Why the Lack of Beauty is Destroying Society

The following is a transcript of this video.

“We have technology, convenience, security, and a measure of prosperity, but where is the beauty? Where is the beauty that we know we cannot really live without?”   

John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

In 2009 the late English philosopher Roger Scruton warned that “Beauty is vanishing from our world”, and that a “cult of ugliness” is taking its place. The magnificent architecture of past centuries stands in jarring contrast to modern landscapes dominated by monotonous concrete and glass towers, uniform suburban sprawl, and abstract, soulless buildings. Contemporary music is increasingly mediocre and formulaic, while the painting and sculptures of today pale in comparison to the splendour of the great masterpieces of past centuries. Nature retains its timeless beauty – yet even this aesthetic sanctuary is being destroyed by reckless exploitation.    

In this video, we argue that as beauty vanishes cultural depravity and individual immorality rises. We also examine why people turn away from beauty towards the shocking and perverse, and explore the profound truth of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s bold assertion, voiced by Prince Myshkin in The Idiot: “Beauty will save the world.”   

Throughout Western history, philosophers and theologians have regarded beauty as one of the three ultimate values, alongside truth and goodness. We are instinctively drawn to this trinity of virtues because, unlike goods that are pursued for some further end, beauty, truth, and goodness possess intrinsic worth – they are valuable in and of themselves. Or as Roger Scruton explains:   

“There is an appealing idea about beauty which goes back to Plato and Plotinus, and which became incorporated by various routes into Christian theological thinking. According to this idea beauty is an ultimate value—something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations…Why believe p? Because it is true. Why want x? Because it is good. Why look at y? Because it is beautiful.”   

Roger Scruton, Beauty

But beauty is not merely something desirable for its own sake. We also need it to live a good life, for a life devoid of beauty leaves us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually impoverished. Or as Roger Scruton observed:    

“Our need for beauty is not something that we could lack and still be fulfilled as people.”   

Roger Scruton, Beauty

One of the reasons we need beauty is because of the role it plays in activating our passions. In Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters, John-Mark Miravalle explains that:   

“Think of a time when you heard a gorgeous melody, and your spine tingled. Or when you cried over a beautiful story. In fact, deep feeling, a passionate reaction, is part and parcel of the whole experience of beauty. You can know the truth and not feel anything. You can choose the good and not feel anything. But you’re not having an aesthetic experience — you’re not appreciating beauty — unless you feel something.”   

John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

The passions activated by the experience of beauty are among the noblest stirrings of the human soul, which is why beauty, by its very nature, is life-enhancing. “Nobody is ever repelled by beauty. Beauty is, by definition, captivating, inviting, and full of delight.”, wrote Miravalle. When we perceive beauty, we don’t question whether life is meaningful – for we feel its meaning in the marrow of our bones. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche captured the way in which beauty awakens our vital passions when he explained that:   

“…in any aesthetic doing and seeing [there is a] feeling of increased strength and fullness…In this [aesthetic] state one enriches everything out of one’s own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever one wills, is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength.”    

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

In the presence of beauty the powerful passions that awaken lift us out of our ordinary, mundane state of being, and we are filled with a profound longing to become more virtuous – more worthy of the beauty we are beholding. Beauty, by stimulating our noble passions, summons our higher self. As Jacques Maritain observed, beauty “stirs in us, obscurely, vague and indeterminate heroic potentialities.” (Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry) Only broken human beings are capable of having vulgar thoughts or desires for vice in the presence of a majestic painting or breathtaking mountain range. For the rest of us, the passions that beauty activates act as a moralizing force that motivates us to shape our character into a work of art. “What do we long for when we see beauty? To be beautiful.”, observed Friedrich Nietzsche. Or as John-Mark Miravalle writes:   

“…beauty is what ignites in us the passions, the desire for what is good and true, because it is presented in sense images that provoke within us such strong emotional reactions.”   

John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

In Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem The Archaic Torso of Apollo, an individual observes, with deep admiration, a stunning ancient sculpture. Suddenly, he experiences a sharp shift in consciousness: he senses that while he is observing the artwork, the sculpture itself is observing him; it is penetrating his soul, revealing his shortcomings and flaws, and demanding that he become as beautiful as it. As Rilke writes, “For here there is no place / that does not see you.” The poem concludes with a transformative command: “You must change your life!” This sentiment was echoed by Fyodor Dostoevsky:   

“One may venture to say that the purpose of the work of art is to humanize that monstrous polyp man in the lump.”  

Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Writer’s Diary

It is because the experience of beauty places moral demands on us, and makes us aware – via contrast – of the ugliness, corruption, and disorder of our souls, that so many people today are fleeing from beauty. Or as Roger Scruton observed:   

“…aesthetic judgement [is today] experienced as an affliction. It imposes an intolerable burden, something that we must live up to, a world of ideals and aspirations that is in sharp conflict with the tawdriness of our improvised lives. It is perched like an owl on our shoulders, while we try to hide our pet rodents in our clothes. The temptation is to turn on it and shoo it away. The desire to desecrate is a desire to turn aesthetic judgement against itself, so that it no longer seems like a judgement of us…This you see all the time in children—the delight in disgusting noises, words, allusions, which helps them to distance themselves from the adult world that judges them, and whose authority they wish to deny.”  

Roger Scruton, Beauty

To grasp the ways in which people today are desecrating and fleeing from beauty, we must understand that a key trait of beautiful objects and phenomena is that they embody a rare combination of order and surprise. It is this mixture of order and surprise that elicits the feelings of wonder we feel in the presence of beauty, for wonder is “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration caused by something beautiful, unexpected, or inexplicable.” Or as John-Mark Miravalle explains:  

“[For example], nature is permeated with patterns, forms, and structures that can be seen and grasped and, usually, be given numerical expression…But nature isn’t just orderly. It’s also surprising not just in the way it is or the way it behaves, but in the fact that it exists at all. Surprise too, then, has to be a fundamental feature of beauty…If human beings have been designed for beauty — and we have — and if beauty involves surprise, then we’ve all been designed for surprise.”   

John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

In order to satisfy the need for surprise, while also evading the moral demands beauty imposes, many people today are consuming disturbing, perverse, or sensational content – stimuli that surprises them by shocking them, rather than evoking wonder. Or as Miravalle explains:   

“…we’re often tempted to pursue a good — namely, surprise — isolated from the order to which it ought to be joined. And when surprise becomes the only goal, it instantly turns into perversion…A man who eats meat and vegetables isn’t doing anything surprising, but a man who eats books is. A woman who passes you on the street and smiles politely isn’t likely to surprise you, but she’ll surprise you if she suddenly punches you in the neck or walks suddenly into the street and gets hit by a car. Now, these examples may seem bizarre (and they are), but it’s a fact that humanity today has a strong attraction to the twisted, the perverse, and the disfigured.”    

John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

One of the many problems with satisfying our need for surprise through disordered and perverse stimuli is that over time we become desensitized and require more and more shocking stimuli to surprise us. For example, the great 20th-century playwright Robert Bolt observed a growing trend in modern theatre: a shift away from the pursuit of beauty toward a desire to shock the audience. And he warned that this trend would culminate in actors standing on the stage screaming obscenities at the audience. Or as Miravalle writes:    

“Disorder is when something lacks order – when it’s broken, chaotic, perverse, twisted. This kind of thing can startle us with a kind of warped pleasure, but it leads us down the path of increasing shock and deformity. It’s this that motivates people to indulge in sexual fetishism, dysfunctional reality tv, and horror movies…For many in the “art world,” the only requirement for an artist is to break boundaries, to do something novel, or to startle or shock the audience.”   

John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

Another way people today are fleeing from beauty is by seeking out stimuli and creating objects that are ordered but devoid of surprise. This is most visible in modern architecture, which is a product of what Roger Scruton called the “cult of utility”. While most modern buildings fulfill their practical purpose, they lack beauty. Their rigid, box-like forms deaden the senses, leave the passions dormant, and thus function as a dehumanizing force that envelops observers in an atmosphere of monotony and lifeless uniformity. Le Corbusier, one of the pioneers of modern architecture and a key figure behind the cult of utility that started to take root in the 20th century, openly declared:    

“The heart of our ancient cities with their spires and cathedrals must be shattered to pieces and replaced by skyscrapers.”   

La Corbusier, Quoted in Art in Crisis by Hans Sedlmayr

Or as John-Mark Miravalle wrote:   

“One obvious example of what has befallen us is the loss of aesthetic sensibilities in architecture. Where once the role of architecture was to help beautify the shared space of our cities and neighborhoods, now the role of architecture is to build utilitarian structures as cheaply as possible. The result has been a profound loss of beauty. It’s a kind of vandalism. What modern building would people a thousand years from now flock to visit as we do the Notre Dame Cathedral today? If the Gothic cathedral was the architectural statement of the Middle Ages, the “big box” store may well be the architectural statement of our age. This is tragic.”   

John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

Some social commentators argue that the moral decay of the West stems from the loss of religion. They claim that without religious faith, people cannot be truly virtuous. But this explanation may put the cart before the horse. What if the deeper issue is not the erosion of religion, but the disappearance of the beauty that accompanies a living faith? Perhaps it is not religious commandments and dogmas that morally elevate human beings, but beauty. History offers a striking anecdote that supports this idea.   

Over a thousand years ago, Prince Vladimir the Great, the pagan ruler of Kiev, sought a new faith to unite the Russian people. He dispatched envoys to neighbouring lands to study their religions. Some returned describing faiths that were rigid, austere, and heavy with punishment. Others found religions rooted in abstract theory. But the envoys who visited the Byzantine capital of Constantinople reported that the Christianity of the time drew its authority not through strict doctrine or philosophy, but via the creation of artworks of overwhelming beauty that its followers were inspired to create. Or as the envoys reported:    

“Then we went to Constantinople and they led us to the place where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or earth, for on earth there is no such vision nor beauty, and we do not know how to describe it; we only know that God dwells among men. We cannot forget that beauty.”   

Quoted in The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis

Because of its beauty, Prince Vladimir chose Christianity as the religion to unite the Russian people, or as Brian Zahnd writes: 

“What impressed the envoys and persuaded Prince Vladimir to embrace Christianity was not its apologetics or ethics, but its aesthetics—its beauty. Thus we might say it was beauty that brought salvation to the Russian people.”   

Brian Zahnd, Beauty Will Save the World

While vibrant religions can inspire the creation of beauty, the capacity to experience and bring forth beauty is universal and transcends religion – as those who are not religious can be profoundly moved by beauty and motivated to create it. Perhaps, then, what our world needs most is not a revival of religion but of beauty – a revival that demands the courage to accept the moral demands that beauty makes on us. If this is so, rather than being naive or idealistic, Dostoevsky’s declaration that “beauty will save the world” is a statement of profound truth. Or as Dostoevsky wrote in Demons:   

“Mankind can live without science, it can live without bread, but it cannot live without beauty. Without beauty, there would be nothing left to do in this life. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.”   

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

Further Readings

Art Used in this Video