The other day futurist Dave Zach forwarded me philosopher Roger Scruton’s recent article “Beauty and Desecration”. In this ably penned piece, Scruton does battle with the “modern intoxication with ugliness”. His argument is well constructed, though these issues have been addressed exceptionally well by others in the past [See Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI (more recently here), and Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P—and, of course, indirectly but clearly St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q.5.] and will be addressed well (we hope and pray) many times in the future.
Scruton’s diagnosis is tragically on the mark:
At some time during the aftermath of modernism, beauty ceased to receive those tributes. Art increasingly aimed to disturb, subvert, or transgress moral certainties, and it was not beauty but originality—however achieved and at whatever moral cost—that won the prizes. Indeed, there arose a widespread suspicion of beauty as next in line to kitsch—something too sweet and inoffensive for the serious modern artist to pursue….
….It is not merely that artists, directors, musicians, and others connected with the arts are in flight from beauty. Wherever beauty lies in wait for us, there arises a desire to preempt its appeal, to smother it with scenes of destruction. Hence the many works of contemporary art that rely on shocks administered to our failing faith in human nature—such as the crucifix pickled in urine by Andres Serrano. Hence the scenes of cannibalism, dismemberment, and meaningless pain with which contemporary cinema abounds, with directors like Quentin Tarantino having little else in their emotional repertories. Hence the invasion of pop music by rap, whose words and rhythms speak of unremitting violence, and which rejects melody, harmony, and every other device that might make a bridge to the old world of song. And hence the music video, which has become an art form in itself and is often devoted to concentrating into the time span of a pop song some startling new account of moral chaos….
….Those phenomena record a habit of desecration in which life is not celebrated by art but targeted by it….
….These questions are of great urgency for us, since we live at a time when beauty is in eclipse: a dark shadow of mockery and alienation has crept across the once-shining surface of our world, like the shadow of the Earth across the moon. Where we look for beauty, we too often find darkness and desecration.
Scruton’s conclusion is not quite as satisfying as some others have been to this reader (hence our return to the Popes, etc.), but his discussion is interesting, clear, and in essentials very much on the mark. To his solution for the redemption of beauty, I would add a few practical steps: by all means, consider the problem in an urban light, but at the same time, pray often, avoid bad opera, and subscribe to the Saint Austin Review and Dappled Things.
There is now an insistence that beauty and truth are opposed to each other, that one must choose between them, and that virtue consists of rejecting beauty in favor of truth. I think it’s ironic that these “virtuous” soakers of crucifixes in urine are but reiterations of extremist fundamentalists who believed that if a woman is beautiful, she must be a witch and should therefore die. What it comes down to is that they FEAR beauty; that is why they hate it. We all hate that which makes us afraid, the monster under the bed. Beauty is also always fragile, breakable, vulnerable, whether it’s a short-lived sunset, a tree, a baby’s laughter. Such vulnerability, such finite treasure is heartbreaking. People fear vulnerability.
I like Peter Kreeft’s definition in a lecture on this subject: When Truth meets Goodness, the child is Beauty. To deprive oneself of any of those elements is to lose all three.
No one is more impoverished than the hater of beauty.
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