Beauty will save the world, but first we must save beauty
“Beauty will save the world” is a legendary quote from Dostoevsky’s 1869 novel The Idiot. The phrase itself is ambiguous — what kind of beauty? Physical beauty, moral beauty, the beauty of truth and what relevance it has today?
Taking a look at the world surrounding us
During this day and age, beauty is more relevant than ever, as we are not exactly living the most beautiful of times. Quite the opposite. There are disgusting people running the world, causing global trauma, fear and confusion.
In addition to that, new technologies are emerging faster than we can fathom, supposedly rendering new generations mentally ill and the rest of us unemployed as AI is allegedly replacing most of the jobs that are based on thinking. The world is getting increasingly more complicated forcing us to live between chaos and entropy. Many people are absolutely lost.
If that’s not ugly enough, climate change is threatening our very existence, which is a shame, because we are, after all, the only known intelligence in the universe. In the long term, climate change will render this planet resembling that of the Hell. So far very little has been accomplished in order to make anything about it, which makes me think that maybe we are sending ourselves to Hell. How much beauty is there in our actions or in our behaviour?
Noam Chomsky has said that in addition to the long term threat of climate change, the other, short term and more immediate demise could arrive via nuclear destruction. Einstein feared that a full-scale nuclear war could lead to massive destruction, possibly making the Earth uninhabitable. He famously said: I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
There is serious lack of beauty in how this world is being run. I always hoped that our future would look something like in Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy, that depicts the future humanity as sophisticated, enlightened and peaceful race who was using AI to the answer to life, universe and everything. Not exactly the direction we’re headed. Instead, we are living in the movie Idiocracy.
Culture and trends
Many of our cultural movements are, at the moment, suffering from lack of artistic richness and diversity. We are living in a commercialised cookie cutter culture.
I’m the last person in the world to give any fashion tips, so call me crazy, but the fashion trends, in my minds eyes, for the past decade or so, has been in a major downwards spiral. Subjective? For sure, so we can all judge for ourselves.
I recently read an interesting article suggesting that there is now less use of colour the world. If you look around, you can perhaps see that this is true. Beige and grey are dominating colours for example in clothing and car designs. In fact, many cars are now the colour of cat litter or wet clay. That is the colour of primer paint. It almost looks like they are now forgetting to paint the actual coat of colour into things.
Interior designs of houses and apartments are dominated with all-white spaces where originality and personality has been replaced with cursive text “live, laugh, love“ printed onto every other article of decoration and furniture.
Even architecture has a huge impact of the beauty of our world. Modern architecture has been widely criticised for it’s globalised copy-paste designs, rendering many cities identical and killing localised styles. That is to say, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell which city you are in, should you be teleported randomly to almost any of the recently built urban areas in the world. Hundred years ago, you would have been able to tell your whereabouts with ease, based on the distinctive cultural signifiers of the localised architectural styles. It comes as no suprise that these generic styles, that are now running wild, are the most generic and bland ones. If idyllic, stylish and pleasent designs were spreading around, it of course wouldn’t be a problem, but honestly, what are the odds of that? Of course it is ugliness that is spreading. Many researchs show that our surroundings do actually have a huge impact of our wellbeing, if that is not obvious enough.
So yes, a drop of beauty could very well do us good.
There is an old adage, that in oder for your tool to take care of you, you must take care of it. For example, if you are a photographer, your camera is your tool, but in order to make photographs with it, you need to keep it up and running by handling it with care, keeping it clean and having it serviced every once in a while. The same saying is very common in outdoors circles as well. In order to survive the elements, you need to be properly equipped, but if the equipment is neglected, it cannot perform and leaves you in trouble. I see beauty similarly. In order to benefit from it, we should look after and be educated about it. Would it be possible to produce beauty otherwise?
Even though it can be hard to imagine beauty being the silver bullet for solving world’s problems, I have found myself thinking about this quote more and more recently. It seems to be harder and harder to bear in mind that there are goodness and beauty left in the world. I’m leaning towards believing that beauty could actually save the world, but if that is a big enough stretch, at least it can be seen as a positive mentality.
What is beauty?
The word beauty has unfortunately almost been co-opted in today’s world and it has a superficial connotation. If someone would to ask me about my values, I’d mention beauty being one of them, even though there would be a legit risk of being instantly misunderstood as a very shallow person. I’d almost certainly feel the need to further explain my view, because beauty is so strongly associated with something like pretty faces, but if you think about it for a moment, you’ll find that beauty transcends aesthetics.
Moral and spiritual beauty for example, inner beauty if you will, the kind that comes from love, compassion and suffering. In this sense, beauty is not just about appearances but about goodness and redemption. There is also artistic beauty. Art and literature that can elevate humanity and reveal deeper truths about existence. The beauty in art and literature can awaken the soul and inspire people toward the good.
There is beauty in sophistication, good values and in wisdom — the very things that seem to very very absent today. It is such a shame, to put it mildly, that the most powerful positions in the world are now held by people who are not exactly known by their sophisticated or beautiful thinking.
According to psychologists, intense emotions are infectious, whether they are positive or negative ones. That is why the shit Trump says, has such an infectious negative effect, thus a huge amount of weight in making the world less beautiful. Likewise, a positive and balanced person will have a positive effect on their surroundings and people close to them. I hope that this shit storm of an era, will lead to a counter movement of sensibility. Maybe this will be a reminder to strive for positivity and better values.
The artists role
Maybe intense beauty can be infectious too and we, as artists, should be at the forefront of infecting our surroundings with it. Beauty can inspire, uplift, and reveal truth. Maybe beauty alone is not enough — it must be combined with love, faith, and moral strength to truly save the world. I think that is something to strive for.
Peace.
