Beauty Will Save the World

What is Beauty? Is it only skin deep? Is it only the perfect combination of colour and design? Or, is there much more to it?

Dostoyevsky once let drop the enigmatic phrase: “Beauty will save the world.” What does this mean? For a long time it used to seem to me that this was a mere phrase. Just how could such a thing be possible? When had it ever happened in the bloodthirsty course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Beauty had provided embellishment certainly, given uplift—but whom had it ever saved?
www.mro.org...

A mere phrase? Empty of meaning? Is beauty only pleasing to the eyes?

Russian authors of note seem to be fascinated by the notion:

“Beauty will save the world” is what writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn proclaimed upon accepting his Nobel Prize in 1970 and he was quoting his literary hero Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Solzhenitsyn claims that the statement is actually a prophecy rather than a truth.
craigaddy.com...

^the above contains a CBC Radio conversation^

Is it mostly religious in its scope?

Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn proclaimed that beauty will save the world and this essay explores how Blake’s prophetic writings (especially “Jerusalem”) reveal how beauty transforms individuals and societies. Beauty need not be a commodity, a thing to be craved. Beauty can be about perceiving the divine in every thing, and such spiritual materialism can engender social justice.
jesseturri.com...

Jerusalem - a poem by William Blake


And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

www.poetry-online.org...

For me, beauty is expressed through our actions:



These, imho, are beautiful people.

So... how does Beauty save the world?

To me, beauty is truly in the "eye" of the beholder. My favorite beauty that I find in my life is of the simple things. The way the green branches of a tree look against the cobalt backdrop of the sky or a sunset. The intake and sigh of a sleeping dog. It's not just about what we see, either, but what we perceive with all our senses, what we do, what we think... The feel of a piece of fabric, the smell of bread baking - and the taste of a perfectly-cooked ribeye. And the act of volunteering at the local dog shelter.

I think beauty could save the world. But people are so distracted that they don't take the time or energy to seek beauty in everyday things. We're more interested in fighting over our differences than coming together to appreciate the beauty of something. If we could all turn our focus to the beauty of something - anything - I think it would bring us together, and that is, ultimately, what will save us. Coming together over our similarities instead of dividing over our differences.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
I think beauty could save the world. But people are so distracted that they don't take the time or energy to seek beauty in everyday things.

It's one of the most prevelant mis-conceptions of the late 20th century... that our leisure time would increase because of modern technologies. If anything, the opposite is true. We have NO leisure time at all anymore and that is what detracts us from experiencing the subjective beauty around us (subjective being opposite of objective, or, those things we consider 'pretty', for instance).

Often, these days, we no longer know our neighbours. We spend our time enclosed within the walls of our homes or the fences around our back yards. We drive miles to malls rather than shop locally and , while sauntering through the shops, focus our attention between the goods displayed or our mobile phones/blackberries, etc. Yesterday, my wife and I spent time shopping in a popular and new shopping mall. It's cavernous. At the food court, we sat drinking our specialty coffees among hundreds of others and the place was actually hushed beneath soft indescript musak. All one could hear was cell phone ring tones going off all around us.

We seem to be indirectly connected these days. Once removed and ignoring those who are around us. Even the walkers outside are not 'in this world' anymore. They are, in large part, listening to their favourite music, I suppose.

Is it that we are becoming less connected with reality? Could this be why, as you said; "...people are so distracted that they don't take the time or energy to seek beauty in everyday things"?

We're more interested in fighting over our differences than coming together to appreciate the beauty of something.

Fighting over differences... that's interesting, BH. A result of culture clash? The desire to keep up with 'trends'? Many actually wear their political and religious opinions in clothing and jewelry. Some gangs specify clothing colours as a simple method of recognition. All these things may cause a huge distraction from what the actual personalities might be within those who walk by.

If we could all turn our focus to the beauty of something - anything - I think it would bring us together, and that is, ultimately, what will save us. Coming together over our similarities instead of dividing over our differences.

The question after reading the above is;: Are we coming together or actually drawing further apart, making it more difficult to see the beauty which, supposedly, might save the world.

Tough question: If a woman, sunk in the misery of poverty, turns to prostitution in order to feed her parents, brothers and sisters, is that a beautiful thing?

Originally posted by masqua
Often, these days, we no longer know our neighbours. We spend our time enclosed within the walls of our homes or the fences around our back yards. We drive miles to malls rather than shop locally and , while sauntering through the shops, focus our attention between the goods displayed or our mobile phones/blackberries, etc. Yesterday, my wife and I spent time shopping in a popular and new shopping mall. It's cavernous. At the food court, we sat drinking our specialty coffees among hundreds of others and the place was actually hushed beneath soft indescript musak. All one could hear was cell phone ring tones going off all around us.

That paragraph is so sad! I don't have these experiences any more because we live in a nice little town where there are no malls. People still wave and smile at passing cars and even talk to strangers EVERYWHERE. It's like we know each other without having been introduced, because we live in the same town and have similar experiences.

Is it that we are becoming less connected with reality? Could this be why, as you said; "...people are so distracted that they don't take the time or energy to seek beauty in everyday things"?

I think it's a matter of choosing a reality. I mean, having ear buds in one's ears constantly and dealing with blackberries and cell phones IS a reality, it's just not mine. Generally speaking, people who live like that, live in their heads. Their whole world is in their heads, occasionally stepping outside to 'deal with' other real people. And the more people live in their heads, the more closed off they are from other people... the more intolerant of others they become... the more division ...

Fighting over differences... that's interesting, BH. A result of culture clash?

I don't think so. Culture clash is beautiful! Two cultures living in harmony, is a beautiful thing. Where I live, half of us are 'American culture' and the other half are from the Mexican culture and we live together wonderfully! We are interested in each other, we share, we reach out to each other...

What I think the problem is is the "If you're not with us, you're against us" mindset. These days, someone learns that their neighbor is of the opposite political party and the lines are drawn. They 'dislike' their neighbor because of their political views. They see their neighbor as a threat to their beliefs. They make their neighbor the "enemy" even if they don't have a CLUE what they're like. And they're not interested in finding out. Too many judgments...

Many actually wear their political and religious opinions in clothing and jewelry. Some gangs specify clothing colours as a simple method of recognition. All these things may cause a huge distraction from what the actual personalities might be within those who walk by.

True, but it's not the WEARING of the colors or symbols that causes the division, it's the REACTION that people have when they see the colors or symbols... "He's on the 'other' side. He is my enemy." Instead of "He has different beliefs than mine and that's what this country is all about. Thank God that we can have such a variety of beliefs and live together in this great country"!

Are we coming together or actually drawing further apart, making it more difficult to see the beauty which, supposedly, might save the world.

I think it depends. There are many people who are getting further apart, but there are some who see beauty and experience joy by reaching out to someone who is different and learning all we can about them. I love to go into the Chat Room here on Saturday night, because I get together with my ATS friends and the division disappears. We have WILD differences on the board, but in there, our differences don't matter any more. It's the focus on ATS and the show that we find 'beautiful' and that brings us together in spite of our differences.

Tough question: If a woman, sunk in the misery of poverty, turns to prostitution in order to feed her parents, brothers and sisters, is that a beautiful thing?

It depends on who you ask, of course, but my answer would be a resounding YES!

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Not to deflect away from the relevance of what we've been discussing, but, in order to more completely involve those Russian writers in this convo, I'd like to bring the following into the mix:

Getting Religious
Good,Truth and Beauty

Is Beauty only one part of another trinity like Faith, Hope and Charity? Vladimir Soloviev thinks so...

The good, taken separately from truth and beauty, is only an indistinct feeling, a powerless upwelling; truth taken abstractly is an empty word; and beauty without truth and the good is an idol. For Dostoevsky, these were three inseparable forms of one absolute Idea. The infinity of the human soul–having been revealed in Christ and capable of fitting into itself all the boundlessness of divinity–is at one and the same time both the greatest good, the highest truth, and the most perfect beauty. Truth is good, perceived by the human mind; beauty is the same good and the same truth, corporeally embodied in solid living form. And its full embodiment–the end, the goal, and the perfection–already exists in everything, and this is why Dostoevsky said that beauty will save the world” (Vladimir Soloviev, The Heart of Reality, trans V. Wozniuk, p. 16).

mindyourmaker.wordpress.com...

So did Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in 1970, in his Nobel Lecture:

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through - then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three?

nobelprize.org...

Originally posted by masqua
So... how does Beauty save the world?

Answer: Emotion

More specifically: the realization that emotion isn't just a chance coincidence.

Pretty is as pretty does. In a world too obsessed with external beauty I see how necessary looking within everyone(and myself) has become. The key to our salvation is love of ourselves and others not for being pleasing to the eye but pleasing to the spirit.Those who are unpleasant represent our test towards becoming tolerant and loving of their shortcomings. Just my simple take I guess. Beauty makes people happy but inner beauty makes us divine.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Thanks for this thread. It was well thought out and written. Reading threads like this is part of the reason why I come to ATS. It seems to me that this technological society actually separates people rather than bringing them together; both from each other and from the world around them. It isolates us so that we each exist as an island instead of bringing us together.
To me, beauty is harmony and balance; in ourselves, the world around us, and how we treat others. The couple in the video are a perfect example. Instead of using the money to buy useless crap, they cared enough for others to help out where help was needed. Selfless acts such as this are a form of beauty.
I also find beauty in the natural world, which is in fact the life-support system for this technological world that we live in. Plants breathe in carbon dioxide which we exhale, and in turn breathe out oxygen, for example. Even death can be beautiful in it's own way. Without it, there would be no life.
Sitting in a boat, watching the sun shine on clear water, seeing animals interact with each other, and seeing weeds growing up through asphalt and turning the land back into its natural state; these things are also beautiful to me.
I read something a long time ago about the Navajo concept of beauty. I'd like to share it with you here. May we walk in beauty all the days of our lives.

Beauty to me is something that touches my soul! Hearing a good hearty laugh, seeing someone cry, a baby bird, the woods, seeing someone stop to help someone else, the night sky... I could go on and on. I would say that a man or woman that has to resort to desperate means to provide for their family is a beautiful thing.

Btw: the most beautiful thing in this world to me visually is moss. Big cool velvety tufts of brilliant green moss....

There is beauty all around us, but few take the time to pay attention anymore. There is too much ugly!

Edit it add: I recently got a tattoo... It is a greeneye with a tear coming down watering a purple lily...the tat artist asked me what it meant and I told him "through pain comes beauty"... he loved it!

Beauty isn't just something you can see with your eyes. You can feel something as being beautiful even if it doesn't visually look it.

beauty is the representation of god. art can be therapeutical too, because it's a way of the soul to make beautiful things, in the same way our creator did us

ok, I've read too much Jodorowsky lately

reply to post by masqua


What a beautiful concept, present in the OP (S&F). I agree, yes, beauty will save the world, and we will sigh a collective sigh of relief, and look again, and see the world anew, with new eyes. It's already starting to happen, to a degree, but once it starts, it will be such an attractive proposition, that it will be perpetuated as an irresistible force for transformation, and renewal. And since the whole creation IS beautiful, and all-GOOD, we will not be able to miss it, for those with the eyes to see. Then, as if becoming like children again, we will again laugh and play under the stars of a free-dome, and never ever look back again.

the dead bones of a bleak and dying world are turning to DUST.

Turn off the TV and look around

We're almost there...

reply to post by masqua


I don't usually like to put that much structure around my thoughts (if you know what I mean) and religion in any form isn't really my game, but Truth, Beauty and Good DO make a wonderful 'package'. I don't think they are all necessarily needed to have a complete idea or emotion, but as a trinity, you really can't get much better than that, IMO.

I think it's always important to look for the Good in everything and everyone (something my mother, a Christian, taught me). I have a natural curiosity and longing for the Truth and always have. And Beauty is something I've only really cared about in the relatively recent past. So, I probably look for things that I believe hold them all. And the easiest place I find them in one package is my dogs, believe it or not.

Can dogs save the world?

reply to post by Greenize


I love moss too. There is alot of it here in Iceland. It covers the lava fields. Some of many types. If you haven't been to Iceland, you should go there to look at the moss.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


I know what you mean. I have one, myself. Dogs are great. No matter what you do, your dog will always be on your side.

For me anything but people are beautiful, i just ignore them period.

Green grass, and a nice stream is more important in beauty than any human for me.

Dogs i love too.

Here's something that happened a year or two ago that shows that even humans can be beautiful. I was at a powwow and they had a dance for the kids. It's a way of honoring the next generation and to keep the traditions and cultures alive. Anywho, one kid couldn't come out and dance. He was in a wheel chair. He sat and watched sadly as the other kids went into the dance arena. Two girls that were in their mid-teens came up to him and helped him out of his wheel chair. They brought him into the arena and held him upright as they danced. The kid was so over-joyed. I'm never seen such happiness on anyone's face before. The guys on the drum saw this and the beauty of the gesture had them all in tears. To make the kid's night even better, they let him sit on the drum and sing with them-which is a huge honor. Helping others, even though they are strangers, is beautiful to me.

Originally posted by masqua

Ew Ew and EWWW!!!!!!

Youre intentions in writing this post were good and i dont mean to offend you, but william blake? did you honestly quote that gnostic villain and his Jerusalem albion nonsense!

I despise william blake with a passion, along with Von goethe and the rest of those libertine self righteous miscreants.

Beauty probably refers to the Kabbalah, in reference to Tiferet, often translated as 'beauty'.

Tiferet is the central sefirah of the entire tree of life, and refers to harmony in creation. Thus 'beauty' that is, when man realizes beauty by balancing his reality through both love and fear of G-d, will the world be saved.

But i resent the mention of blake and the gnostic idea that beauty can be found in disorder. That, my friend, is not only deranged, but a counterfeit 'imitation' of what beauty is.

William blake would im sure see beauty in the suffering of others. Is he G-d? Yes, im sure he thinks so. As many gnostics have the audacity to think theyre entitled to act as G-d does.

Im not saying beauty cant be found in suffering. Yes, ones suffering subjectively speaking, is beuatiful only in the sense that its serving to cleanse me of my crimson sins. The idea that this suffering is serving an underlying good is a beautiful idea. The meeting of opposites of the present - the suffering, with the good it'll bring about, future, is what qualifies as 'beauty' - beauty being a blending of opposites.

But beauty in things that are in themselves vain, that is, understood as beautiful only because you percieve beauty in it, is conceited and reprehensible. I loathe that gnostic essentially pagan idea that 'boundaries', limitations imposed on oneself because a particular behavior is inherently wrong, are a bad thing. Doesnt one need to capture a moment, when he takes a picture, to the exclusion of the entire experience itself? does the picture not become art, even after the fact that it had to be 'limited' and constricted in order to become expressed? Why does human behavior have to be different? Why do people imagine that sex for the sake of sex or promiscuity can be a good thing? Thats a pathetic rationalization. In the end, you capitulated because you have a very strong desire - self motivated, to do that. Whether that be to gossip, slander, act lascivious, lie, steal, cheat others, etc. Each of those things are not only limitations, but limitations imposed on one by pernicious and false powers from without. They dont have any intrinsic reality to them. Whats intrsinic and whats really powerful is mans ability to choose. Either yes i will do, or no i will not. Whatever course you take youre held responsible for by the attribute of Justice.

G-d did indeed put great beauty in the world. There is beauty even in dark times, but that does not imply that i will personally engage in darkness in order to find beauty. That is a fallacy and a pretentious one at that. Truth is doing what you know is right, not acting counter intuitively and saying theres 'holiness' in depravity, as blake would say. Theres only holineness is self control and respecting human dignity. This is why man was put here, to reflect his creator, to 'rule over the beasts' etc. Man can experience the beauty of sex with his partner, his other half. This shouldnt be 'optional', but obligatory on our part to RESPOND to the divine will presented to us through this marvelous creation. Beauty is raising children with respect for their elders and a deep sense of awareness of his divine purpose in the world. Beauty is knowing that i have a natural desire to do one thing, but i squash that aspect in myself, to do what i know deep within me to be right, to correct this malformation in my heart which incites me to rebel against the divine. This is a coinciding of opposites, of my animal and divine, but only letting the divine find expression, like the narrative in the Torah where Joseph becomes Potiphars steward allegorically impliesm, he had complete control throughout his house (the body) the only thing potiphar (the body) had control in was eating and drinking (that is, physical needs) but jospeh maintained complete control, despite the advances of potphars licentious wife, a symbol for the evil inclination which seeks to 'strip' you, and leave you naked, that is, ashamed.

Good, thread, i just got to share my opinion against this antinomian attitude. I am 1000% against it.

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?

The ancient Greeks, for their part, were convinced that an explanation of, and definition for, Beauty was as concrete and discoverable as the answer to why the days got shorter in winter or why your toga weighed more after you’d gone swimming in it. Indeed, no less a thinker than Pythagoras, he of hypotenuse fame, logged some impressive early results. In music, Pythagoras showed that the notes of the musical scale were not arbitrary but reflected the tones produced by a lute string—or any string—when its length was subdivided precisely into such simple ratios as 2:1 or 3:2. In architecture and design, similarly, he managed to show that the shapes people found most pleasing were those whose sides were related by the so-called golden ratio.


The golden ratio, briefly, is the proportional relationship between two lines a and b such that (a + b) is to a as a is to b; in other words, the ratio between the whole and one of its parts is the same as the ratio between its two parts. This doesn’t sound like much in algebra form (a/b = (a + b)/a) and still less when expressed as a decimal (1:1.61814). But draw a rectangle—or build a Parthenon—with sides of a and b, and the sheer cosmic rightness of the thing leaps out at you. If you were to be stranded on a desert island with one particular rectangle, that’s the one you’d go with. Palpably, it’s the first rectangle that occurred to God when he realized he needed another four-sided, right-angled shape to complement his juvenile masterpiece, the square.

This was good enough for Plato, the 800-pound gorilla of ancient Greek intellectual life, to include Beauty as one of his famous forms: those transcendent, invisible archetypes of which this reality is nothing but a set of blurry ramshackle imitations. Beauty was not in the eye of the beholder. On the contrary, to borrow Plato’s legendary cave metaphor, the beholder had his back to Beauty, able to see only its flickering shadows on the grimy cave wall of reality.

In short, the Science of Beauty was inaugurated by the two classical thinkers upon whose shoulders the science of pretty much everything else would eventually come to rest.
by Bruno Maddox: from Discover.com

The origins of the divine proportion
In the Elements, the most influential mathematics textbook ever written, Euclid of Alexandria (ca. 300 BC) defines a proportion derived from a division of a line into what he calls its "extreme and mean ratio." Euclid's definition reads:

A straight line is said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the lesser.
In other words, in the diagram below, point C divides the line in such a way that the ratio of AC to CB is equal to the ratio of AB to AC. Some elementary algebra shows that in this case the ratio of AC to CB is equal to the irrational number 1.618 (precisely half the sum of 1 and the square root of 5).

a----------c-------b

by Mario Livio: from +plus magazine

In 1509, Luca Pacioli the Italian mathematician, also known as the Father of Accounting, published a three-volume treatise (Divina Proportione), on the Golden Ratio.

www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk...

In his dialogues, Plato proposes that the perception of beauty induces recollection of previous aquaintence with physical reality, reaching higher and higher manifestations until it induces love and eventually a purely intellectual understanding of beauty, goodness, justice and wisdom.

I'm not familiar with Dostoevsky but Solzenitzyn's Cancer Ward is one of my favourite novels for his depiction of the beauty of the human heart, just as Gulag impressed me because of his portrayal of the ultimate irrepressabilty of the human spirit.

reply to post by Skid Mark


Ah! Thank you so much for sharing that. Absolutely beautiful!