[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CedDUqKNm-Q]
I’ve been toodling about my apartment listening to Roger Scruton discuss beauty and art, modern architecture. (This after I cleaned to the art of Boney M’s Christmas album. Yes, art.) If you have time, you may enjoy this too.
I think there’s some import for the way we think about kids and pregnancy, by the way. Not 100 per cent sure what that import is, but something about babies not having much utility–therefore we don’t value them much these days?
(Youtube posts this in six ten minute segments.)
by 
That was really a lovely way to spend an hour. The art and music were lovely, and Scruton’s commentary was thought-provoking.
He posits that, in the past, the purpose for art, poetry, and music was to create beauty. That there is suffering aplenty in this world, but that art lifts us above and comforts us during that suffering, and reminds us of the joyful times.
However, in our modern era, the goal of art has changed. The current goal of art is to challenge pre-existing perceptions, to present novel ideas. And, in order to continue to push the envelope, artists tend to use shock and titillation.
How I would relate to this to the way we think about children and pregnancy, Andrea, is that the art we produce is quite indicative of the culture that supports that art. I’ve heard more than one person say that we’ve screwed up this world enough, and that they don’t want to have any children, and that it is not fair to bring children into this world. Some of that art shown in the film was truly ugly, and degrading, and, well, not suitable for children in any way. If that truly is the way in which post-moderns view the world: that it is an ugly, chaotic, and degrading place, then, well, they are right that children don’t belong in such a world. Nobody does.
In short, a culture that is devoid of beauty is a culture that is devoid of hope. And when we lose hope, we die inside.
But here’s the thing–children bring joy, and beauty, and love to the world. When children are around, people tend to push away the ugliness, if only to protect their innocence.
I’m under the impression that we value babies more now than we ever have, because of the extremally low infant mortality rate. We can afford to value babies – the further back you go, the less emotion people were willing to invest in something that had a good chance of dying in under a year.
Argh! This looked fantastic, I’d starting watching the first few minutes and then bookmarked it to watch on the weekend, but now the videos have been taken down from YouTube… and it’s no longer available on the BBC’s website anymore either. Scouring the web for video now…
Someone uploaded it again!
http://rogerscruton.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/why-beauty-matters/#comment-819