What is beauty?

[nmcil12]

Great Topic - Thanks for starting it. I love both the definition and examples of James Marsters and Taylor Swift.

How I think of "what is beauty" is the combination of the object and viewer and cultural experience. What is the most intense experience of beauty for one individual will have absolutely no effect on another person. Just thinking of the Schubert and Bach gives me such a wonderful feeling, their music brings such great joy and sorrow into my life. To another person, it would be a great big "who cares" and this music would have made no emotional or intellectual connection but they could have other forms of music that would equally connect with them.

You could take any of the most physically exquisite women or men on the planet, but who would be the most significant "beauty" to me? The answer for me would be Wanda Landowska, one of the great women musicians of all time but certainly not fall into the physical beautiful people context.

The idea of "beauty is sincerity" - I think that is such a powerful definition because it brings the concept of beauty down to fundamentals - the passions and intensity; sheer power of an event as well of the individual who is part of the event.

Someone once gave me a great lesson on beauty and the individual - they describe the beauty of a rose as great that it would make you cry. I think for me, that is how I make the connection of "what is beauty" - something that has this level of profound effect on an individual. Just think of Nelson Mandela all those years in prison and the beauty of that person and event - or the moment when a swallowtail floats across your field of vision and you wish it would stay longer. And then you have all the horror of beauty within the violence as you were seeing the protesters fighting for their lives and their right to control their country and its destiny in this Arab Spring.

Regarding the relativity of "the beautiful rock" - I think that the "beauty of the rock" would not change for a great many people - I look at the rocks in my garden and always seen them a things of great beauty.

 

[Washburne]

Regarding the relativity of "the beautiful rock" - I think that the "beauty of the rock" would not change for a great many people - I look at the rocks in my garden and always seen them a things of great beauty.

My mum love rocks. She can bring some home with her from vacation and she takes my dad on rock finding trips (not that often but still) to add to their garden which is always a work in progress. I rarely find rocks anything special even if it happens, and I usually just nod along when she talks about them, but I like how it all comes together in the garden. I love the garden. As long as I don't have to take care of it. 😉

 

[Thamior]

Sorry. I'm lost. Not at all saying it's your fault. Probably my bad language skills. So feel free to think the following is stupid (even if you say it or not). If beauty is subjective how can it refer to the most beautiful things/people if not everyone has to agree about what's beautiful or not? Can you dumb it down for me please.

I may have been sort of choppy in my logic, so I'll try to make it more transparent. There are two separate parts to the question: "what is beauty?"

a. Beauty is a concept, which means it does NOT depend on physical things. If there was nothing beautiful in the world, the concept of beauty would still exist. How do we define this concept of beauty? (NOTE: definitions and examples are two separate things - in this case, we're looking for a definition).

b. The world is full of physical things and ideas, which can possess the description, "beautiful." Which of these things are beautiful?

Now, a good definition of beauty (a) makes it easier to know how to decide what is beautiful (b). The point I am making is about (b). I am saying that it is meaningless to say that everything is beautiful.

Back to subjectivity, here's my explanation. YOU decide what you think is beautiful. HOWEVER, it is illogical to say that everything is beautiful, for the following reason:

In order for the word beauty to have meaning, there must be SOMETHING that it does not apply to. Why? Because if everything was beautiful, then it would be redundant to use the word 'beautiful.' If the definition of a person includes 'is beautiful' (for example, if you say that all people are beautiful), then it is unnecessary to EVER say that someone is beautiful.

It is true, though, that everything has some level of beauty in it. Here's where I use the distinction between 'beauty,' and 'beautiful.' If something is beautiful, it means it is full of beauty - notice the distinction between something that 'has beauty' and something that is 'full of beauty.' My point is that, in order to call something beautiful, it must exceed the average of beauty of all other things. It must stand out. So, you still get to decide what you think is beautiful - but you cannot say that everything is.

Another way of thinking of it, as I said in my previous post, is that beautiful is a comparative term. It only has meaning if you are using it in contrast to other things. Imagine if for your whole life, you could only ever see a white wall. One day, you say "that wall is beautiful." While somewhat poetic and nice, that phrase is meaningless. You had absolutely no way to judge whether or not that wall had beauty, because you had never seen anything else. It is possible that you were right; but you were not justified in saying that the wall is beautiful.

I may have just confused you more... sorry...

 

[Washburne]

In order for the word beauty to have meaning, there must be SOMETHING that it does not apply to.

True. Makes perfect sense. In itself.

It is true, though, that everything has some level of beauty in it. Here's where I use the distinction between 'beauty,' and 'beautiful.' If something is beautiful, it means it is full of beauty - notice the distinction between something that 'has beauty' and something that is 'full of beauty.' My point is that, in order to call something beautiful, it must exceed the average of beauty of all other things. It must stand out. So, you still get to decide what you think is beautiful - but you cannot say that everything is.

I wouldn't say that I totally agree just yet. Maybe I need it to sink in or we just feel differently about it. But I definitely see your point. I think one problem when it comes to how we express ourselves is that we often don't use it properly. "Don't take things literal" and all that. We say one thing but make our own spin on it and expect people to know what we mean. Personally I haven't given much thought if I use beautiful or beauty.

Thanks for taking your time to answer.

 

[Thamior]

True. Makes perfect sense. In itself.

Good, because that part was the most important part of my argument 😀. The other issues, were just me trying to prove that phrase in different words.

Also, I'm pretty sure the sentence "In order for the word beauty to have meaning, there must be SOMETHING that it does not apply to" AUTOMATICALLY falsifies the idea that everything is beautiful.