The politics of beauty.

Are there people who never truly experience beauty? People who live and die without ever knowing deep aesthetic delight? I think so. There may even be many.

We have entire treasure troves of beauty in our museums, our theaters, our libraries and our concert halls. The past millennium has produced more than enough exquisiteness to saturate any human life time. But to enjoy these works of art requires a certain attitude, and some education, that simply do not fit very well in our modern age. And contemporary artistic concerns have lead away from the primacy of beauty.

As a result the only beauty that is readily available is the vulgar glossy kind in magazines and stores. And it, while often pretty, never produces the deeply moving effects of artistic beauty. Glistening commodities provoke surrogate feelings that may lull our innate aesthetic desires to sleep. So much so that I fear many a person today lives and dies without ever experiencing this form of bliss, this form of wonder, this form of knowledge.

No surprise then that the world is filled with cynicism and cruelty!

This is where the creation of beauty becomes a political act. The experience of beauty touches the depths of our humanity, and it shows us a glimpse of the greatness that we are capable of. After having experienced beauty, we will no longer accept the primitive life style designed for us by capitalist consumerism. We will no longer accept the crushing of life for the purpose of profit. We will refuse to play a part in the cynical machine of neoliberal military-industrialism.

Experiencing beauty shows us how beautiful we are, as a species, as a world. Or how we can be beautiful. And that is politics.