Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Justifying Beauty
Since the beginning of the course, we have been discussing the distinctions between nature and man, apple and sweetness. Now we have moved onto trying to pry apart the purpose of beauty in flowers and, on a larger scale, all that is around us. Why do we have beauty? What is the purpose of natural beauty? Are flowers wasted creation? Looking around at the snow falling this evening, I find myself marveling at the simple beauty of snowflakes. Do we need to justify why they are beautiful? Is it really imperative that these simple gifts have a specific, useful purpose? Or are we simply trying to assign a purpose to organize our lives and meet our own agendas? I think it is okay to be simple and just appreciate the beauty that surrounds us. It speaks to something deeper within a human, something we might not be able to define on paper. It has the ability to heal and speak to our emotional well-being, which may be a purpose in and of itself, if we feel the need to assign a useful role to it. While there are plenty of plants - such as tomatoes and potatoes - that give us food for our physical health, we also need "food" for emotional health. I do not believe you can separate the physical, mental, and emotional health of a human being when justifying the purpose of beauty. Do we simply not need to be nurtured in these other two areas? I think beauty allows us the opportunity to smile, to be happy, to be in awe. Beauty often gives us cause to marvel and pause. Perhaps that is its purpose - to allow us to stop for a moment and smile.
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I think we do feel everything has to have a defined purpose. We live in a fast paced life and most feel they don't have the time to waste on something that doesn't give something in return. I think flowers, snowflakes, nature in general have a purpose but maybe not one we can set in stone like you described. Sometimes that doesn't seem to be good enough for us. But then I think, if we don't want to waste time on something useless like beauty then why do we waste time thinking about its purpose. I don't even know if that makes sense but I think beauty is something not without purpose but it has a variety of purposes depending on age, sex and emotions. Whether they are eye candy or worthless plants, they serve a purpose for something somewhere.
ReplyDeleteYes...we do...much to my own dismay...have to justify everything. I'm not sure if it's a "Power" thing or simple human paranoia. If you ever get to study King George III, he literally went mad and the medical professionals blamed it on "Humours"(Byle, phlegm, blood, cholar). Gotta be a reason, right? Had to justify his behavior!..daggonit! Because we are human and anything outside of reason...is just not JUSTIFYABLE...even if we make things up...we win.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole idea of wonder is something we feel we need to justify but will forever be incapable of. Wonder is defined as "the feeling of surprise mingled with admiration caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable". I thought it was interesting that beautiful was the first adjective used in the definition since thats what we've been talking about. On a different note, I agree with Kacey that everything everywhere serves a purpose. We as humans think we serve a purpose, with each of us having a different purpose in our own individual lives. I feel that leaves an infinite number of purposes that everything in the universe or Earth can have.
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