The Philosophy of Beauty Part Three

No copyright infringement intended. Video uploaded under fair use act.

This program echoed my thoughts on beauty and society more completely than anything I've seen on tv before. It moved me, and made me feel a little better about the way I feel. Please watch if you're even remotely interested, I think it's a beautiful program.

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Philosopher Roger Scruton presents a provocative essay on the importance of beauty in the arts and in our lives. In the 20th century, Scruton argues, art, architecture and music turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert. Using the thoughts of philosophers from Plato to Kant, and by talking to artists Michael Craig-Martin and Alexander Stoddart, Scruton analyses where art went wrong and presents his own impassioned case for restoring beauty to its traditional position at the centre of our civilisation.

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[tonykileyable]

Show me the modern building that is truly beautiful and I'll eat my drawing board! The fact that Scruton is right wing doesnt make him wrong.

[TheNightingalerose]

@tonykileyable

I agree with you 100%. The man's politics is nothing to do with this program.

[Rocketceres]

WHY IS IT WHEN YOU SEE A DETAILED DRAWING OF MODERN BUILDINGS, IT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL?

[ForSunny2]

@tehsuck2 lol

[xXtheangryrabbitXx]

@Alexshrugged92 Is that why the world worshiped Steve Jobs?

[xXtheangryrabbitXx]

This "documentary" is a crime against the beauty of philosophy.

[Alexshrugged92]

@tehsuck2

The ironic thing is that today's art is the evasion of any value or that mediocrity is the ideal. Man's most noble state, especially in art, should be to show all that man can and should be as an ideal. That is why today's intelligentsia hate anything of value. That is why, for example, a man who makes a fortune by using his own rational faculties to supply be regarded as evil, while poverty and stagnation is held as a virtue. Depravity, suffering and ugliness is the value.

[kinkyplunk]

@roquefort88888 I agree. Scruton has a retrospective conservative tendency which perhaps infects his analysis of beauty. But, I also agree with him like you do, particularly regarding the aesthetic danger of treating utility as king over beauty, which for years has been and continues to be ridiculed as subordinate.

[tehsuck2]

This isn't "philosophy of beauty." It should be called "man complaining because he doesn't like modern art and societal values"

[MeanEyedCats]

@tonykileyable I think that there are examples of modern architecture that stumbled upon some elements of beauty. I feel confident pointing to Taipei 101 and Petronas Towers as examples of that. Petronas Towers in particular I think are quite beautiful. Taipei 101 is close, but it misses the mark just a little. It's a bit violent.

The examples of modern architectural beauty are few and far between, but they can be found now and again.