Beauty (2)

Yesterday evening I was walking trough town and the sky looked spectacular. A beautiful sunset. So what was it that made it beautiful?

First of all: would everybody have thought of it as being beautifull?
Well, my guess would be 95% would say it did look beautiful, and 4.9% would have said that they thought that it was NOT ugly. The other 0.1% is just trying to be different.
So, what made it look beautiful? well, it was sort of purple/pink with gray and yellow, at least that's what most people would have said, right? So does that make everything that is purple/pink with gray and yellow beautiful? I'm pretty sure if I would dye my hair in those colors the precentage of people thinking that it looks beautiful would reduce drastically.
Well, then was it the magnitude of it? The composition of it? The depth of it? The uniqueness of it? A combination of these things? You tell me.

Anyway, as promised: the cultural aspects of beauty.
Why is it that women in certain african tribes get very excited about guys showing as much of their sclera as they possibly can? Yet to do this in a western culture would be a sign of disgust and thought of as very inatractive, even scary!
Just one example of many that one could think of from the 'third world' (a term that I'm not actually supposed to use because it has got a connotation of superiority, but I guess ya'll know my heart).

And then us in the western world. This was quite interesting, last Saturday I went into town with Stuart for his art-project (see pictures), basically we walked around asking people what they thought of the picture of physical beauty that the media portraits. And every person told us that it was unreal, unfair, unnatural and yet the majority feels terribly unhappy knowing that they are not as skinny as one of those stapled on our t-shirts (get a life guys/girls if you're not obese/unhealthy ... be happy! Just be creative with your clothes and hair, show some character in the way you live... much more attractive than some bones sticking trough skin IMHO :-))

So; why are there these different ideas of beauty? I think with the whole platonic idealism theory I have given the (in my opinion) most likely option. So I would suggest beauty, in its perfect form and shape, excists, not in this world/dimension but it does. Everything we see here is a pale reflection of what could be. There seems to be a common aspect though: in every culture there is a relationship between status and beauty...

Anyways, i'm giving up! I'm terible at writing series because I can't deal with the pressure! So no more series for me... sorry guys, I live and learn!

Beauty (1)

I warned you: don't get me started. Someone got me started, and now I feel restless and squirmy untill I have at least said something on the topic. I've decided that this shall be the first of a series. Yes, I'm very aware of the fact that I will ride the waves of many great philosophers, and no, I do not pretend to be able to add anything to what has already been said or written, however i do believe that philosophy should be owned by the people to contribute to a more meaningful, considered existence.

Beauty... wouldn't it be wonderful to start with a nice definition, putting the subject into it's appropriate box to make sure we don't wander of(f?)? I must say I do like the more recent developments in philosophy where language has been given a more prominent place, after all, just by choosing words we define, confine and shape the world around us. In this case however I don't quite see how a definition would help out. I think every single soul on planet earth will have some sort of understanding of the concept 'beauty', so my problem isn't as much what is beauty but rather why it is. I'll have to restrain myself though: let's take it one step at the time.

So today: Beauty in platonic idealism.
Don't expect too much here, I'm just gonna improvise and besides that I've studied philosophy in Dutch, so my vocab is limited at the best, none-existent at the worst.
Just to sum it up to remind ourselfes. Plato is famous for his allegory of the cave (although there is doubt that he ever thought of this allegory in the first place). A good old philosepher sitting in a cave facing the rear wall and lighting a fire at the entrance to the cave. Al he sees is his own shadow. He figures out: what I see of myself is a shadow. Likewise we, on planet earth(the so called perceptual world), see but a poor reflection, a shadow so to speak, of what is there in the 'intelligible' world. So there is a storehouse filled with 'ideas', and we as humans have in our conscienceness a list of those ideas. Eg. we know a horse is a horse because we see four legs, a big nose and a hairy tail we tick the boxes and remember, this is the idea 'horse'. (I know I put it very simple, but I'm trying to get trough this as quick as I can).
Allright, in this dualistic worldview...beauty.
Say there is the idea 'beauty' in the intelligible world. We come across a random object and 'remember' this idea beauty. So we say 'wonderful'. Even in our christian worldview this might not sound so bad. Let's say the intelligible world, is the ideal world, the world that God meant in the beginning. God created the concept beauty, and we still recognise it around us. That ideal world is replaced by a world subject to sinfulness and therefore no longer perfect. In a similar way our understanding of beauty is distorted et voila: That's why there's different opinions on what is beautiful.
That doesn't really answer all my questions though. Why is it, for example, that Christians, even though reborn as children of God and made perfect (yes, i know, beING made holy, but still), so in a sense restored to the perfect creation that Adam was, why is it that there's so few radical, reborn Christians that make beautiful music, write good books, make good music, draw beautiful painting etc.?
Another question it doesnt quite answer, one that i will develop in my next episode:
It seems that there is not just a random variety of opinions on beauty. In most cultures there's more or less a general agreement on what is beautiful and what's not. So there is some sort of connection between culture and beauty...
Next time I want to look at some of those cultural aspects of 'beauty'.

Beauty (?)

Don't get me started about beauty, it remains... it remains a mystery.

Sven the Seal (links may contain shocking material!)

It was a beautiful day in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. It was terribly cold, but the sun was shining and Sven the Seal was looking forward to another lovely day just dozing of and waiting for his mommy to come back from hunting and giving him some milk. Yes, life was good. His pelts was starting to become really gray now and before long, he would be swimming in the big blue! Sven couldn't wait. He often dreamed of what it would be like...
In the distance a huge ship was making it's way trough the ice. But the sun was so nice and warm and Sven felt so comfortable that he couldn't help closing his eyes.

When he woke up he heard a terrifying noise! A few muffled sounds and the heartbreaking cry of a baby seal in trouble. That must be Sico the Seal, his neighbour who was born one day after him! Now a few man with big sticks came running at Sven. They came close very fast and their faces were very angry... Sven realised something was wrong and tried to hide himself but his pelts was too grey and when they saw him, they came running at him with their sticks raised, ready to strike! At that very moment his mom jumped out of a hole in the ice and positioned herself between Sven and the men with sticks. They started beating her... not too hard, they were after her pelts and didn't want it to be damaged. But hard enough to make her die slowly. Two other men managed to walk around her and made an attempt to hit Sven. Sven knew he couldnt swim but this was his only chance, and he jumped into the hole. He managed to make his way to the open water... the water wasn't quite what he expected. He thought it would be blue... well, today it was red, and there was a horrible smell... when Sven surfaced he swam into a carcas... he tried to get away from it... he panicked... couldn't get to the light... he started sinking... colder and colder it got... 'so this is the big blue' was his last thought.

Paris, four months later:
The hottest model of all entered the room and wiggled her hips as she walked on the catwalk...showing of her cute face and her coat...made out of seal peltses. Her beautifull smile hid the fact that she and her world system are a verocious killer.