Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder

Why is it that different cultures have a different sense of the beautiful, where the difference is somehow culturally informed.

A question I first wondered about when seeing the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy where the Aborigine gags at the sight of the winsome blond foreigner.

Perhaps the appetite of the muse is informed by the object which it abstracts, so that in some manner, that which is beautiful is both particular to the appetite while somehow also participating in the universal.

So that different men will differ on what is beautiful in the particular while also in some manner agreeing on the universal.

Similarly, we love our own because it is our own. We love our children, our family, or culture, or patria because it is our own.

Taking the above, the beautiful appears to be more than just that which is informed by the universal, but also that which is informed by each of us, so that the beautiful, is in some manner actually in the eye of the beholder, with the particular beautiful being within a limit informed by the universal.

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