This word is a curious word. It has been a topic at every major university and arts program around the globe. Many people use it when talking about buildings, parks, structures, people, places, and other things, and many cannot even tell you what it means.

Aesthetics.

It’s an illusive word; we know what it means when we are far away from it, talking about it in conversation as a “passer-by” word, but as soon as we are asked to define it, it becomes increasingly difficult to pin down what exactly it means.

The word itself, as plainly defined, is used most frequently as an adjective. It does have some nounal connotations, but frequently it means, “concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty.” So, the best that we can do is to associate its meaning with beauty, but then we have to ask this question: what is beauty?

The word itself comes from the ancient Greek aisthētikos which basically means “to perceive.” It actually doesn’t have the association with beauty at this point in its linguistic development; it gained most of its meaning in the mid 18th century, when some thick-headed Germans decided to make it that way. It’s been in controversy pretty much since then.

Humph. Why?

For the Greeks it was about perception. This is very important in understanding this debate; returning to the roots of a language can often make it easier to pin down what different words mean. But this does not make light of something that was originally difficult; defining aesthetics, and beauty, is still going to be difficult.

There is more to this word than meets the eye, especially in the 21st century. In an age where relativity is hailed as a cultural norm, and society praises non-confrontational ethics such as political correctness, defining anything will get you in trouble. The age we live in is more concerned with feeling, individualism, and perception, rather than objective reality, law, and corporatism. This means, more importantly, that anything I say here will not sit well with someone out there. I am interested in making a good argument, but I cannot please everyone.

In Part 1 of this two-part blog post, I want to examine the view of aesthetics from the culture, and from primitive evangelical ideas.

---

Like I have said before, aesthetics is a bit illusive to our culture. We are post-modern, neo-romantic, and mimickers of all things, seeking to explore the effects of any medium in art and literature and (sort of cerebrally) see where they take people.

This is very different from what art was in the past. If you look at printed art, we as the west have gone from replicating shapes, colors, form, distance, and emotion to blurring the lines and underscoring interpretation. It used to be that an artist who could replicate and make like real any landscape, human, or object could become easily known by how closely they drew/painted/colored said media. Ever since Picasso, modern art has been pushing boundaries by deconstructing classical mediums and resolving to be “outside the box,” that is, to be pushing and over-reaching the boundaries of the eye, the mind, and the perception of reality.

The same thing occurred in literature; no longer is the responsibility of the writer to give an accurate picture and apply nuance to paint a picture in the mind of the reader, but rather the reader to find meaning in peculiarly arranged jumbles of words. Transcendental literature borrowed from eastern philosophy to (hopefully) create individuality and no two similar interpretations.

The culture we live in is one of individuality; everyone has their own unique preferences, suggestions, and ideas about art. It’s no surprising thing; everything history has told us should have expected today’s current outcome. There are many, noted, that are returning to neo-styles of art, to sort of revive what has already passed. But even then, there are many who are trying to re-invent what has already been made.

Now, I am not an expert in art or literature, but I do consider myself to have a pretty good idea about music. All of the arts, though many like to segregate, are not mutually exclusive. They all follow each other around, responding to the culture and its followers. Now, the question of the “chicken or the egg” comes into play here: Which did what first? Did artists change the culture? Or did the culture change artists? This is an unanswerable question, and would take a 20-part series to even scratch the surface.

But my desire is to not answer this question. The question I want to answer is, “What is aesthetic (according to the culture)?”

There are logical implications to this question. The rules of logic, as observed by those of old, help us to understand and perhaps critique the question. First off, our association with aesthetic, if we are only talking about the culture, is born out of our own understanding. Our culture (in the west) has challenged reality. Before modernism there was a general acceptance of the basic reliability of sense perception. What you see, hear, taste, smell, and touch can be acceptable on a general level. After modernism, it all would systematically be thrown out.

Our culture says something like this: “How can you really know that what you are seeing is actually true? How do you really know that the color you recognize is actually that color? Are you sure that you heard everything ‘X’ said? If you cannot be sure, then you cannot be sure that you know what was actually said. If you cannot be sure of what was actually said, then you only have your interpretation.”

From here, our culture says, “If we cannot really know something for sure, then we cannot heave upon others what we think we know for sure.”

For this reason, aesthetics can only be taken in two directions. One direction is to say that everything is beautiful, thereby relieving the consequence of wondering if something isn’t beautiful. In this realm of thinking (in which many lay, including evangelicals), one cannot object to something and cast a doubting opinion. Remember, if we cannot know for sure whether or not something is pretty, has aesthetic value, or something of that nature, then we cannot possibly know 100% if something is not beautiful. The only real accepting thing to say is, “All art is aesthetic.” This does cast some problems, however; to say or to define logically that all art is aesthetic, then nothing really has aesthetic value. It carries no weight. To give definition to something, to create form or give form to something, we must mold a shape, or parameters, within which the object can lie. A good example of this is a brick; a brick would not be a brick if it had no mold. It would not carry substance or value; it would just be dirt or hardened clay. A similar thing occurs logically (and philosophically). We must know what something isn’t as well as what it is. You cannot have one without the other.

So if we are going to say that everything is aesthetically pleasing, then we cannot say anything holds weight. There HAS to be something that doesn’t conform to our “aesthetics mold.” It is an empty assertion to claim that all things are aesthetic.

So, if this isn’t a sustainable alternative to the culture (which some have picked up on), then there is the more relativistic (individualistic) approach. If you cannot say all art is beautiful, then you can say, instead, that art is beautiful depending on the person. A close cousin of this thinking is, “Art is as beautiful as the culture sees it.” More generally, though, it is said that it really depends on the person who is viewing the art.

Remember, we cannot assume any longer in the current western culture that we can perceive anything with objective awareness. So, it no longer matters whether or not there is a standard outside of the culture; we have people who can form their own opinions on what is beautiful and what is not! In this alternative, you eliminate the possibility of “having differences” with others because art is not an impediment to our liberty and our lives (according to our culture). So, individuality prevails, and thus we have a high-form of individualism and relativity.

This is a peculiar way of thinking because, though it can work some of the time, you cannot avoid differences and hope that no one gets hurt. Also, you do run into moral problems – take pornography for instance. Joe on the computer says that pornography is art; he believes that some might not believe that, but it is okay for him. But, his girlfriend, who feels very different about pornography, cannot stand the thought that Joe is just “taking in the art.” This is jeopardizing their relationship because Joe’s girlfriend thinks it is getting in the way, and if Joe didn’t think it was art, but rather something else (negative), then they would not have a problem.

Viewing art in the ways I have described above will eventually disintegrate; you will bump heads with others, and you will have to begin defining what is and is not acceptable art. This way of viewing art, not surprisingly, has a lot to do with cultural ethics, especially with sentiments among my generation. My generation does not want to be “imposing” and truly has one idea about liberty: “Just leave me alone, and as long as what I do doesn’t hurt you, then we should be good neighbors.”