Never mind, we'll find somebody to disagree with us. 
--A
Beauty
Moderator: Fist and Faith
no doubt about it.you're more advanced than a cockroach,
have you ever tried explaining yourself
to one of them?
~ alan bates, the mothman prophecies
i've had this with actors before, on the set,
where they get upset about the [size of my]
trailer, and i'm always like...take my trailer,
cause... i'm from Kentucky
and that's not what we brag about.
~ george clooney, inside the actor's studio
a straight edge for legends at
the fold - searching for our
lost cities of gold. burnt tar,
gravel pits. sixteen gears switch.
Haphazard Lucy strolls by.
~ dennis r wood ~
have you ever tried explaining yourself
to one of them?
~ alan bates, the mothman prophecies
i've had this with actors before, on the set,
where they get upset about the [size of my]
trailer, and i'm always like...take my trailer,
cause... i'm from Kentucky
and that's not what we brag about.
~ george clooney, inside the actor's studio
a straight edge for legends at
the fold - searching for our
lost cities of gold. burnt tar,
gravel pits. sixteen gears switch.
Haphazard Lucy strolls by.
~ dennis r wood ~
I don't mean to sound belligerent, but come on, Av, what slippery slope are you sliding down here? Now suddenly ugliness and brutality = beauty?Avatar wrote: I was talking about the often brutal "things that are true" that Dennis mentioned. Depsite their ugliness, callousnes and frequent brutality, doesn't the very fact that they are true invest them with some quality of beauty?
Does that make something like genocide beautiful? Or Nazi concentration camps?
To borrow the speech of a fellow confused (albeit fictional) human being, Arthur Dent: "This is obviously a new definition of the word beauty I was previously unaware of..."
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Avatar
- Immanentizing The Eschaton
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Bellligerent? You? Wouldn't have occurred to me if you'd never mentioned it. Although you raise a good point, and the slope may indeed be slippery, I'm not talking about the act, per se.
While the act involved, genocide for instance, is undeniably anything but beautiful, can't you see a value, (a beauty?) in the fact that we know that it took place, can identify it and don't intend to permit it again?
That's sort of the beauty I was thinking about. That we recognise the brutality of that action and are set against it ever being repeated.
Isn't it better to know the truth, however ugly it may be, than to believe a lie? Or be ignorant thereof? Or in denial?
It probably wouldn't fit into any definition of beauty that we know and use, sure. But compare the knowledge of the holocaust to holocaust denial. What's uglier?
Perhaps I should really be referring to an inherent beauty in the knowledge of truth?
If the knowledge of truth is good, aren't good things beautiful in some way?
--A
You're completely wrong: Nobody will disagree with you on this!Avatar wrote:
--A
I do think we're back to the reaction of the observer being the source the beauty, however.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
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Gadget nee Jemcheeta
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About the Truth to Beauty thing... how I've always seen it, I've always said that truth=beauty, because to me the height of beauty is goodness in the world, and when I make decisions out of untruth, ruin has always followed it. When I make decisions that are more accurately reflecting reality, the ones that have more 'truth' in them, things tend to work out better for me. When I'm lying to myself, in the long run, nothing turns out very beautifully at all.
Start where you are,
use what you have,
do what you can.
use what you have,
do what you can.
Very nice, Gem! (Again, where you been?)
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
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wayfriend
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But the expression 'Beauty is skin deep' observes that beauty is often a mask for coarser things beneath: a deception, a lie. And, as deceptions go, it works pretty well ... what does that say about us?JemCheeta wrote:About the Truth to Beauty thing... how I've always seen it, I've always said that truth=beauty, because to me the height of beauty is goodness in the world ...
.
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Gadget nee Jemcheeta
- The Gap Into Spam
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- Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2004 2:05 pm
- Location: Cleveland
I've been, you know... bummin around. Just checking in to see how everyone's doing.
Wayfriend, I think the theory would go that the beauty that is only a mask isn't true beauty in the first place. Of course, the whole thing kind of falls apart when I classify something as "true beauty" as opposed to "False beauty"... because I'm making a comparison of truth and beauty and kind of assuming the conclusion into the argument. I don't know, I think we're willing to believe a lot if it will make us feel better.
Wayfriend, I think the theory would go that the beauty that is only a mask isn't true beauty in the first place. Of course, the whole thing kind of falls apart when I classify something as "true beauty" as opposed to "False beauty"... because I'm making a comparison of truth and beauty and kind of assuming the conclusion into the argument. I don't know, I think we're willing to believe a lot if it will make us feel better.
Start where you are,
use what you have,
do what you can.
use what you have,
do what you can.
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Avatar
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And about time too.
Some interesting questions...I think that the answer to WayFriends observation is along the lines of Jem's "false beauty."
It's just that external appearance can, metaphysically anyway, have little or nothing to do with actual beauty.
Yes, we do have a tendancy to believe things that appear beautiful, apt, poetic, whatever. But the failure is in our perceptions.
Perhaps, as Pliss suggested, it really is a question of the beauty coming from ourselves...different beauties perhaps?
Isn't there something beautiful in exposing false beauty too though?
--A
Some interesting questions...I think that the answer to WayFriends observation is along the lines of Jem's "false beauty."
It's just that external appearance can, metaphysically anyway, have little or nothing to do with actual beauty.
Yes, we do have a tendancy to believe things that appear beautiful, apt, poetic, whatever. But the failure is in our perceptions.
Perhaps, as Pliss suggested, it really is a question of the beauty coming from ourselves...different beauties perhaps?
Isn't there something beautiful in exposing false beauty too though?
--A
That's why I rarely come here. Not even a politician can convolute as happily as a philosopher. I mean, when Clinton asks what "Is" is, it's only semantics - but you guys can get twenty pages of debate on the subject!Avatar wrote:
Isn't there something beautiful in exposing false beauty too though?
--A
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
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wayfriend
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If we see something and think it beautiful, how can we say that there is no beauty there?Avatar wrote:I think that the answer to WayFriends observation is along the lines of Jem's "false beauty." It's just that external appearance can, metaphysically anyway, have little or nothing to do with actual beauty.
Rather: There is no requirement that beauty cannot be linked to what is not beautiful, cannot serve what is not beautiful. Beauty is a slave to whomever possesses it, and, having no purpose of its own beyond being, it serves the purpose of whomever weilds it. You have to watch out for beauty - beauty can be used to hurt you.
Do we enjoy the beauty of a sunset? Yes. Because we cannot see any way that a sunset is there other than just to be
.
Examples of beauty being used to hurt me?Wayfriend wrote:If we see something and think it beautiful, how can we say that there is no beauty there?Avatar wrote:I think that the answer to WayFriends observation is along the lines of Jem's "false beauty." It's just that external appearance can, metaphysically anyway, have little or nothing to do with actual beauty.
Rather: There is no requirement that beauty cannot be linked to what is not beautiful, cannot serve what is not beautiful. Beauty is a slave to whomever possesses it, and, having no purpose of its own beyond being, it serves the purpose of whomever weilds it. You have to watch out for beauty - beauty can be used to hurt you.
Do we enjoy the beauty of a sunset? Yes. Because we cannot see any way that a sunset is there other than just to be
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
Not quite clear on the "take what's yours" bit, but as for Ex's from Hell -- we're back to what is done with the beauty, not the beauty itself. In other words, the onus is still on those who percieve the beauty.Wayfriend wrote:Wherever a beautiful mask is used to lure you into destruction or to take whats yours. The sub-topic of 'girlfriends from hell' alone would take pages.Plissken wrote:Examples of beauty being used to hurt me?
Funny train of thought de-railment break:
"Who got the beauty?
I got the beauty!
Big beauty,
Little beauty,
Tall beauty,
Short beauty,
Beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty!"
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
Holy crap! I thought "The Booty Song" was a local thing. My local rock station plays that on my way to work at least once a week.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
We've got an "All Comedy Channel" out here. I've heard it twice.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
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Avatar
- Immanentizing The Eschaton
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Plissken wrote:That's why I rarely come here. Not even a politician can convolute as happily as a philosopher. I mean, when Clinton asks what "Is" is, it's only semantics - but you guys can get twenty pages of debate on the subject!Avatar wrote:
Isn't there something beautiful in exposing false beauty too though?
--A
And that's why I come here so often. I like that, but I think Plissken may have a point about the onus being on the perceiver.WayFriend wrote:There is no requirement that beauty cannot be linked to what is not beautiful, cannot serve what is not beautiful. Beauty is a slave to whomever possesses it, and, having no purpose of its own beyond being, it serves the purpose of whomever weilds it.
Is it beauty's fault that we're so susceptible to it?
--A
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wayfriend
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As I mentioned very early on, I think there's a lot about beauty that we're prewired with, but, like everything else about prewire, that ain't the whole story - there's always the nurture side.Avatar wrote:Is it beauty's fault that we're so susceptible to it?
However, there are enough people out there that create beauty - artists - and people who find beauty and bring it back to us - explorers, scientists - that there must be a significant commonality: if not, how can one person ever imagine what someone else would find to be beautiful?
Beauty rests with the perceiver; but, like any communication, there has to be a sender as well as a receiver. There must be a language of beauty, whose memes can be composed and interpreted.
.
New thought: Perhaps one of the dangers of beauty comes not from it's possible deceit, but from the desire to own it. First of all, there is the distinct possibility that we blind ourselves to the dangers of the beautiful thing, and then we make it ugly by trying to own it. (I'm thinking of both psycho-Ex's and South African diamonds here.)
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw
-- James Madison
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw