The Theft of Beauty

 In the last line of my essay on Beauty I conclude, Beauty nourishes our better selves, and because we love what is beautiful, beauty stimulates our ability to love.

http://seeingmeaning.blogspot.com/2009/02/sense-of-beauty.html

 So I feel duty-bound to combat the perversion of the individual sense of beauty happening in the horrorshow of advertising’s efforts to colonize territory that’s rightly controlled by individual responsiveness. The psychological capacity to respond to beauty is a necessary compass to lead to what is good for us. Today, it’s being reduced to a single kind of physical attractivness as the only meaning of the word. The day-to-day satisfactions of finding beauty by accident and anywhere is obliterated by the onslaught of a single look.

https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-illusionists/

This documentary exposes the depths to which advertisers sink in pursuit of profits. It is an industry that creates insecurity by the constantly reinforced message that one’s lovability depends on matching the impossible image they say is beautiful. Media sells a look that’s pathologically conformist in a world rich with variety. Once conditioned to the type that saturates the media, the rest feel devalued, invisible, which undermines the natural beauty available through their individual look. Real beauty is the result of harmony and happiness. The beautiful people I know are the ones who are comfortable with who they are, relaxed about being the person they were born to be. Smiling pulls the features into symmetry, often considered a primary attribute of beauty.

Young people are smothered in images pushing the same mold, pushing them farther away from the beauty inherent in each individual. Insecurity twists the features. Many of the more sarcastic and snide of media’s talking heads are starting to wear permanently crooked mouths because of the repeated sneer, and no amount of purchases will change that. The plastic surgery will still get pulled sideways by the facial expression. I prefer the radio for news, to protect my mirror neurons from the chemicals stimulated by nasty facial expressions. Obviously, I can’t look at the president.

The fact that a worldwide model of beauty is pushing a western look does violence to the natural beauty of every other cultural group. When I see a video of a beautiful young Japanese girl getting ready to have plastic surgery, the announcer is saying this is what they think they need to look like in order to succeed. Self-loathing is actualized when a person denies their natural beauty with an act of mutilation that will alter the harmony of their personal alignment.

The anxiety created by fear of not looking like the media standard stokes fear of rejection. Many avoid others but yearn for connection. They have products on all sides, ready to come to the rescue and the solutions cost too much. The theft of an individual’s sense of beauty and techniques of advertisers should be held accountable for the psychological damage.

Deride

Eyes Searching

“So through the eyes love attains the heart:

  For the eyes are the scouts of the heart.”

Though I first heard the second line from Joseph Campbell, I recently tracked down the original source, a 12^th century poet named Guirant de Borneilh. It’s something I quote frequently because years of teaching art students has shown how differently they can look at the same thing. Through seeing we discover what we care about because in any scene we are choosing where to look. The sight stirs us, enlivens interest. The choice within the scene is the beginning of its significance. Our eyes search out what is most meaningful, beautiful or necessary, alert to our inner priorities, attuned to the dynamics of the moment. Vision leads the way. The choices made from a world on all sides are personal, guided by the heart.

I’ve read the same advice in meditation instruction from both eastern and western religions. To quiet the mind and observe silence also involves “Curbing the eyes”. Images are triggers to worlds of association, so even to glance at a sound is to stimulate and stir up mental processes.

Art opens a very personal channel through this capacity of the eyes. Art shows what matters most to the artists so deals with the deepest levels of being human. When you respond to a painting it’s because you recognize and understand what’s being shown. Something unarticulated is being clarified.  The images that resonate stir the thoughts we need to have.

It’s a largely untapped resource because so many people don’t think art is for them even though they may have themselves taken or been struck by a wonderful picture. The philosopher Susanne Langer once said “Art looks like feelings feel.”  She felt that human psychology would be better expressed by art than by psychological theories. It can be so much more specific to refer to a portrait by Egon Scheile to communicate a complex emotion, than using the same tired words. Spending time with art you like is a way of learning about yourself and a connection to someone who has understood the way you feel.

Much is made of listening to the voice within, but intuition starts before words. We see what fits or doesn’t belong in a scene and how to navigate the terrain. The intelligence of perception is largely taken for granted, but developing the attunement to the whole, the gestalt, is becoming more urgent. Enlarging perspective means including more points-of-view, and not treating issues in isolation without seeing the repercussions.

Self-Portrait by Egon Schiele

Withhold

In Defense of Love

The first time I saw Marianne Wlliamson speak on a news show, it was exhilarating to hear someone pierce the skin of approved narratives and speak a deeper truth. Whether it was about going to the roots of what was happening in the countries the migrants were leaving, or questioning the tyranny of medical authority, she championed freedom of thought and awareness of our need for connection. She spoke articulately with insight and courage. So after the first debate it was disturbing to hear one of the talking heads call her candidacy an embarrassment. Maybe ratings depend on binaries and which side is right, but to solve today’s problems we need to get beneath the polarization that keeps everything on the surface. There is a bigger picture to be faced and today’s young people know it.

Where Williamson uses the term love, news commentators call it woohoo, proving just how far the news media has been dragged into Trump’s sphere of negativity. They seem much more comfortable with hate, showing their attachment by how much they talk about it and demonstrate their derision with raised eyebrows and sneering tones. They deride the territory of love because they don’t understand it. Family life today is shaped by standards to be met, judgment, criticism and control, that puts tremendous pressure on children, some start thinking about college in middle school. Many levels of fear are formed by the habits of avoiding punishment and trying to measure  up. Attention is focused on the surface, people are divided deliberately because so much power would be available if they’re unified by their common core.

Human striving for connection is built in. I heard in a Ted Talk, that Oxytocin, thought mainly to be associated with touch and the creation of bonds, is part of the stress response, prompting us to seek out others. People naturally help each other in a crisis and superficial differences don’t stand in the way. Chronic stress is a global condition. We need human contact to rise to the demands of our situation. Cultivating cooperation, choosing a place that’s out of balance to work with others restoring, builds a habit of behavior that stimulates good brain chemistry, even on a small scale. Oxytocin feels good, makes us want to do more of what stimulated it.

Ignoring attempts to put us in categories and pit them against each other, we are able to see the value from different ways of seeing each contributing a particular view that is true from that position. Studies show we become more creative when working with people from different cultures. No one has the right to lay their template on another. With different insights from a range of backgrounds we can stop putting band-aids on problems and see what’s causing the wounds. Active choices are how we discover ourselves, learn what works and what doesn’t.

It’s time to rethink the cultural legacy of opposition and competition and find ways to solve big problems with cooperation and compassion.