Nor is this just an introduction designed to draw you in. I don't do that. Yes, I too can smell marketing a mile away. None of us fall for pithy comments, cast forth with some ersatz longing, as if you could be caught like an October salmon on an Oregon stream. Forget that. This is only about nailing down something, an elusive definition. Have you had the same question?
I, like so many people, have wrestled over the relation of truth to beauty. I reached a point some years ago that was declared by John Keats - "truth is beauty, and beauty is truth, and that is the end of it." Are they, truth and beauty, the same? Much about them is similar; there is a beauty about things that are true. We've all noticed this. The same sensors go off when we discover a truth that also go off at the discovery of something beautiful.Also, when you discover beauty, you feel as if you have discovered a new truth. You feel as if you may be the only one to find it. Or at least you are part of a small community that has opened your eyes to this beauty, and you are therefore possessed of a new truth.
But here is the new part. The path to truth is a painful path, fraught with risk of unemployment, sacrifice, destruction of cherished idols, alienation, disillusion. It is always painful. Perhaps you know this. Remember Barton Fink and the tormented life of the mind.
However, beauty involves the operation of aesthetic mental organs. It is pleasurable. We love good music, art, nature, symmetry, Feng Shui, the golden mean, a sunset, the Grand Canyon, a ballet.
Therefore, can anyone give substantial refutation of this conclusion: that truth and beauty are almost the same, except that all truth is apprehended through pain, and all beauty is apprehended in pleasure? Corollary: if truth comes without pain, perhaps it is actually falsehood. And if beauty comes with pain, perhaps it is ugliness.
If you can give a contrary thesis please do so. If you want to write me personally for a longer treatment, I promise I will write back.
Truth = pain. c'mon Spooner. snap out of it!
ReplyDeleteI think the quote from Keats is from Ode to a Grecian Urn:
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in the midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty -- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know"
Now this is a beautiful poem, but I don't agree with Keats. "Truth is beauty" is the romantic's anthem, and at some level I guess we all would like to aspire to consent. And sometimes we find harmony in beauty and truth. But not always ... not as an axiom. I rather think of truth as an absolute, and beauty as more subjective. And a subjective thing can't be absolute. So I'm not going to take my friend, Mr. Keats, at his word no matter how beautifully he writes. And I would despair to find myself at a place where truth = pain. Rather, truth = peace, and I pray to find myself in that place one day. In the next life if not this one.
Well that may not be substantive. But it's all I have. Better to close with more Keats.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore ye soft pipes play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bear;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal -- yet do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Truth in the sense of realizations about life - Examples: the world is a worse place than I realized, God is mysterious and sometimes seems downright cruel, my company is exploiting poorer nations, I have a drinking problem, I am not free in certain key ways, man apparently did evolve from monkeys, my wife is not who I thought she was when we married, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteWhile the possession of truth leads to peace and "makes you free", the arrival at truth comes through suffering, labor, sacrifice and pain. How could it be otherwise? But you are speaking about the effect, and I am speaking of the cause.
I still fail to see why "realizations about life" must always be negative and painful. Tell me how any one of your examples doesn't work if the connotation is reversed..."the world is a better place than I realized", " God is mysterious, and his lovingkindess is greater than I ever imagined", "my company is helping disaster victims in other countries", etc and etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd again, why is it necessary to equate beautify and truth at all? As opposites, or synonyms, or ying and yang, or whatever? It's a romantic ideal. The romantics don't have a monopoly of either truth or beauty.
Well, to be clear, I said "truth", which may or may not overlap with "realizations about life." Also, facts are different than truths - facts are easy to come by, such as what you find in the newspaper. But even scientific facts and math facts requires labor and study.
ReplyDeleteTruth is more costly, perhaps because of its metaphysical aspect, but that's a leap. It defines one's worldview, and worldview adjustments are almost never easy. They require laying aside cherished ideas to arrive at new ones, perhaps alienating loved ones etc. So, filter out "facts" from the discussion and focus on worldview concerns for the sake of brevity.
Also I dont equate and beauty; they are related. The classic triad is Truth, Goodness and Beauty - all of which have standards which come from God. I haven't even gotten into goodness, so its not a yin yang, but a three-legged stool. This conversation goes back farther the romantics.
Let's talk about this at book club. Thanks for the comments though - you're a good man.