The Dangers of Beauty

clefty

Phoron
Was discussed in SB that E Michael Jones has contributed a book with this title.

Hope to continue a discussion here.


More than ever beauty is under attack and from the most unlikely sides...as this ancient spiritual conflict is asymmetric warfare...




"Why is beauty truth? This is a question for our understanding of what we are. E. Michael Jones, quoting on medieval writers has said: “Over the course of the Middle Ages, as Aristotle began to supplant Plato in the Scholastic mind, beauty began to acquire the status of a transcendental, “semi-consciously at first,” then more spe- cifically in the writings of Robert Grosseteste, who “attributed the name of Beauty (Pulchritudo) to God, and wrote, ‘If everything desires the good and the beautiful together, the good and the beautiful are the same,’” but while the same in terms of the order of Being, they appear as different to us according to the order of knowing. “For beauty,” according to Grosseteste, “is a disposition of the good in so far as it pleases the apprehension, whereas the good strictly speaking has to do with the disposition in which it pleases our affections.””. So what is beauty? Why it is important for us?"

And not to muzzle the ox:


"The artist, in other words, produced what the philosopher could not explain. If one of its manifestations was beauty, the Trinity was “everywhere” in nature or waiting to be released from the stone by the sculptor. Even if no one could explain it, the Trinity was visible to the human eye whenever it perceived maximal complexity combined with maximal unity under the manifestation of beauty5"


"The fourth section of the book examines the war on beauty as manifested most brutally and tragically in the Jewish commodification of art as a form of aesthetic usury, and in the Jewish attack on Logos through music, literature, art and architecture."

Nice.

And it would make sense that a "chosen people" that for centuries did NOT make images so as to not "corrupt themselves" would then learn to counterfeit and corrupt and debase the goyim's aesthetic currency...joos already fell into idolatry in the OT...so why not cause others to stumble too...
 
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Of course Beauty is dangerous, since it implies temptation. Beauty by itself is meaningless, it becomes worthy -truly beautiful- only when it goes accordingly by the Logos.
The first example that comes to my mind is the Paese dei Balocchi in Pinocchio, it represents a beauty . . .
 
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clefty

Phoron
Wouldn't the Devil present himself as beautiful ? Aren't the vices seen beautiful ?
all the better to test you with...

Eve "saw that it was good for food...pleasant to the eyes..."

...people always see things that aren't there...like putting lipstick menu price on a pig...lol

they always setting their own personal standards..."every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Judges 17:6
 
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clefty

Phoron
Of course Beauty is dangerous, since it implies temptation. Beauty by itself is meaningless, it becomes worthy -truly beautiful- only when it goes accordingly by the Logos.
The first example that comes to my mind is the Paese dei Balocchi in Pinocchio, it represents a beauty . . .
"goes according by the Logos" et tu brute?

Thought you'd enjoy the second vid...Italians know beauty...and vice...
 
Beauty has always been used to vehicle falsities, ideologies, frauds, etc.
It's blinding.
It's a way to suppress reason.

Another matter is the beauty as a result, as a feeling. This kind of beauty isn't something provoked by the senses. It isn't artistic. In this case the adjective to describe it shouldnt be beautiful, but words like awesome or wonderful; words meant to describe the feeling, the happening, not meant to describe the object.
 

Karl

Possible NPC
Of course Beauty is dangerous, since it implies temptation. Beauty by itself is meaningless, it becomes worthy -truly beautiful- only when it goes accordingly by the Logos.
The first example that comes to my mind is the Paese dei Balocchi in Pinocchio, it represents a beauty . . .

I don't agree that beauty by itself is meaningless. It is self-evident truth which is apprehended by intuition, by virtue of the imago Dei on the soul. I wouldn't say that aesthetic beauty is truth tout court, but the aesthetic is a facet of the same basic thing. That which formally adheres to universal truth is experienced as beauty.

Neither do I agree that beauty is dangerous. If the good is the true is the beautiful, then it must be a perversion of the will that initiates danger where there is no such danger within itself. The female form is beautiful, for example, but women are objects of temptation only insofar as a man is weak; one in a state of privation is often drawn to that form by a perverted sense of attraction. For example classical nudity is not sexually arousing, but an eThot's instagram is, and is intended to be.
 
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If the good is the true is the beautiful
You're describing an experience here, something happening within yourself. This is different than describing a piece of art or a music, objectively.
There is art which is conceived to fraud people: for example the science-of-communication is all about this, and the people graduated into that are hired by companies to sell their products, embellishing their products with slogans and music and pictures.
 

Lord Osmund de Ixabert

I X A B E R T.com
Indeed, beauty, like love and truth, is beyond good and evil.

Goethe was correct when he said that Beauty is higher, not lower, than the Good.

Blake hit upon another facet of the same truth when he spoke of certain beauties being 'too great' for the soul of man. From his Proverbs of Hell:

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.​

The qualities that he has in mind represent what is known as the sublime;--an aesthtic perfection greater than beauty properly so called. It is too great to be represented in art, it can only be hinted at and a faintly evoked; and it tends to evoke a sense of awe, fear or wonderment, rather than inspire any feelings of peace and love. This is because it comes from a divine beauty that is too great for the human to grasp, yet powerful enough to still have an impact on us. All the best art and music is regarded in such high esteeem, not because it is an accurate representation of beauty, but because it evokes a sense of the sublime (in addition to the beautiful). I said that beauty is beyond good and evil, but this is even more apparent in the case of the sublime.

This idea is captured in Blake's other well known poem, 'Tyger'
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes
On what wings dare he aspire
What the hand, dare seize the fire
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand, & what dread feet
What the hammer, what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain.
What the anvil, what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
etc

If Beauty is greater than the Good, then of course it is also by definition beyond good and evil.

The same could be said of the True, which is higher than both the Beautiful and the Good.

Of course in God the three are not really divided into distinct categories. They are all one perfection. There is some truth in every beauty (othewise it would not have any form at all), some goodness to every truth, some beauty to every good, and so on.

God who is beyond good and evil can grasp beauties and perfections that are beyond your ken.
 

clefty

Phoron
Beauty has always been used to vehicle falsities, ideologies, frauds, etc.
It's blinding.
It's a way to suppress reason.

Organized by the Vitae Global Foundation, the summit will allow Francis and artists to discuss how to "leverage the arts, media, and entertainment to trigger a cultural transformation that promotes the common good, universal values, and an encounter between people," according to Vatican News.


Beauty is dangerous...peddled like this
 
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Macrobius

Megaphoron
Beauty is just one of the four Transcendentals... Truth, the One, the Good, the Beautiful... analogies of BEING.

Only One is truly worthy of the Name, I AM THAT I AM (BEING itself)... Ego Eimi, as our Lord Jesus says, and is cruicified for so saying.

Thus, only that One is truly True, truly the One, truly Good, or truly Beautiful.

We used to have Transcendentals... Proper Transcendence.
 
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clefty

Phoron
But Christians and Jews have regard to this command, “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him alone;”4831 and this other, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me: thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them;”4832 and again, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”4833 It is in consideration of these and many other such commands, that they not only avoid temples, altars, and images, but are ready to suffer death when it is necessary, rather than debase by any such impiety the conception which they have of the Most High God.

 
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