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We've lost all sense of aesthetics as something that exists outside an individual's mind. Aesthetics used to be an independent study of philosophers for milleni

We've lost all sense of aesthetics as something that exists outside an individual's mind. Aesthetics used to be an independent study of philosophers for millenia, until our modern age decided that all aesthetics are equally good. This fundamentally has to do with the embrace of relativism at all levels of society. This is going to be controversial, but in the west, the ultimate cause of the decline in objective beauty is a rejection of Christianity, which, for millenia in the west, has insisted that there is such a thing as objective beauty. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/ugly-as-sin https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/ugly-as-sin I'd also recommend "The Abolition of Man" by CS Lewis (not explicitly christian, but Lewis was obviously extremely devout and a major apologist) It remains to be seen if the west will develop a sense of objective beauty without a shared moral system.

AussieWog93 5y ago
>This is going to be controversial, but in the west, the ultimate cause of the decline in objective beauty is a rejection of Christianity, which, for millenia in the west, has insisted that there is such a thing as objective beauty. Just to play Devil's advocate, if that theory held up you'd expect there to be a correlation between how religious people in a given area are and how much they value architecture. Yet, for example, the Deep South in the USA is not known for it's architecture, whereas parts of continental Europe are (even today).
- iammisc 5y ago
  No not really. Protestantism is so divorced from traditional Christianity as to be something else. Half the gospel preached is terrible new age nonsense bearing no resemblance to Christianity. If we look at more catholic countries in the Americas, the middle class neighborhoods do look nicer in my opinion. Edit: I should specify I don't believe this is specific to catholicism. Other religions also embrace beauty, like Islam and Hinduism. Protestantism by and large rejects the idea that material goods can embrace God, in their rejection of icons for examplr
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Fair enough. Any Irish people reading this? Which areas are more architecturally beautiful? Catholic or Protestant?
    - fgnbdfgx 5y ago
      Are you trying to start something?
      - AussieWog93 5y ago
        If I was, I picked the wrong topic. Far more likely to start a punch-up here by mentioning affirmative action, US partisan politics or Rust.
quesera 5y ago
> This fundamentally has to do with the embrace of relativism at all levels of society. Oh, dear Dog. That's a cliched reframing of decades of social change. Which is the deeper rejection of the Almighty? Strip malls or McMansions? Skyscrapers or Tiny Homes? If you start with a narrative, and squint hard enough, anything can be about Relativism. It usually isn't though.
coyotespike 5y ago
Many of the ugliest buildings (trashy Brutalist stuff, say) were built before relativism (however defined) became dominant. This doesn't fit your pet theory. Further, many people have had and have objective theories of aesthetics, while not being religious. Finally, many beautiful buildings from the Renaissance era were inspired by classic Rome and Greece. The ultimate cause of that gain in objective beauty was a rejection of Christianity and an embrace of pagan learning and ideals - that's a trollish way of putting it, but at any rate the delineation between religious and secular aesthetics is not so clear as a partisan might hope. Many of the most intellectually interesting people I know have revived their interest in religion, especially Christianity. There is no excuse for approaching the matter simplistically.
voldacar 5y ago
Our ruling class is extremely moralizing. They aren't relativist at all. They only seem that way to you because their morality isn't identical to yours (though they are genealogically related)
- iammisc 5y ago
  Okay sure. I don't buy that theory at all. The ruling class uses morals as a way to control society while having few themselves. Just look at the behavior of the Saudi royals.
  - voldacar 5y ago
    I'm talking about our own PMC, not the Saudis. This comment from the recent Facebook "whistleblower" sums up this flavor of moral sentiment pretty well: > “I don’t know why it went down,” Haugen said. “But I know that for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.” It's the sort of warmed-over end of history liberalism you see in Ivy League schools, NGOs, corporate HR departments, the UN, etc. It includes wokism but it extends much further than that. It is not becoming more relativist, it is supremely confident about what is good and what is bad, what is sacred, profane, taboo, etc. In fact, its conception of the sacred just seems to be getting larger each year. It has most of the elements of a religion at this point, and will probably have more in the future. I think Yang's "Successor ideology" is a good term for it because it also lacks a lot of the features of historical liberalism. In any case, we are hardly ruled by libertines.

AussieWog93 5y ago

>This is going to be controversial, but in the west, the ultimate cause of the decline in objective beauty is a rejection of Christianity, which, for millenia in the west, has insisted that there is such a thing as objective beauty. Just to play Devil's advocate, if that theory held up you'd expect there to be a correlation between how religious people in a given area are and how much they value architecture. Yet, for example, the Deep South in the USA is not known for it's architecture, whereas parts of continental Europe are (even today).

iammisc 5y ago
No not really. Protestantism is so divorced from traditional Christianity as to be something else. Half the gospel preached is terrible new age nonsense bearing no resemblance to Christianity. If we look at more catholic countries in the Americas, the middle class neighborhoods do look nicer in my opinion. Edit: I should specify I don't believe this is specific to catholicism. Other religions also embrace beauty, like Islam and Hinduism. Protestantism by and large rejects the idea that material goods can embrace God, in their rejection of icons for examplr
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  Fair enough. Any Irish people reading this? Which areas are more architecturally beautiful? Catholic or Protestant?
  - fgnbdfgx 5y ago
    Are you trying to start something?
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      If I was, I picked the wrong topic. Far more likely to start a punch-up here by mentioning affirmative action, US partisan politics or Rust.

quesera 5y ago

> This fundamentally has to do with the embrace of relativism at all levels of society. Oh, dear Dog. That's a cliched reframing of decades of social change. Which is the deeper rejection of the Almighty? Strip malls or McMansions? Skyscrapers or Tiny Homes? If you start with a narrative, and squint hard enough, anything can be about Relativism. It usually isn't though.

coyotespike 5y ago

Many of the ugliest buildings (trashy Brutalist stuff, say) were built before relativism (however defined) became dominant. This doesn't fit your pet theory. Further, many people have had and have objective theories of aesthetics, while not being religious. Finally, many beautiful buildings from the Renaissance era were inspired by classic Rome and Greece. The ultimate cause of that gain in objective beauty was a rejection of Christianity and an embrace of pagan learning and ideals - that's a trollish way of putting it, but at any rate the delineation between religious and secular aesthetics is not so clear as a partisan might hope. Many of the most intellectually interesting people I know have revived their interest in religion, especially Christianity. There is no excuse for approaching the matter simplistically.

voldacar 5y ago

Our ruling class is extremely moralizing. They aren't relativist at all. They only seem that way to you because their morality isn't identical to yours (though they are genealogically related)

iammisc 5y ago
Okay sure. I don't buy that theory at all. The ruling class uses morals as a way to control society while having few themselves. Just look at the behavior of the Saudi royals.
- voldacar 5y ago
  I'm talking about our own PMC, not the Saudis. This comment from the recent Facebook "whistleblower" sums up this flavor of moral sentiment pretty well: > “I don’t know why it went down,” Haugen said. “But I know that for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.” It's the sort of warmed-over end of history liberalism you see in Ivy League schools, NGOs, corporate HR departments, the UN, etc. It includes wokism but it extends much further than that. It is not becoming more relativist, it is supremely confident about what is good and what is bad, what is sacred, profane, taboo, etc. In fact, its conception of the sacred just seems to be getting larger each year. It has most of the elements of a religion at this point, and will probably have more in the future. I think Yang's "Successor ideology" is a good term for it because it also lacks a lot of the features of historical liberalism. In any case, we are hardly ruled by libertines.