We need beauty. Review of Elaine Scarry “On Beauty and Being Just”

The connection between beautiful images and ease of grasping and understanding serves as the basis for the brain design known as cognition. Beauty continues to drive and improve the cognition design. This is why art occurred to cavemen, and why it is now one of the most precious, expensive, and indispensable features of human life, from museums to

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The default assumption tends to be that it is politically important to designate everyone as beautiful, that it is a meaningful project to make sure that everyone can become, and feel, increasingly beautiful. We have hardly tried to imagine what it might look like if our culture could do the opposite—de-escalate the situation, make beauty matter le... See more

It’s not that there’s some metaphysical concept of beauty that rules the world — beauty is a human experience. It’s something that has to do with how humans react to the world and perceive the world. And it’s notoriously thought to be subjective, but it’s not entirely subjective. There’s a very rich history of art objects and music and what people ... See more

But right now I want to tell you what beauty is NOT.

It doesn’t require validation by an institution.

It can’t be manipulated by a corporation.

It doesn’t need or want theory or interpretation.

It’s not mediated through a critic.

Now you can begin to understand why beauty is dangerous. It’s the closest thing to anarchy and liberation in our public lives... See more