“Why Beauty Matters” by Roger Scruton

Many smart people have intuitions about what is ugly and what is beautiful, but most of the same people today think that there is nothing objective about beauty, since they have difficulty explaining it. It seems like preferring Coke over Pepsi and so art becomes only about expressing oneself than about what is being expressed. I came across this video by Roger Scruton, which gives a well made case that there is an objective element to beauty. He came to speak at my Alma Mater a few years ago and gave a paper that seems to be an earlier version of this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHw4MMEnmpc

Well done! As Thomas Aquinas and so many others believed, beauty proceeds from order. I went to a modern art museum and saw an exhibit which appeared to be nothing but mangled shrapnel. The curator asked me to view it standing from another position in the room. The metal viewed this way formed the word “Yes”. Moving 90 degrees to the right reveals the the word “No”. Indeed, there is beauty found in this apparently modern meaningless piece – but that beauty is order – not a blank wall.

While you’re at it, make your way over to Facebook page and take a look at their video displaying the treasures of Western civilization: https://www.facebook.com/ArchMMXII/videos/1061241223947272/