Why Beauty Matters: This Video Should Be Required for Europeans

[Wynterwade]

This is the greatest video about Philosophical differences I have ever seen.

The whole video is centered around beauty and the philosophical origins behind beauty. This tells how society, moral values, and art has become perverted by liberal viewpoints that everything is relative (all things are equally good) and nothing is universal (that things are not equal).

The life changing part is his view on Platonic Love vs. Sexual Love and how liberal views pervert even this. Or when he describes how Religion, close relationships and Beauty are essentially the same thing (affect same part of the mind); just as 3 doors open to the same room.

Why Beauty Matters

Why Beauty Matters

Why Beauty Matters

Why Beauty Matters

Why Beauty Matters

Why Beauty Matters

[Grey]

I just finished watching it. Excellent video.

[Wynterwade]

Thank you Grey, I'm glad you liked it.
I had to watch the video 2 times to fully understand everything he said.

If any of you are interested, he wrote a book on Beauty. I purchased it but I haven't had the time to read it yet. He also wrote a book on how Western Culture is the BEST Culture and how it needs to be preserved. I read that and it was a great mentally refreshing read.

[Zogbot]

Haven't watched it yet, will do so later today or tomorrow, but I'd like to say that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is an universal value. Only Whites can create beauty.

[Wynterwade]

Zogbot, lol.
In my opinion, Japanese art is beautiful (however too simplistic for my taste) and I also love their festival where they put all the lanterns in the river to symbolize their ancestors. I get similar feelings when viewing this as some of the greatest ceremonies of Europe. The tradition, the family values mixed with aspiring for something greater in life are the overwhelming feelings in much of Japanese and European art, architecture, traditions and festivals.

But much of the rest of the world, in my opinion, is not as beautiful as European ideas, art, architecture and our physical features.

I don't think there is anything wrong in admitting this. Obviously preserving and valuing our own culture is imperative. Our culture is unique and is the best culture in the world (no other culture comes close to what we've accomplished) but that doesn't mean that other cultures (Japan for example) can not have certain positive attributes.

[Zogbot]

Putting lanterns in the river doesn't have anything to do with the idea of beauty.

[Northern Paladin]

thank you very much for sharing this great video, I will share it will all my friends.

[Wynterwade]

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"Putting lanterns in the river doesn't have anything to do with the idea of beauty."
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I respect your opinion. I'd rather not get into discussing why certain aspects of a Non-European culture can rival European culture.

But what about this song by the composer Joe Hisaishi. It is preformed with European instruments and the majority of the chord progressions are European but it does have occasional Eastern Asian cord progressions. I cannot deny the beauty behind this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_9kIOG0XF8

or this amazing song by Nobuo Uematsu...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzz5cVt70j8

[SaxonCeorl]

Very interesting and thought-provoking video.

I don't generally have any qualms with Mr. Scruton's ideas in this video, but he attempts to disguise his distaste for modern, abstract art as an objective judgment when it is ultimately nothing more than his subjective opinion.

When it all boils down to it, all we have here is a man who has a valid opinion about a subject, but has an utter disrespect for an equally valid yet differing opinion about the same subject. Nothing more, nothing less.

His entire presentation is based on the faulty premise that one can objectively define the purpose and meaning of art. Art is not just 'beauty' (which will always remain a personal construct on some level), art is about evoking thought and emotion; as Camus said, art is man's struggle to interpret his world and create meaning. Modern, abstract art is doing just this, and is just as much 'art' as more classical forms of art. Even the most provocative, 'shock' art is completely legitimate. Mr. Craig-Martin is exactly right about art being about "captivating the imagination," not just 'beauty'.

Who is Mr. Scruton to say that modern art "does not lift us to a higher moral or spiritual plane"? When I first encountered abstract absurdist art, mainly through the plays of Samuel Beckett, I came to feel that I was understanding what life was for the first time. Needless to say, this art was very spiritually uplifting to me, as is much of modern art for many intelligent, intellectual people.

Scruton says modern art requires no "skill, taste, or creativity". Modern art can have great taste and is much more creative than many forms of traditional art, which often seek to conform strictly to predetermined characteristics based on its 'style'. And he thinks modern art is boring...

He says Marcel Duchamp "got rid of creativity," but how many people made a toilet into art before him? He then proceeds to wax dramatically about how the work of Michaelangelo 'changed his life'. Wow, so original. I bet nobody has ever enjoyed the work of Michaelangelo before. And as for Michaelangelo's work itself, how is a sculpture of a man any more creative than the work of a modern artist who creates something abstract and intangible from his mind?

He says children's art is "beautiful" because "they are trying to share what they feel." Are abstract artists not trying to share what they feel?

As far as his views on architecture, I agree that some buildings designed purely for utility are unattractive and, as they were designed with no aesthetic in mind, are NOT art. Brutalist architecture is an example. BUT, much of modern architecture does have an aesthetic point of view and is beautiful to some people, and, therefore, is art.

At one point, Mr. Scruton alludes that the fall of architecture as art came with putting function before form...then the camera proceeds to show triangular shaped buildings, oddly shaped buildings, etc....and I ask how on earth would that be putting function before form? It's the complete polar opposite.

Don't get me wrong, I am a great admirer of many forms and styles of classical art, from Greco-Roman temples to Gothic churches and 18th century Georgian homes. Johannes Vermeer is one of my favorite painters, and I have great respect for highly formalistic poetic structures. That said, modern abstract art can be just as beautiful, though-provoking, and infused with tear-jerking humanity, and none of Scruton or anybody else's subjective opinions can change that.

[Wynterwade]

SaxonCeorl,
Great post.

I don't think the point of the video was to see how Roger Scruton doesn't like ANY modern art and that ALL modern art is bad. (some of it is truly original and refreshing but most modern art is NOT)

The point was to focus on the underlying feelings that create art rather than the actual art itself.The point was that art has recently become taken over by greed, shock value and self-centered revengeful feelings.

His argument is that to correct this we need to focus on art that is created for the purpose of beauty because that makes us feel good (a universal feeling) rather than focusing on breaking moral taboos (making us feel edgy polarized and angry).

I have no problem with modern art in moderation. I'm a big fan of certain forms of Art Deco which blend modernism with reality. But I think that modern art has been given too much emphasis in today's society especially the extreme abstract forms.

The parts where he relates modern art to traditional art and shows that modern art is based on sexual perversion and traditional art is based on platonic love is truly genius. Also when he shows that Religious feelings, beauty and romantic love are all essentially the same thing is life changing. I know I'll never view the origin of love, beauty and religion in the same way again.

I hope you got out of the video the same feelings I did.