence, right? He says that natural beauty, and that can be for example nature or landscapes can lead to conformity. There is nothing that is more in accordance with the laws of the Universe than nature.
It is in conformity with its own ends, but which serves an endless purpose. If we adopt the terminology of Eastern philosophy - which makes a very large shortcut, because Western concepts they are very beautiful but sometimes they are too rational and Eastern philosophy goes straight to the point - in Indian philosophy there is a concept that is called the Dharma, which leads everyone in the whole universe back home. back to the Unity.
So it would be the one and last road on which the whole universe walks , the whole cosmos, towards Unity. And each human being who is on the half way of this great itinerary has his own purposes. So, nature would have a great endless number of purposes that ultimately have no end in nature itself.
They are infinite and go up to the horizon of possibilities of the universe. And nature is so agreeable, so coherent, so obedient to these principles, that the man who lines himself, who is attuned to it, is almost led to conformity. .
He feels obliged that his nature is also in tune. Here, Kant will say something very beautiful: that those who have the capacity for legitimate admiration, simple and true of natural beauty, have the germ of a good character. If they feel intimidated by natural beauty, this is good for them.
Because if when summoned, this causes a rejection, this can be a negative element. He will talk about two interesting aspects of nature. The Beauty.
A landscape, a field - altered or not by man, does not make much difference - It could be a little house, man is also part of nature, no problem. This beauty is harmonious. Beauty has a lot of it: it makes us feel like we're at home!
We found our home! Causes harmony. Product of the combination of things in a perfect fit.
There is a sense of unity when there are many things there: It has clouds, the sky, it has plants, grass . . .
All this is combined in a way they are not many things - it is One! This gives us almost a way to fit all these many things that also exist within us - which is also a nature - to believe that this is possible, to find a way to do it too. So a landscape like this generates a sense of beauty.
A serene beauty, a peaceful beauty. But there is another possibility for people to put themselves before nature: When nature does not only present us the beauty, but presents us with the sublime! The sublime is another story .
. . Because it is so great that it impacts human nature!
What is it? ! At first you feel intimidated: - Look how great!
- Look how small I am ! ! - Look how insignificant I am!
But this first impact that arises, then brings a sensation, which according to Kant, is very interesting: at the same time that we feel insignificant, we think: No! I feel my dignity before nature! Why?
For just as nature is in conformity, according to her laws, I can be in conformity according to my moral laws, and not even a grand nature like that can corrupt me. It can kill me, corrupt me, no! Do you realize that?
He says: "That gives solidity and greatness to man! Not even a grand nature like this can do anything against me. in the sense of being a moral being!
Nature does its part and I do mine. This to some extent is also great! It is also sacred - in that traditional sense of meaningful function!
As the anthropologist Mircea Eliade says. Sacred is the function of making sense. Each thing finds its meaning when it finds its identity.
So, because I am a human being, and I fulfill the laws of human nature - I am a moral being, and I am faithful to my dignity, not even the Alps can make me feel insignificant! Nor can they take my dignity from me! It can take my physical life, my dignity, no!
So it gives man a feeling of strength and power. We need to confront these two things. Just as we have the small beauty and the great beauty, in nature we have the beautiful and the sublime.
The beauty of everyday life. Once again, They talk a lot about the Japanese tradition, in the sense of knowing how to get a small thing, one moment, and transform it into eternity, a meeting point. The Tea Ceremony.
Have you ever seen it? I saw a video, and I did not believe all that . .
. Imagine: inviting someone to have tea with you. First of all, there's an outdoor little hut in your house just for that - for tea .
. . Days before you start to make "Ikebana" to decorate the hut especially for that guest.
The herbs chosen and treated, from the beginning, for that meeting . . .
Even the way you move around the garden with your guest to get to the tea place, is ceremonial. Everything is ceremonial! It's their way of getting something that within time would be banal, a point, an encounter, and give it a sublime character.
Something eternal at one point in life. Which shows the need for a sacred life. We bring the moments of our lives into a special field.
We tend to think that life has a limit, in which sacredness doesn't fit. And all those traditions, the philosophers tended to say that the limit of the sacred is our whole life and the whole universe. Each thing or event has a special meaning, a meaning that relates to another world through that little thing, that little moment.
So this will greatly enhance: The beauty of everyday life. That moment, Ichigo, Ichie, opportunity, meeting. When something insignificant is performed in a such a special way, that it becomes a meeting point between two worlds.
The musical meaning. Let's mention another very controversial question, for example, music. The idea is to take art as a whole, let's starts with music.
Music, accordng to Mircea Eliade, is beautiful because it has meaning. Not every content, not every message that has a meaning is necessarily beautiful. But that which is beautiful must necessarily have a meaning.
Something can have a message and not necessarily be beautiful. If something is beautiful but meaningless it is like an empty envelope. He will say that music, art in general, when it'is really meaningful, when it has a message, when it communicates the two worlds, it touches the fibers of man's identity.
It's like bringing up what's hidden, it works like a revelation! It shows that which is the best in man! It reveals, as if shedding light on this intimacy of man.
And shows up the most beautiful things he has. The same beauty that resides anywhere in the universe resides within man. Because the human creations were all born in this same secret place.
As if it were a power plant from which all human beauty radiates. So it is like a revelation. And it necessarily must have a meaning.
It is not empty or use He mentions a writer, who in one of his novels, a character of the Victorian era, talks about a melody he has listened. In a somewhat poetic way, he listens and interprets what it means to him, what are the strings that vibrate within him, what that song brings up. What allows him to live consciously, as if the music had knocked at the door of his soul.
I'ts very interesting. He will quote this passage. Robert Browning, "The Toccata of Galuppi's".
This is the talk of the character as he listens to a melody: What? Those minor thirds so wailing, the tiny sixths . .
. sigh, sigh . .
. Did they tell you anything? those tensions, those solutions .
. . We'll have to turn ourselves off!
Those seventh woes . . .
"Life can perish, it is mandatory to try! " It's that character's reflection while listening to the music! All this comes out of him .
. . As if the music had shed light on these elements within it.
As if this message already existed within the music and it had only allowed him to reveal it, perceive it, bring it to the surface. People who compose, write, often say that something was born from within a song . .
. A moment, a flash, an insight . .
. was born within a song. It's like there are a thousand things there.
It is as if music had the ability to build a bridge, and this human soul, where the source of all beauty lies. The value of art. Art implies order and meaning to human life.
It's like a thread that connects all the elements that are loose. Without true art, imbued with this message of beauty, our lives would be like beads detached from a necklace. Imagine this scene: old photographs .
. . Disconnected events, we look at all that and ask: - What do they mean?
"What connects all these things? " What is the thread of this story? Art can bring harmony to human life, It can abolish the arbitrariness of human life.
It allows man to make a synthesis of life. Art shows that it is possible create harmony in seemingly irreconcilable things. So, through different musical notes, different shades of colors, you can harmonize all that and produce beauty!
So why couldn't I harmonize all those notes in my life? Art is capable of giving order and meaning to human life. It is able to harmonize what seems to be loose.
The same harmony that true order implies, can make us discover it within ourselves. Plato, in his Republic - which is one of the dialogues that he often uses among others - says that in his ideal city it would only be possible for men to walk around, and confront various things, when he had already learned to recognize an internal pattern of harmony. He would be brought up to recognize this internal harmony pattern through music!
Plato spends a long time in his dialogue, for example, talking about the association of music with moral standards! "This Lydian, Phrygian mode does not enter my Republic, because it raises such and such forms of character, which is not what I want for man. Music has to be beautiful, simple and harmonious, as the soul of the man I I intend to have as a citizen.
Art would have this characteristic, all kinds of it art, not only music. Imposing sense and order, and rescue human life from arbitrariness. That phrase from John Keats .
. . Indeed this poet not only wrote a poem about it, where it consists of this phrase, but he also drew this vessel.
He imagines a Greek urn full of paintings, drawings, low reliefs, and does something very beautiful. but that phrase by Scruton is interesting: "Beauty is truth; Truth is Beauty; is all we know on earth all that we need to know . .
. " That is, beauty is a conduit for human truth. A safe conduit for people to pass by the shadows, by the illusions of life and find what is real beneath it.
It is no wonder Scruton will say that in a society where our judgment of taste is so obscured, we have so little ability to perceive the truth of our lives. We are immersed in a lot of illusions, of alienations, and we are very susceptible to alienating ourselves. We lose that sense of beauty as a conductor to find the human truth.
That judgment of the taste of which he speaks of, as so important. So beauty is truth; truth is beauty; it is all that we know on earth, and it is all we need to know. I made a point of bringing the complete poetry for you to have some moments of beauty: John Keats: Attic form!
Haughty postage! In your plot, Men of marble and women frames. Like branches of forest and inlaid grass: You, the silent form, tortures our minds With eternity: cold pastoral.
When the age to pay all the current greatness, you will be in the midst of the pains of others, friend to rewrite the immortal couplet: beauty is truth, beauty is truth. It's all there is to know, and nothing more. Poetry dedicated to a Greek vase!
Revelling human truth: a Greek vase! Art and Morality An interesting thing - I owe this to Dr Scruton - is a phrase with which I have always had great difficulty . .
. A phrase by Theophile Gautier, in the 19th century, who spoke: Art for Art. The art is only commitment to itself and to nothing else.
Scruton explains what Gautier meant by that - it is not quite what we understand. It is not that Art has no commitment to anything - there is nothing in the Universe that is so! In the universe everything is intertwined, and everything is committed to everything!
We can alienate ourselves and fulfill this commitment unconsciously, - By the way, when we alienate ourselves, we commit ourselves to the worst things, because we do not choose what we are committed to - Tehn, it's not Art for Art, it's Art for Man, it's obvious! He explains the context in which Gautier created this phrase: At that time the art was beginning to be used as a tool to justify false morals, and even political stances. This will subsequently be frequently used, for example in the extinct Soviet Union.
Musical pieces, plays, in which the content of morality, ideological content, justified the system. And this is considered absolutely immoral! It is a desecration!
According to Greek tradition it is a desecration of the Muses! Homer talks about it: the Muses that inhabit Mount Helicon. They are entities that guard the portals of beauty.
Helicon, comes from propeller, leading the awareness of the man to the plan of ideas. They have their protocols, they have their parameters, they do not allow themselves to be manipulated. They do not serve utilities other than that of their own beauty and art.
That would not be moral. But it does not mean that art is morally neutral, or that it is devoid of a moral message. It's not a moral message imposed from the outside for some interest, but a moral message that emanates from itself.
From its own beauty status. It emanates morality! Morality, not like this kind of prejudice we have nowadays, like a word that is out of fashion, archaic, but as this element that Kant loved, it is the structure, is the thread that connects all the beads of human identity, that is written in his epitaph: "Two things I saw in life that dazzled me: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.
" It's about this morality we are talking! This morality emanates from art, truly! He quotes a book by a writer I do not know, which tells the story of a person who speaks of his Christian values with so much legitimacy that a Islamic would be moved, that a Buddhist would be moved .
. . because it is not an imposed ideological message, it is a love of the divine that emanates with so much legitimacy, with such honesty, that convinces anyone!
I haven't read this book, but I can speak from experience. It is a book called "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas de Kempis. A medieval monk, that's really impressive!
Even if you are not a Christian and have no sympathy with medieval monks. You see the dazzle of a person upon seeing the first ray of sunshine, and realize: - Surely, it emanates from God! "Only from deity could come such a wonderful light!
Isolated and dazzled before the greatness of nature, as the digit of God printing . . .
Even if you have no connection with religious ideology, it is impossible not to be moved with Kempis! A morality, an order, a dazzle emanates before the beauty of things . .
. A person with no aspiratons. But was perceptive!
And this perception made him go deeply into things. The tool he had in Christianity he used it very well! It embodies the morality of art, it is not morally neutral, but not an external morality, but one which emanates from itself!
It is within its own ,just like beauty statutes. Taste and order. Learn to like.
Is it possible? There is a controversy. Actually, Roger Scruton daring to a point that deserves applause .
. . He will say: - We live in a democratic culture.
This democratic culture has certain tricky issues. It wants to make equal what is not equal, and thinks this is a promotion of justice. It considers all tastes as of equal value.
It is an offense to consider that a person has a better taste than the other! There is no good or bad taste! Neither mine nor your taste!
Taste is an absolut arbitrary thing, each person has his own taste, and of equal value! He says: This will render any process of taste education unfeasible. If every taste is worth the same, let's educate what?
Then we would have no chance of acting there. And he will say: - This is strictly required! Let the human taste be formed.
This is a bridge to the raising of consciousness, this unblocks a path that the human awareness demands. He speaks of a practical situation, so interesting . .
. He speaks of a particular Brahms symphony which he particularly did not appreciate. One day he goes to a friend's house, an admirer of Brahms, and he begins to play this symphony on the piano, and says: - Look how everything emanates from this note .
. . - As if all musical variations were born from this root .
. . And he begins to observe, he is fully abstracted, and he loves this symphony, he finds it beautiful!
It's not an imposition . . .
a forced thing would not have the same effect on him! It's like trying to convince a child that he should eat lettuce instead of a hamburger . .
. It obviously will not work. At some point you may even get to that.
but it will not have a rational conviction, . . .
but through teaching, which provides an experiment, you can improve taste! This is not only possible, as strictly necessary in this historical moment. She speaks a very interesting phrase, which I brought to read it to you.
These are his own words, I found them very strong, very beautiful: "Someone who, at the moment, worries about the future of humanity, should try to understand how aesthetics education can be revived, whose goal is the love of beauty. In an age when faith is declining, art gives permanent testimony of spiritual hunger and the mortal nostalgia of our species. This way, aesthetics education is more important today than in any other period of history.
Strong, right? Someone who cares about humanity, should worry about it. This is serious!
That's the message he wants to give. The standard of taste and the trustworthy judge. Here arises an ugly fight!
Backed by David Hume, an English philosopher who gives the arguments he needs, which is a very interesting, ingenious and very beautiful. He will say the following: supposing we have reached an agreement that things are beautiful in themselves, and that there is a possibility of evaluating this beauty, how can we evaluate beauty speaking of universal standards? You see, you can improve the taste and learn to listen to this symphony of Brahms - that your friend has just shown you.
He improved his taste, learned to hear it. It is good! And if I bring you an Indian raga.
Do you know the Indian ragas? Made all of semitones, which for the Western ears, gives shivers in all possible and imaginary levels . .
. That thing: What are we going to say about this? That all Indian rags are ugly?
Certainly not! There is a whole pattern of taste and a whole culture developed around it. We think it's strange because we have not educated our ears to appreciate them .
. . "I've just been educated to listen to Brahms, you come to me with Indian raga .
. . " I need, as a human being, to have a criterion that allows me to say: - That raga is beautiful!
Because even among the ragas there are those who improvise and those who create artistic works. Let me, for example, judge a song from an old time. - if you can get in touch with it - or medieval .
. . For those who work with music, an interval that in the Middle Ages was considered beautiful todayit is not anymore.
What in the Middle Ages was considered ugly, maybe today it is no longer ugly! How can we have a pattern that covers all these things? It is an interesting polemical fact.
He says: - There is a transformation of the Art throughout history, of time and space, but art tends to progress somewhat like science. Extending the bases of what was given previously. Willingly accepting the heritage of culture, and expanding, giving more possibilities.
At one point, we have a break. "Now, let's start from scratch, and nothing that's been done before is valid. Did we get somewhere like this?
If we did the same with science, for example? In the 20th century, leave behind all the achievements of the past, including Isaac Newton's . .
. That is, from the 20th century forward! Where would we have come this way?
Obviously, nothing is done like this. We accept the heritage of our culture and build on it. "Well, there are a lot of weird things in the 20th century .
. . " In all ages there have been geniuses that have been considered weird!
When Bach began to make his harpsichord well tempered, there were those who twisted their noses . . .
There were those who did the same when Michelangelo began to paint those nudes on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. Today we see that it is good . .
. Okay, but we have to consider the following: There were people who twisted their noses for good things and there were people who twisted their noses for bad things. There were people who accepted these geniuses - and they were ahead of their time - and there were people who rejected these same geniuses.
The fact that a person accepts or rejects something does not mean that it is good or bad. Unless you know who that person is! This reminds me of Confucius.
In a work that ralates some passages of the life of Confucius, which is the book of Mencius, If it is said that on one occasion a disciplet asks him: - Master, a man is loved by all people of a city, Does this mean anything about the character of this man? He'll say, "No, that does not mean anything. "Good Master, and a man hated by all the people of a city, Does that mean anything about his character?
"No, that does not mean anything, either. "And how can I judge the character of this man? " - Simple, if he is loved by all the good ones and rejected by all evil.
And what will Hume say, in a very interesting way? He speaks of the reliable judge. Do you know that little beauty issue?
The person who harmonizes his relationship, his life, has a harmonious form of living with his own thoughts, with his own feelings, which gives him a serenity, a sound moral basis, which allows for discernment, who implies harmony everywhere he goes, which has a natural need to leave the sites a little better than he had found . . .
That is, he is a harmonizing and beautifying element within his own world. This man, of solid character and of good judgment, is a trustworthy judge! And this man has always been, in all historical moments!
There has always been, in all cultural lines, music as an expression of the true art. Or any other type, painting or poetry as true art. Now, how to know what it is, and what it is not?
We would have to have the testimony of the reliable judge. A trustworthy judge is the man whose moral harmony would give him an expansion of consciousness that would allow him to penetrate into things and realize his secret! Only when man has this basic serenity, which Sri Ram called the negative basis of consciousness - who is another sensational wise man - the negative basis of consciousness is humility, generosity, harmony which allows awareness to lift off and goes into the essence of things, penetrate into the mystery of things.
Look at a forest and see more than just the firewood. See what the forest is! And the testimony of a man who could do this It is reliable to say: this is art!
Or not! From there on, one can develop the aesthetic sense, purify the taste, - so that each one can perceive it - because judgments of aesthetic value can not be second-hand, do you remember that? From that trustworthy judge you can improve your own taste.
This is an interesting element for the judgment of beauty throughout history. Escape from beauty We arrived! You must know, this "wonderful piece" .
. . simply Marcel Duchamp.
Among other things, he drew a mustache and beard on the Mona Lisa and took it to an Arts gallery. Among other things. .
. The escaping from beauty . .
. will show what happened in the 20th century. We had a breakup!
Our historical moment was not a natural inheritance, a sequence of states of consciousness, a widening of its base, as it is natural for something that grows. A matured person does not deny his childhood experiences, or of adolescence or of youth. He adds other experiences to the previous ones.
Deepens and widens. One does not deny anything . .
. Otherwise he would start from scratch . .
. an amnesia! We live a moment, in the 20th century, when there was this breakup: The denial of beauty as the basis for art!
Beauty is false, beauty is false, the illusory beauty, an escape from reality. Art has the duty to lead man to see things as they are. Consider that true art never denied the pain, the difficulties of human life, the injustices .
. . never denied it!
You can see - as Scruton himself shows in his video - works of art showing the crucifixion of Christ, showing the war, but what the work of art does is to always show, even the most painful facts, from the point of view of necessity. It is a redemptive light: it redeems the human experience from chaos. It shows from the point of view of necessity, it is lively and meaningful.
That is, it harmonizes and justifies It gives order to things that seem more chaotic. Hieronymus Bosch, and several others, who painted very painful situations of the human condition. You look at the most painful situation: it is beautiful!
It shows the greatness of feelings, justifies, it is like giving a status of need. In other words, it even redeems human pain! But, it is no longer worth redeeming human pain, it must be exposed .
. . cruelly exposed, otherwise we are deceiving.
And so beauty is banished from the art in the 20th century. It becomes the aesthetic of the ugly. And it will develop this argument.
Our friend, Marcel Duchamp, who made this joke in1917,more than a century ago, taking a urinal for an art exhibition . . .
It was a joke. . .
Scruton says a joke is funny when you hear it for the first time, the second time . . .
10 years later it is no longer funny, and a hundred years later it is unbearable! This began to be taken seriously. When one says, based on this Duchamp's joke, that art has no rules, that art has no rules, that art is anything you say it is, it escapes not only from the status of the arts, but also from the jokes!
Because jokes have rules! Or do they not? What's a joke?
Does it have a purpose? It surely has! It's making people laugh.
Does it have the means to come up with? Yes, it has. It can not be of bad taste, nor obscene, nor be aggressive, nor hurt people morally .
. . Otherwise, it's a joke nobody will want to hear!
That is, jokes have statutes, protocols. It can not appeal to anything. Why should art be different?
He will mention a fact, which I did not know either, and he documents with a written biography of a character well-known today: Mao Tse Tung. In one of a few times it was documented Mao Tse Tung giving a noisy laughter, It was in his youth, when he went to a circus, and the trapeze artist fell down and died! It is said that he laughed a lot.
He says: - Imagine a world where the sense of humor, the jokes, are allowed to laugh at human misery . . .
What would that world be? It is where art is allowed to turn beauty into urinals . .
. It is obvious that in a world like that we wouldn't be worthy of the human condition that would raise our consciousness. This is chaos!
Everything in the Universe has a law, even the jokes! This is beautiful! He will say .
. . Why do we have all this contempt for beauty?
It will bring forth a number of causes. One of them is: The beauty is very demanding. It is as if beauty were tracking your life and pointing out: - This is unlikely to happen.
This thought . . .
This behavior . . .
Aren't you looking for beauty? this way of treating people, this cupboard. .
. Scans and shows what isn't beautiful Beauty is very demanding, it carries an unbearable weight. This weight demands a personal transformation, a price we don't intend to pay.
Pressfield, in his book "The War of Art", says that there is a tacit agreement to induce us to remain plunged in the mud. In such a way that when someone is considered a traitor people are aggressive with him. He makes a funny comment: "The biggest crime of the frog is jumping on the edge of the bucket.
" It's unbearable for the frogs which remained inside the bucket. It's an absurd to abandon this standard of living! Why?
Because if none of them leaves, it reinforces the idea that it's impossible to leave. If one frog dares to do and succeeds, it causes a great discomfort to all the others. It shows that anyone can leave the bucket, but they don't do it because they don't want to.
It hurts, it's unpleasant! Scruton illustrates it in a beautiful way. Once again with Othelo, the Moor of Venice.
In a certain moment, lago, the one who causes the whole plot. The disgrace occurs and Othello kills Desdemona. He had a deadly hatred of Cassius, who was a very virtuous young man.
Othello accuses him of treason. . .
A very interesting plot. In a certain moment, Iago says about Cassius: -In his everyday life he shows me the beauty that makes me ugly It's painful,isn't it? His beauty attacks me, it makes me feel ugly.
If he didn't exist, it would be so comfortable! A few minutes ago, Juliana was telleing me a story about a museum in the US, where there were works within the current standars, very aggressive, and there was a reason for that. In the reception, there was a classic painting.
The visitors crowded to see the picture. They weren't interested in going around the museum, and the picture had to be taken away, No one wanted to see anything else, but that picture. Because it creates a contrast, and in contrast the consciousness is born!
If there's nothing to compare, that's it! But the contrast is very unpleasant! Because it will raise the awereness.
The impact generates awereness. Another beautiful moment, I have brought to you, Who remembers this face? Amadeus!
Salieri The momet he readas a work composed by Mozart. . .
Mozart composed without draft. The pain of mediocrity in the face of the greatness of the other The pain of feeling something great pulling me to the surface, and I can't answer this call. What do I do?
Should I destroy this call? It's more comfortable! In the presence of sacred things, our lives are judged, and to escape from this judment, We destroy "the thing" that seems to be accusing us.
At that terrible moment, Saliere opens the window and screams: - God, have mercy on the mediocres! Remember that? This film has strong and painful scenes.
It shows how demanding beauty is, He spoke of a minimal beauty, with no ostentation, an inner need for harmony. He is a tracker and that is a strong pull in order to make you express your best, get out and see the world! Find the human truth.
It's a bridge, an invitation to the truth! Plato used to say: - beauty is not an invitation to possess things, but to renounce them! To seek oneself, and not things.
It's a powerful invitation, which we are not always able to accept. It's in a painful way that very often this beauty presents itself to us. It's an invitation we feel within us, and because we don't accept it, it hurts!
So, what do we do? Do we destroy the invitation? Beauty is no longer sacred.
We tend to destroy it. He tells a story, which I've already heard, about an occasion, a short time ago in Germany, a montage of a Mozart's piece was made, "The abduction of the seraglio" a modernist montage was made inside a brothel. Sublime music playing and scenes of sex and violence all the time on stage.
People physically really hurting themselves He says, - This is a violent aggression, a de-sacralization, almost a revenge against beauty, for the evil it causes us. Just like drawing a moustache on Mona Lisa. The desecration.
This is the urinal! If you didn't know this work of art, now you do. It's called "The Fountain", it was done in 1917.
This pain of the downgrading of life. There are a thousand justifications, among them, the two world wars, of man's disillusionment with his on cruelty, - whatever the sociological justification- the fact is that man is faced with this hard aspect of life, and believes that instead of sublimate it, he has to dive into it, and deny anyting that gives a hope of redemption This desacralization causes pain, an anguish, a depression, a lack of stimulation as if life was colourless. As if the life of man was completely gone.
Taking one of the most powerful stimuli, which is beauty. It's the ecstasy, the sublime. It's what redeems us from the apparently banal everyday life.
It's what gives meaning to life and which sacralizes our existence. It's all taken from us. This pain, sometimes generates a suicidal reaction.
Instead of going back on my own steps, I go ahead and deny everything. Then, it begins to break and mutilate, purposely anything that is a pure expression of beauty. This revisiting classic works in a sarcastic way is very common.
Denying anything that obeys classic patterns, as if they were out of fashion, academicist, no matter what. This, sometimes is aggressively attacked. Assaulting the beauty protects us from loving and losing it.
- which is also a very interesting placement- I don't possess it, so I have nothing to lose! I will never suffer for the loss, I have nothing! Very interesting!
First: you miss the opportunity of having things that nothing can take away from you (Plato); Beauty doesn't offer possession: it's through contemplation, the possession of oneself. (of things that nothing or nobody can take away from you! ) The idea of the golden man!
To possess that gold in its pure form! Which is within you: it's this perception of greatness, of harmony, the ability to make the world a little better than you had found, all the elements which have to do with the human moral status, all this need for harmony that man projects in the things he does In fact, Scruton will boldly say that the technical imperfection of the art, reflects the imperfections ofthe man. I would say the Christian phrase: "You will be known by your works.
" It's quite obvious! The denial of beauty as a way of saying: -So I have nothing to lose. And I also have nothing to gain!
It's like that citzen (another Christian parable),who burries the money for fear of losing it. This way he runs no risks, he doesn't learn anything, He doesn't share anything and doesn't get anything. We annul our lives beacause of the pain!
Eastern philosophy would give us a sensational short cut through Buddhist philosophy and the Noble Octuple Way, The quest for overcoming pain through dettachment I do not want things, I put myself in the posture of contemplation, I just want to take part in things, by adding as much as I can. This allows me to have things that nothing or nobody ,not even the Alpine glacier, is capable of taking from me Allows me to conquer human nature which belongs to me inalienably. It allows me to sacralize life and find my place in the universe.
Conflicts befor aesthetic judment The aesthetic judge is a stern judge, inconvenient as an owl permanently over your shoulder. Imagine this little animal permanently like a radar scratching your life, saying: "Such a thing isn't beautiful. .
. " and now? I saw that such a thing wasn't beautiful!
This invasion of privacy - Beauty doesn't ask, it demands. It enters your life and asks for everything! It's an expensive price!
Then, we escape from the discomfort the aesthetic judge causes us. and finally. .
. "Without a conscious search for beauty, We risk falling into a world of pleasures and we become addicted and in the banality of acts of de-sacralization a world in which one no longer perceives the worth of human life. " to finsh these reflexions, I've brought you a few images, a few thinggs that Scruton, who has a very exquisite taste - he talks about various works, various characters.
. . A few images, just to end with a bit of beauty!
Including some music that he quotes as sublime, PAVANE, by Gabriel Fauré. Some images and a poem, So that we leave here a little imbued with this "Helicon". According to Homer, everytime there's beauty the muses almost imperceptibly dance around us.
Let's imagine we can feel the dance of the muses in the Helicon around us! "Dance, my heart! Dance today with joy.
. . The compasses of love, fill the days and nights with music and the world listens to its melodies.
drunk with joy life and death dance. to the rythm of the music, dance the hills, the sea,the land Between laughter and tears, mankind dance. To wear the monk's habit and live apart from the world in proud solitude?
Look! my heart dances in refinement in hundreds of arts, and the Creator rejoices. .
. " Kabir Over 250 philosophical conferences on NEW ACROPOLIS channel on YouTube, available for free NEW ACROPOLIS is an international, independent and non-profit philosophical movement based on Culture, Philosophy, and Volunteering.
