Beauty and that Infamous Eye

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder?

We’ve all most likely heard this phrase at some point.  It’s a proverbial sounding way to say that beauty is a subjective quality.  That the only true standard for beauty is that the observer finds the object to be beautiful.  Something might be beautiful to me but not to you.

Because there are always differing opinions on things, it’s natural to assume that something like beauty is a subjective quality.  This is especially true in our modern “everyone is right” society in which it’s taboo to say that any opinion can be wrong.  But is beauty really solely in the eye of the beholder?  If you and I look at the same thing, and one of us finds it beautiful and the other doesn’t, are we both right?  Or is one of us missing out.

I’ve thrown this question around on a few forums and discussed it with some friends.  It seems that most people want to answer that yes, beauty is subjective.  They usually then wind up siting something that they find beautiful that other people may not.  When the question is phrased differently though, opinions tend to change.

Think of something specific that you find incredibly beautiful.  A person, a work of art, something in nature, an emotion, a past experience, anything that is, in your opinion, one of the most beautiful things in the world.  Got it?  Good.

Now tell me this.  If you were the only one on earth who thought that was beautiful, would it still be beautiful?  Most people answet that question with “of course.”  But how about this one.  What if no one, including you, thought it was beautiful?  Nothing has changed about the object or experience, it still has all those same qualities that have made you choose it as something beautiful.  The only thing that’s different is that no one, not even you, holds the opinion that it is beautiful.  Now, at this point, is it still beautiful?  Does it retain that beauty that you’ve ascribed to it even if no one believes it?

Interestingly, most people, the same people who at first thought beauty was subjective, will answer yes to that last question.  Something inside us is not willing to believe that the things we find beautiful would lose their beauty if they went unrecognized.  Now, if we believe that, then we have to believe that beauty comes from somewhere other than our own opinions.  Something about that beautiful object must make it beautiful.  This means that beauty must be a concrete objective quality which has standards.  Otherwise, if beauty is simply rooted in opinion, then an object cannot be beautiful without some person there to think it’s beautiful.  It has no actual beauty, nothing does.

So logic takes me to a point where I have to believe that beauty is either an objective quality… or it simply doesn’t exist.  It’s just an illusion of perception.  I have a hard time believing that an idea that has played a major role in society since before written history isn’t based in some sort of truth.  That, and as someone with a passion for art I’m rather obligated to believe in beauty. ; )

So I’ve arrived at this idea that there are concrete standards for beauty.  What are they?  I’m not sure to be honest.  I’ve got some ideas, but not a workable definition that hasn’t fallen apart yet.  I think I’ll throw a few more posts on this topic if I come across any interesting in my little quest for a standard.  I’d also love to see your comments.  And while I feel pretty convinced about the whole objective/subjective thing, I won’t stick to my guns without reason.  I want to hear if you agree or not.

Don’t Judge a Group by its Assholes

This is an issue of hypocrisy that has been bothering me for a while now, and I felt in the mood to go ahead and say a little something about it tonight.

There are certain religions out there that I feel are being treated a little unfairly, and they’re not the one’s you probably think I’m going to talk about.

We are far too prone, it seems, to judge any sort of group by it’s worst elements rather than its best.  All skateboarders, for example are tattooed young delinquents who damage property and disrespect the law.  Now to the audience reading this, that’s probably a laughable stereotype, but we know that opinion used to be a popular on and is still held by many.  Most of us would be quick to point out how unfair such an assumption is.  We’d say the same about any racial stereotype as well.

So many of us, however, apply the same prejudices to religions and don’t realize that we’re making the same sort of judgments that we would call unfair.

If someone tries to claim that all Muslims are terrorists, we get all over them.  We claim that it’s an unfair stereotype, that the followers of a legitimate faith can’t be blamed for the actions of a few extremists.  And that’s completely true.

However, we (and I keep saying we because I’m plenty guilty of this myself) turn right around make assumptions like “ah, ‘Buddhist’ huh? She probably does a little yoga, tries to be a vegetarian, knows jack about actual Buddhism and is following a trend more than a faith.”  Or, “Christian?  Okay, so that means he’s an asshole who thinks he’s better than me and will shove his bible down my throat until I choke.”

Somewhere along the line we went and picked which stereotypes are unfair and which are absolutely fine, when of course no stereotype is fair.  No one member of any group, religious or otherwise, should be judged based on the actions of the other members, especially not the actions of the worst examples.

It happens easily.  If three Jehovah’s Witnesses came to your door and smacked you across the face, and you met an fourth… well you’d obviously be apprehensive.  That fourth person, however, has yet to wrong you in anyway.  You know nothing about him in particular.  It’s not fair to assume anything about him, even if several other members of his faith have acted poorly towards you.

Anyway, I can always tell when I hit the point in a post where I’m about to start rambling and repeating myself.  This one’s just about there.  I’ve just had this on my mind a while and felt like vomiting it on to the page for a moment.

Harajuku – Beyond Satisfaction

Harajuku station.  A stop on the JR East Yamanote Line, and the cultural birthplace of the fashion trend sporting the same name.  On a weekend, especially a Sunday, the area around the station is packed with teens in some of the worlds most extreme outfits.  The wildest styles come together in Harajuku; goth, punk, lotita, cosplay and myriad others meshing together and taking on completely new life independent of the contributing styles.

You take any of the many looks born of Harajuku culture and most people just plain won’t get it.  Reactions range from “aw… kinda weird, but cute,” to “that’s fucked up.”  I’d bet, however, that most of these kids aren’t out there to be understood.  Which of course raises the question, “then why?”

Really, it’s a valid question to ask about pretty much anything we do.  So why?  What inspires a trend like this?  What motivates these kids to go out every weekend and put incredible effort into a look that most people either won’t approve of or won’t take seriously.

There are the obvious answers of course.  They probably just want to fit in, or they feel stifled and want to express themselves, or they’re trying to be artistic, or they just need the extra money that tourists will pay to get a few pictures taken.  Those are legit answers to our “why” question, and I’m sure they all probably play some part, but I think we’re being too shallow.

If you ask me (and you didn’t, but who cares) these kids are dressing up for the same reason that I write.  It’s the same reason that you read books, watch movies, play video games and fanatically follow your favorite athletic team.

It’s the same reason that people buy into conspiracy theories, talk to ghosts, search for alien life and have been watching the same soap opera for twenty years.

It’s a simple lack of satisfaction.

We aren’t satisfied – at least not most of us – with the world as it is.  Our day to day lives simply don’t hold enough interest, enough excitement.  We’re not satisfied with this, so we look for a way to do something about it.

In reality, I’ll never be responsible for the safety of the world.  I’ll never fight for my survival against insurmountable odds.  I’ll never solve a mystery and bring down a crime boss.  And I’ll never pull off a massive heist and rob a bank or casino.

But what I can do is write.  What I can do is create a world, fill it with characters, give them a story and have complete control over all of it.  I can live through them.

I’ll never slay a dragon or an evil wizard, but when I read Tolkien I can lose myself in the world he’s created.

You’ll never be a professional athlete, but you can follow your favorite player or team and watch every one of their games.

Our own lives aren’t good enough.  With the exception of the rockstars among us, the average person spends their life working so that they can make money, so that they can spend money to keep on living.

And we’re just not satisfied with that.  It’s just not good enough.

So we write, and we watch, and we follow, and we play, and we read, and we find hundreds of ways to experience what we can never truly live.

A lot of people might say that that’s a little sad or pathetic.  That we can’t find satisfaction in our day-to-day life so we look for all these ways to “pretend.”  Personally, I think it’s a testament to our humanity.  Imagination is one of the things that sets us apart from other organisms, one of the reasons we’ll never really think of human beings as “animals” no matter what we learn in biology.  We don’t need to be satisfied with our lives, because we have the ability to experience, through one means or another, the things we’ll never truly live.

There’s the people who get lost in it.  There are the one’s who become so addicted to their fantasies that they never leave the chair in front of their computer.  That is sad, because there is plenty to miss out on in our real lives.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming that the real world is some terribly mundane place.  Weekends with friends, nights out with the guys from work, finding a loving partner, rasing a family… these are things to be excited about, and there are many of them.

But the fact that when I want to, I can – at least in some sense if not completely – be or do anything I please, is a beautiful thing.  It’s amazing when you really think about our capability to look beyond our own realities.

These Harajuku kids are doing just that, consciously or not.  The girl with the hard pink hair and spiked gas mask is probably an average high school student during the week.  She goes to school, works hard in class, comes home to dinner with the family and some nights goes out with her friends (and better call if she’s not back by eleven.)

But on the weekend, outside Harajuku station, she’s every bit as edgy and exciting as a character out of some intense cyberpunk comic.

Everyone should be so bold.

I think, maybe, that it’s a dengerous thing to ever be satisfied.  When we stop wanting more… what do we miss out on?  What could have been ours that we’re simply no longer reaching for?  Be careful of satisfaction.

We should always be content… but we should never be satisfied.

So here’s to Harajuku – much more than a fashion trend – a bold response to a lack of satisfaction.