Clive Staples Lewis (1898 – 1963) is best known for his Chronicles of Narnia series, but he was also one of the great Christian apologists of the early 20th century. His book The Abolition of Man began as a criticism of rationalist pedagogy but became a profound defense of the Natural Law (what Lewis called “the Tao”) and analysis of progressivism in its embryonic stage.
Lewis proved prophetic, as the enlightened educators of his day gave birth to the Social Justice Warriors of ours.
Beauty Is Objective
Lewis begins by analyzing a textbook written for elementary English students. The textbook’s authors said that when a man sees something beautiful and says, “This is sublime,” the man is merely making a statement about his own feelings and projecting them upon reality.
In contrast, consider St. Augustine’s definition of virtue: “the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that degree of love which is appropriate to it.” Plato argued that young people must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred toward things that objectively were pleasurable, likeable, disgusting, and hateful.
All religions and the ancient philosophies believed that truth, goodness, and beauty were discovered and not manufactured by man. Emotional responses are not logical, but they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to objective reality or not.
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge could agree with the man who called the waterfall sublime and disagree with the woman who called it pretty because the waterfall objectively merited veneration.
The Natural Law
The Tao varies in the details in different times and places, but there are commonalities that have endured everywhere: duty, honor, commitment, honesty, magnanimity, filial piety, and raising our children right. Even if we ourselves fail to live up to those standards, normal people recognize their existence and that their lack of virtue is a defect in themselves such as being color blind or tone deaf.
Lewis compared the old pedagogy to how birds teach their young how to fly. Boys were trained to conform themselves to a standard of manhood that existed outside of their base desires. Either they would succeed and fly, or they would fail and fall to the ground. Today, however, boys are treated like chickens on the farm: the farmer fattens them up and uses them for purposes the bird knows not what.
The Acid Of Progressivism
The beatings will continue until she’s hot
SJWs say that race, gender, standards of beauty, and other objective realities are nothing but social constructs. When we recoil in disgust at a fat woman, we are told that this is merely a result of the conditioning instilled by the old reactionary patriarchal order. If it’s only conditioning, it follows that with the proper conditioning we can overcome all of the oppressive shackles that bound our stupid benighted ancestors.
Lewis argues that the Tao is inescapable. If we were to press SJWs on why they do what they do, they will eventually concede it’s because they envision a world they believe is good for its own sake. Their vision is warped, twisted, and incoherent, but they still have a vision and bad men like us must be brought to heel if their vision is to be realized. As John Wayne would say, “That’ll be the day.”
If we wage a direct frontal assault upon the Tao – “Why? What good is it? Who says so?” – then we are sawing off the branch on which we are sitting. If reality is nothing but atoms and the void to be shaped by those with the will to do so, then it all comes down to storytelling and whoever has the most guns gets to decide what reality is.
The Abolition Of Manhood
The progressive may try to justify things like honesty, fidelity, and magnanimity on purely rational or biological or modern grounds. He will twist himself into pretzels to avoid conceding that virtues are grounded in objective value. Without trained emotions, however, the intellect is no match for the animal appetites. Crude sentimental appeals to God and country will keep the soldier going in battle far longer than the neatest syllogisms.
Reason rules the appetites through the spirited elements of man or, as Lewis puts it, the head rules the belly through the chest. The chest, or heart, is where emotions are organized by trained habits into stable sentiments. In the most famous passage of the book, he writes:
You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
This is the abolition of man. It won’t make sense to speak of our social conditioners as being good or bad men because they won’t be men at all. Having conquered nature through science, they will at last conquer human nature. In the void where human nature once existed will be only animal instinct and the nature our masters want us to have.
Liberal democracies do not employ the brutal methods of the communists and fascists (yet) but their goal is the creation of the glorious new man who will be properly malleable in the hands of his progressive rulers.
The Solution
For the wise men of old, Lewis writes, the problem was how to conform the soul to reality. Their solution was knowledge, virtue, and discipline. For the modern, the problem is how to make nature conform to man’s desires. The heyday of occultism and sorcery wasn’t the Dark Ages but the early Modern Age, between the 16th and 17th centuries. The scientist and the magician had different methods but the same goals.
Lewis was an Anglican Christian. In case my previous column didn’t make it clear, I am a Roman Catholic. For my fellow Christians and I, God is the source of the Natural Law. God is truth, goodness, and beauty.
You may not believe in God but I’m certain that you believe in those three things. All men, whether they know it or not, desire truth, goodness, and beauty. They are not merely words that describe our emotional states but objective realities by which we judge everything else.
Good article. As Dostoevsky said beauty is what God and the devil do battle over and their battleground is the heart of man. Truth, goodness, and beauty are like three legs of a stool. You remove one and the whole thing falls. Our current situation was inevitable considering the loss of a sense beauty.
great quote. It seems to come from the Brothers Karamazov:
“Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
―Fyodor Dostoevsky
That is where it comes from.
I would argue it isn’t a loss, but a mental brainwashing camouflage that tries to prevent frontal lobe thought processes from engaging in the discussion. As with all things SJW, shame and guilt is used in a nefarious way to control society. Unconsciously, people still respect natural forms of beauty even as they scream SJW rhetoric. All one has to do is watch how people treat others in public.Naturally Alphas both men and women always pull attention. Men can move up that scale despite the best genetics through the act of creation/deeds done.They know this and struggle for they consciously know from puberty that to even procreate they need to fight. Unless they’re born Alpha, most men struggle for that identity their whole lives. For women creation is a given and they need not struggle for it, they all can provide it for society by merely giving birth.They know this from puberty as well. SJW leaders see this to and want to make it equal ,so that women can move up much like men, but this isn’t in their or men’s nature. Using shame and guilt to pressure society to go against nature is not struggle. It’s a recipe for destroying society.
Nice one! Keeps my hopes up for the future..
If fat middle-aged feminists think they’re hot, why then are they angry seeing the poster of the beach body ready model? The girl in the poster then must not be hot. Why spend all that money and energy to become something we men should not see as hot?
The truth is, these feminists know deep down inside they are disgusting pigs. It takes hard work and sacrifice to achieve that kind of hard body that men drool over. They don’t want to put in the effort to get that because they think that they are entitled to it.
if they teach men that it is painful enough (guilt) to recognize beauty from ugliness, they will eventually give up their judgment.
The problem is they can’t reprogram males. Shame us, as the poster below says, and it just goes underground. Suppressing natural desires and natural behaviors only causes eruptions of twisted distortions of those desires, and sometimes those can be dangerous.
I occasionally argue with some feminists online. They have a desire to control all men, they are in fact angry that they can’t control our behavior. They want to use the law to do so, but the legal foundations of the west don’t allow for it.
“the legal foundations of the west don’t allow for it.”
Give it time…
This was a pleasant contrast and well timed focus on masculine ideals. Seeded in every dispute that is posted here, every claim to red pill, every heated lambasting of a statement, proposal, or ‘right’, are those core tenements of truth, honesty, and beauty. Not sure what society will look like once we can get those ideals in a better place than they are now, but I do believe it will be brighter place than where we have been as a species.
Why does the manosphere exist at all? Because men have been lied to and they want the truth.
Excellent article.
The world around us is “maya”, an illusion. Today, people are caught up in mindless materialism and sadly, this fueling the downfall of our civilization.
You don’t need Gucci, you don’t need Coca Cola and you don’t need a Corvette.
In the West, we’ve been manipulated since birth via television media, etc. into believing that we can buy out of our problems.
Cut the cord and stop consuming mass media.
Start reading books on philosophy, religion, science, politics, history, etc. Learn from the mistakes of other people around you.
There’s a higher purpose to life than just making money.
Do this and you’re ahead of 99% of the world.
The only true way to improve your life is to improve yourself.
“The only true way to improve your life is to improve yourself.”
I wish I could upvote you 10 times.
Well true. I pity you Americans, you have it even harder with the mass consumptions than us Europeans. Although we like to copy you in almost every aspect of life. Now money is important. You should build a figurative wall of money bills around you to protect yourself, but once all your basic requirements are met, what else should you aim for? That fancy car, a boat, or ’50 inch TV? Don’t do the ratrace, it’s futile.
Reading is so important. In day to day life we are so busy that we don’t even take time for ourselves, time to reflect on our lives. Instead we play videogames, or watch episode after episode of some tv entertainment. While a book can give us so much more relaxation and introspection.
nice article
“Lewis was an Anglican Christian. In case my previous column didn’t make it clear, I am a Roman Catholic.”
He’d probably have become Orthodox, if he’d lived to see what became of the Anglicans.
http://oodegr.co/english/brit_celt_orthodoxy/orthodox_lewis.htm
The writings of Lewis greatly appeal to Orthodox believers, particularly in the
United States. Growing up in Ireland and England, Lewis experienced little personal
contact with Orthodox believers. However, the encounters he did have, impressed him. In addition to feeling that Orthodox priests he encountered on his visit to Greece in 1960 appeared “more spiritual” than their Western counterparts, his good friend and biographer George Sayer notes his appreciation of the Orthodox liturgy. “At Rhodes . . . they went to the Greek Orthodox Cathedral for part of the Easter service. Jack was moved by it and by a village wedding ceremony they attended. Thereafter, whenever the subject came up between us, he said that he preferred the Orthodox Liturgy to either Catholic or Protestant liturgies.”
One thing which impressed him, described in a passage in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, was the freedom of the Orthodox worship experience. “Some stood, some knelt, some sat, some walked. . . . And the beauty of it was that nobody took the slightest notice of what anyone else was doing.” That is because their attention was properly focused, toward God.
There also appears an echo of the Desert Fathers in Lewis’ most vulnerable work. “A Grief Observed” was written after the death of his beloved wife, Joy. It was
published under a pseudonym, partly because it was too intimate, revealing some of the deepest and most vulnerable anguish ever penned. This brief volume is reminiscent of many of the Psalms, a pilgrimage of faith through the valley of the shadow of death and loss, toward the Promise which sustains.
In a canon of uplifting and profound writings, A Grief Observed just may be the
most moving and healing. Sounding like a voice from the desert, his wife “used to
quote ‘Alone into the Alone.’” She and Lewis knew that each person encounters the Alpha and Omega independently (though we are escorted to that jubilant
rendezvous by the Community of Faith). Likewise, each ultimately approaches the
throne of the Judge who is also our Advocate, alone. The monastic life provides
a preparation for this. On personal retreat each of us can savour a taste of it. This “aloneness” is both intimidating and rewarding.
The most thoughtful study of Lewis’ relationship to Orthodoxy was written by Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, who also teaches at Oxford. In “C.S. Lewis: an ‘anonymous Orthodox’?” he explores this fascinating question. He humbly relates that Lewis has a tendency to “idealize us Orthodox,” and affirms that “even though C.S. Lewis’ personal contacts with the Orthodox Church were not extensive . . . at the same time his thinking is often profoundly in harmony with the Orthodox standpoint.”
Bishop Kallistos describes at length “four significant points of convergence between
Lewis and Orthodoxy.” Key among them is the fact that this disciple of Christ, who was richly nourished by the sacraments, was “acutely conscious of the hiddenness of God, of the inexhaustible mystery of the Divine.” He concludes with the statement that Lewis surely has a “strong claim to be considered an ‘anonymous Orthodox.’” Yet, just as Lewis is truly Orthodox, in the most profound sense of the word, he “belongs” to all who name the name of Christ.
[audio src="http://audio.ancientfaith.com/illuminedheart/ih_2009-02-13_pc.mp3" /]
Whatever Lewis would be if he were alive today, the subject of the current discussion has probably been emphasized most in Orthodox and in Greek Christian theology. It underlies western thought but it is explicitly discussed in Greek saints like Maximus the confessor.
Well said!
red pill from a religious perspective is fine with me. pretty good article.
I am not a player by birth, i’m a player by nature. Society has left me with no choice but to be the way I am.
At heart, I am a romantic. Loyal & willing to commit. But long-term relationship math does not add up. & anything domestic (USA) seems too toxic.
Really, anything other than being this way seems silly. In a way, I am envious of my grandparents’ relationships in the 50’s….
Oh well, Dr evil had a crazier upbringing quit whining
I’ve met a lot of players, both online and in real life. That lifestyle isn’t an option for me, but I understand the logic of it. Men are responding rationally to the incentives created by a progressive, feminist society. If Marriage 1.0 was still the rule instead of the exception like it was for our grandparents, it would have a lot more takers among men.
Or you do like me and go to China to have marriage 1.1
consider latina girls who go to church.
what about Eastern European girls who are Orthodox?
i don’t know. i’ve lived in the FSU, but i don’t remember meeting any girls who took the orthodox church seriously. not saying they aren’t there, i just wasn’t aware of them. based on my experience, i generally advise western guys to date a russian or ukrainian at least once for the awesome sex and general excitement of it all, but don’t marry her unless you have strong frame control and/or make well into seven figures.
Religious latina girls are also sluts and vice-versa. They live in an unconceivable duality.
based on my travels and experience with women of many tongues and cultures, i say that sincerely religious latina girls are your best bet if you want to settle down. if you’re right and every last one is a crypto-slut, what’s a man who wants to do, short of converting to islam and moving to one of those countries?
I live in South America. The really really religious girls are ugly and almost like nuns. They are not worthy. The pretty ones are not really religious and are sluts. Either way is a bad way. The best latin girls are the ones who don’t care about religion much but have a strong traditional family, possibly with religious parents.
not my experience in central america, but i haven’t been to south america. i get the impression that central america is more conservative. for example, you rarely meet anyone from the parts of central america i’ve lived in who doesn’t care about religion. i’m happily married to a devout, traditional catholic centroamericana. maybe i just got lucky, but i reckon she can’t be the only good one in latin america.
Yep, heard about that.
Maybe you are right about Central America and I’m right about South America.
I’m not a player by birth or nature. All I really wanted was a family. That was stripped from me in the most horrific manner possible that left me physically whole but spiritually shattered.
I’m a player (in training) because it it what is left to me. I have no desire to allow myself to be vulnerable ever again, yet I still desire intimacy. Unless I am willing to settle for low/no value women, I have to run game. That it has knock-on effects in other parts of my life only helps.
Most families that get dismembered in the west are attacked by professional family butchers retained within the bitch rule establishment. Every day a typical family patriarch has mine fields to navigate and steer his simple woman and brood clear of. Even an ‘educated’ or seemingly cognizant woman is simple minded and naive when sucked into an environment where there is groupthink. The woman needs alerted and steered right the most.
Simply left alone, most families auto correct any imperfections and survive. A famiIy is kind of like a life form in itself. It declares its own creation and evolves and matures. It even forms its own immune defense system, warding off or battling with any threats to its structural integrity. So a family in fact fits the definition of a living being in itself, a collective of its members that is actually a life form of a higher order and is GREATER than the sum of its parts.
So to attack and dismember a family is actually akin to killing or murder of a living being and to nullify an established family union is thus a WORSE CRIME than killing its individual members one by one.
It seems in most cases of family dismemberment that a coterie or local group of establishment hacks are primarily responsible for knocking out or supressing the family’s defense system and physically separating its members. Usually it’s a shit list of local judiciary, socialist service, ‘expert’ witness canned to order testimony, renegade sjw vandals or perepheral scorned females about that need not only a burqa but a sock in their mouth as well. It takes a shit list of vandals to take down a solid family, maybe there’s a kingpin or two, but the effective culpable shitlist number on average fits on one to two hands.
The best foundation for a lasting family is to have good game in the beginning. It’s like looking for the right plot of land to build upon or the right fertile soil to plant your crop. The skilled realtor or developer or farmer games his market. The value added pussy embargo has commoditized women for their renewable pussy ‘hole’ and created false scarcity for men without game. Game comes first, after god of course.
You can bet that if it weren’t for game or drinking that a lot of guys who had their families knived to bits by the bitch system pigs would have long ago gone samurai after the shit list that fucked with their family (not that they don’t have it coming). With game first, you exclude, rule out or if your village allows, crush the trouble shitsters at the get go. Red pill combined with game helps you to avoid so much trouble beforehand and enables you to ‘see’ almost like with the special sunglasses in ‘They Live’. You see folks for who they are, men and women alike. In comparison, being beta is equivalent to total blindness.
It was my fault. I didn’t meet her family until after I proposed and I didn’t have a good feeling about them. I put her through college to a master’s degree because that is what I agreed to do when we married. I let her sit up in the bedroom and compare me to the men who had scripts and plots on “Family” TV shows. I allowed her to act like a bitch when I said I wanted to hang out with my friends, maybe once or twice a month.When I knew her family was running me down to her on a nightly basis, I meekly accepted it. When she decided she didn’t want sex, I groveled trying to change her mind because it was something I needed. I didn’t tell her to cut all contact with her married friend that she knew was having an affair even when that seemed to put a twinkle in her eye.
After my children were born I was afraid of losing them so I let her, her family, and her friends walk all over me in an effort to at least appease her. I should have just acted and said what I really wanted, it wouldn’t have turned out any worse.
Now, I’m not near a big city, my income was more than halved and learning game is an uphill sledding sort of deal, not easy. It is now time for me to grow.
Tough story man. I take it you are now divorced? What is your current situation?
The message that needs to get out to more married men is that there is no appeasing a unhappy woman. Keep your dignity and self respect; it won’t save your marriage, but your marriage was already lost anyway.
Single… I don’t regard divorced to be permanent state from a mental standpoint. We have two kids and she uses access to them as a weapon against me, and we are heading back to court over it.
I spend most of my time developing myself, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I don’t ever want to be married again.
I have talked to a lot of my friends that are married. There are some exceptions to the rule, but generally, it seems that women lose all interest in sex by about two years. After that, they start using sex as a weapon and to try and control their husbands.
The problem with relationships is that if you don’t get enough of what you need then, over time, what you can give to the other person of what they need or want naturally diminishes. It creates nothing more than a relationship death spiral. It’s over when one partner simply refuses to do anything to address the situation.
It is at these points, when things seem to be at their worst, that we define ourselves. You have clearly taken the path of strength and development. Well done to you brother.
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i encourage everybody to take a stroll through the city on lsd. it lifts away your conditioned values and lets you see the world as if you saw it for the first time. when i do it, i can’t help but realize how immensely ghastly and ugly most people are, how pitifully they disguise themselves; i find myself walking through the streets laughing at everybody, looking with the strongest disgust at fat and old people. there definitely is a sense of objective beauty. can it be explained through atoms in our brain? i am sure it can but nobody has yet managed to. i would simply call it “rightness”. things how they should be. a direction. in fact, even the ugly people strive towards it when they disguise themselves to look more beautiful. it is a travesty that they deny it.
truth and beauty, yes, i like those. goodness maybe, but i also enjoy my darker sides. in fact, i can even appreciate the counterparts: lies and ugliness. cruelty. they make for a contrast that, i feel, is necessary. else the world would simply too much of a caricature.
Lies, ugliness, and cruelty are only recognizable when contrasted with truth, beauty, and goodness.
Thank you for going there naked minded and returning with your account to witness to the rest of us all. Most folks are just too busy like me, what with my cat juggling hobby and all, to find the time to go on a wild ride like that. Thank you again.
my pleasure.
I think it is even more basic than that. We want to procreate with healthy members of the opposite sex. We can identify physical traits that represent measures of health. Therefore beauty generally equates to healthy genes to pass on down the line.
ah, the evolutionary perspective.
yes, i think that is how it must be. after all, if it wasn’t species-specific, we should feel attracted to female apes, too, shouldn’t we?
don’t forget, though, that evolution can create tricky conundrums. just consider the peacock with it’s impractical tail.
The waterfall pictured looks inviting, clean and safe to drink and wade into barefoot. For an anhydrous life form though, the water itself would dissolve the body’s substance of the anhydrous life form, and would appear as a dangerous forbidding place to go. It would look like an acidic, firey, trecherous inferno to anything that is damaged by water.
Excellent article.
I’m currently reading “Mere Christianity” by CS Lewis, it’s an excellent book as the author stays very logical and pragmatic in his demonstrations.
Btw, swallowing the red pill made me a Christian (among other reasons probably) for this very reason: I recognized Truth, Beauty, Good aren’t just relative social constructs. There IS one truth, an absolute one. I call it God as far I’m concerned because it must be infinite.
Now if Christianity is the truth is a complete other topic (I’d say it’s a choice to believe or not).
I went from hardcore atheist to Christian and I’m the first one to be surprised. For those who know nothing about Christianity, read some of the Gospels, it’s interesting in any case.
i’m part agnostic, part christian, but let me add a recommendation for ecclesiastes. especially for those atheists out there who think the bible is simplistic or poorly written. read the king james translation if you’re educated enough.
its not limited to overeating, its an overly acidic diet. Their pH is outta wack. Your body creates fat cells to sop up the excess acid. Getting this heavy is your body telling you to change your diet. Its not calories in/calories out the “nutritionists” tell you
That poor chair! Reminds me of blue pill and beta males …
“sit on my face and wiggle, baby!”
An interesting perspective but without support and with a questionable interpretation of Tao. There is no basis for an objective aesthetics (if there was, the very project of aesthetics in finding new and creative forms of beauty would be obviated) – the only person I am aware of to advance such a position is Kant, who believed that the Beautiful is the Natural – but of course this puts one in a rather tight corner. The Tao, incidentally , is unambiguously a Feminine philosophy, of acquiescence to nature both internal and external.
Every philosopher before Kant believed that beauty was objective. Check out the neoplatonists.
Fair enough. And I will, I’m not very well versed in them. However, I was referring to modern philosophers. And also to what I think is the untenability of such a position; if truth/beauty/sublimity is objective, doesn’t it lead to a sort of tyranny? Where is there room for individuality and individual taste in such a system?
To me tyranny means rule by force. You can’t force someone to be beautiful. They can only obtain it by hard work (i.e. exercising their brain and mind). So in that context beauty operates more as a quasi-meritocracy rather than tyranny. I say “quasi” because yes, there will always be some lucky winners of the genetic lottery that are gifted good looks and natural smarts.
Which is more beautiful: Mozart’s Requiem Mass or Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5? And are they both more beautiful than nails on a chalkboard?
It’s impossible to escape the objective nature of truth, goodness, and beauty. If we assert that they’re all completely subjective, we do so because we believe it is true and that truth is better than lies.
i think that things are as beautiful as you are open to them. i can even appreciate that fat supersize model whale. she looks like a giant maggot – to paraphrase another commenter here on rok – but i can appreciate looking at maggots.i find myself strangely fascinated by her, because she carries herself with confidence. attractiveness is something different, though; don’t think i would ever fuck her.
i also find corpses beautiful, in a way. not in a jolly way. but the way i am disgusted by it, the way nature goes through it’s cycle, how life is transformed, i see beauty in that. cruelty is pain is strangely beautiful to me, which is why i love fighting, too.
You highlight exactly my point. I studied music in college – I prefer the Shostakovich because it’s daring and interesting. Those who didn’t, probably would prefer the Mozart. Those who have never been exposed to classical music would probably prefer Pit Bull. Whose standard is objectively better and truer than the others?
As for goodness — which is the standard of goodness? Napoleon was an aggressive dictator who killed millions. Yet he laid out the foundations of French law and democracy, rebuilt Paris into the beautiful modern city it is today, and finally achieved security for France. So is he “good” or “bad”? Again, which standard do you use?
Most people don’t hear music as a musician hears it. They don’t hear the different instruments and the riffs each one is playing. They just hear the general rhythm and beat. So, I would say there is a clear difference in who is a better judge of quality or beauty. The average person may like Pitt bull, but that is out of laziness and a lack of ears to hear. Anyone who listens will see the difference.
does it really matter whether you disagree on whether Mozart or Shostakovich is better? They are both beautiful (I haven’t heard the schostakovich); I think that is beefy’s point. Preference doesn’t discount beauty.
People aren’t the standard of good or evil. Everyone does good and evil. But there are objectively good and evil acts.
Your question presupposes utilitarianism. Mussolini made the trains run on time but he was a bad man just as Napoleon was a bad man whatever legislative or geopolitical good he may have done. The ends do not justify the means.
My point is that reasonable men can disagree on whether Mozart or Shostakovich produced more beautiful music. That is where there is room for individual taste. I would argue that reasonable men cannot disagree that both oeuvres of music are, in fact, beautiful.
Important to this paper is Lewis’s use of “Tao”. He uses it to describe the universal truths, validated because they are present in every (studied) culture.
The Abolition of Man isn’t a very long book, and very interesting. Pretty sure you can pick it up on Amazon on the cheap ($7), and your library probably has it.
Hence, SJW’s war on masculinity and manhood. They know they have to keep some Alphas around to procreate, therefore they hand out immunity cards to the rich,powerful, and young hunky. Beauty to them is women taking the roles of the majority of mankind,aka , the Betas that keep this place running and together. Ugly and manly women trying to be men. It’s bound to fail eventually though as women don’t have the desire to better themselves through creation. They can get laid anytime/procreate at anytime they want.They don’t need to prove themselves. Even the majority of the women that strive for success ultimately fall back to motherhood. For the Alpha/top level, life will always be just a given, he will always be afforded the same place in society as super hot chicks are given. People like to be around people who just naturally exude the qualities the respective genders are supposed to have.This is unspoken truth among all. One just has to watch how people act around natural Alpha men and women. For the Beta/second level, life is a inherent struggle to prove himself worthy and quite a few will reach Alpha level from that struggle. Second level women still don’t need to struggle to get by.Hence, government programs to help to equalize the playing field. Even the lowest Omega /bottom level, has a chance to succeed and move up among men through struggle even though very few do. This struggle is not required for a women to survive among any level. Maybe this is the reason for so few great/creative female minds?
Regarding beauty, I’ve been thinking about how the ugliness of modern art reflects (and in many way prefigured) the current state of society.
Exactly. I see this a lot in the Catholic Church. Cathedrals built in the Middle Ages and Renaissance are some of the most beautiful works of art conceived by man. Most churches built within the last fifty years have all the otherworldly beauty and charm of an airport terminal.
Not just the ugliness but the ridiculousness of some of it as well.
Such as standing naked over a canvas in public, placing paint filled eggs inside the vagina, and dropping it onto the canvas. This is what modern “art” is
Modern society lacks any sense of asthetics. The fact that carrying around a mattress can be considered an art project shows what a joke it is. Just because someone expresses themself doesn’t make them an artist.
Modern art seems to me, to be like a leftist conception of art : even it is ugly and could be done by a 6yo child, only intellectual superior people must/can appreciate the beauty of what the artist wanted to express bla bla bla. Subjective feelings take over objective beauty and competence.
it’s just Making bullshit an equivalent of a godlike creation. And people buy into this. Nonsense !
edit : And most of the artists are leftist bastards too
OK, you should read Mark Helprin’s, Soldier of the Great War…it’s all about this topic, it’s genius.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3279676-a-soldier-of-the-great-war
“And how does God speak to you?”
“In the language of everything that is beautiful.”
After reading the evidence I must agree that beauty is somewhat of an external construct. African tribes such as the Moors in Mauritania treat obesity as a symbol of fertility and attractiveness. This standard of beauty is almost entirely motivated by the starvation and poverty, not “media beauty standards,” but it is different than Western beauty standards nonetheless.
I welcome all arguments to the contrary, but beauty being relative to external environments holds merit in my opinion.
There are deviances from the norm, like what you stated. The South Pacific islanders are the same, being subject to starvation caused by typhoons. It really comes down to health. In those areas, someone who we would see as overweight would be more healthy than some skinny built girl. 500 years ago, fair skin was deemed healthy as they did less outdoor work, in the 1970’s, a good tan was preferred because it indicated a girl that would go outside and get exercise, now with fake tans, it is not looked as attractive anymore.
Beautiful poem by Rumi, chanted by Kurdish artist:
Really nice article. You link Lewis’ observations to our own insane age very nicely, I am also reminded of the Traditionalist Rene Guenon’s observations about how society is oriented. A measure of objective beauty and purity can be judged based as if on a compass is oriented, either south towards a telluric element where the powers of the earth are king, or north towards the unity with the Divine Realm. He of course linked this with the theory of man’s Hyperborean spiritual origins.
Where is the compass of the modern age pointing? South of a north we have long forgotten.