Scarry, E. (2013). On beauty and being just. Princeton University Press. 134 pages. $12.60
“On Beauty and Being Just”
It is clear that the author, Elaine Scarry is very concerned about beauty. She speaks of the way beauty captures people, the beholder, and the reaction that beauty gets. “Beauty instantly takes your breath; it makes your hands react in a way that you must touch, draw, paint, take a picture, something so that the moment last forever”. (Scarry, 1999) Can beauty be mistaken? are there errors in beauty? This is the battle within the author as she began to spell out visually and vocally what “true” beauty is.
She starts out with details of “all things that are beautiful”. All in which she says how Leonardo used to follow people on the street to grasp pieces of beauty. She speaks on beauty being disparaged, has little worth, this is because beauty is misconstrued.
Beauty naturally falls into your path. Beauty comes with music, people, art, just anything. Would you know beauty if you saw it? Even beauty has its’ flaws. In the beginning of “Part One” she explains how beauty could become neglected.
She had a love for plants and when she allowed her Palm trees to fall dead t was a error in her ability to appreciate the beauty before and care for it. She did not show it the love showed to her other plants as she described. That along to her was a error in beauty, because the thing with plants you have to put in work and love them neglect takes away that beauty. Be mindful though, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Elaine goes into detail on an account she read in Homer’s “Odyssey of Mind”; where in which Odysseus captures beauty as he comes off the seas. The beauty of a woman astonishes him so much he banned to speak on how captivating she was. He even says that blessed is her elders of being responsible for the creation of such beauty.
She explains how beauty seems unprecedented and incomparable; it is as if beauty brings upon that “never before feeling”. Giving a re-account of three things she recognized Odysseus took into account when it comes to beauty she brings serious tone to the narrative. One, beauty is sacred, it is something Odysseus had never crossed; he compares the woman to Artemis, a Free Goddess. In a sense saying there could be no way she could be this captivating unless she was Artemis. But, it she is not, the question raises well who is this beautiful woman, he becomes bewildered.
Secondly, she gathers that beauty is unprecedented. To say that something is sacred is to say that it has no precedent. Thirdly she recognized that he felt beauty was lifesaving. Beauty was sought to be lifesaving because it raises adrenaline and makes the heart beat faster.
In the breakdown of the part one when the author gets into the meat of her story, she accounts for the different paintings where artist bring palms to light in their work. She expresses the life of the palms as she sees them in the paintings, saying things like palms are life. Each palm in which is seen outside the window in the paintings.
Elaine gives great detail of how beauty is under appreciated. How mistakes happen when things are not seen for the true beauty it holds. She brings up great authors, Shakespeare, Dickinson, and Hopkins who too focused on error because of over-attribution. Over attribution is a placement of undue emphasis on internal characteristics of the character or intention, rather external factors.
Basically, they are three authors who focus on beauty and being instead of letting things be just. There was always an overly beautiful woman. Take Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet and her family was on an opposing side to Romeo’s family; however, when all was said the error in this beauty was paid with blood. Beauty can be lifesaving of a certain degree.
Something interesting she says, “No matter how long beautiful things endure our love for those beautiful things outlast them. In a sense, she is saying we take beautiful things serious and hold them in the highest regard. It is a thing of coming expect them after seeing them.
Contrary to that she says that no thing or person should outlive its own beauty. If it does then it committed betrayal. I guess beauty supposed to be everlasting. If the beauty last longer than the object or person, the person or object goes without fault.
In part one the goal of the author was to set forth the view that beauty is allied with truth. This not to say that beautiful things are true and vice versa. She ends part one with a thought of perhaps beauty has been belittled over the course of time.
In part two, “On beauty and being fair”, the author takes a different approach towards beauty. She proceeds to go into the political insights behind beauty. The whole idea behind politics and beauty suggest that there are two distinct arguments. One saying that beauty preoccupying our attention, distracts attention from wrong social arrangements. Second saying that when we stare at something beautiful the simple act of starring is destructive to the object itself.
It is weird that she says that human regard being giving to a object in the form of attention is inconceivable. In part one, the moment of perceiving something beautiful confers on the perceiver as a gift of life; in part two she takes a look into the moment of perceiving beauty also confers on the object the gift of life. (Scarry,1999)
Two legitimate things that come up in Part two of the book that help focus on positive things vice negative arguments on beauty are: things seen as beautiful naturally makes a urge comes about to protect it; second is the pressure beauty exerts toward distributional. There’s an argument that comes to light here, if something is receiving attention, it leaves something to not receive attention.
Thoughts of things or persons that are beautiful involuntarily getting attention; the author moves on to say that perhaps beautiful things are serving as small “wake-up calls”. The author suggests that there three ways that one might say that continuity between beauty and its beholder exist.
One thing is that those seeing beauty often seek new beauty in the world and may do so. With that in mind beholders of beautiful things become beautiful internally. Beholders and the beheld things of beauty affirm liveliness of each other.
The author states that we should look at the connection between beauty fairness and justice fairness. The author opens up to inform us how beautiful objects in their symmetry and generous sensory availability assists in turning us to justice. She mentions that the perceiver and the act of creation reveal the pressure beauty exerts toward ethical equality.
Towards the end of part two she says there are two ways to distinguish creating beauty. First there is perpetuating beauty that already exists; tying in the originating beauty that does not at the moment exist. There is details on how beauty is pleasure-producing and how focus people are when it comes to beauty.
It is said that beauty is highly particular and plural, you can suffer the loss of beauty to self and the things you involve yourself with daily. The closing of the book raises important questions concerning distribution and how the sky is evenly shared with the world. The closing of part two gives insight to if people had to choose if the sky was beautiful or not they would more and likely say yes. Comparing even distribution to blossoms across the world on mountainous areas.
It is interesting how she brings her closure to the book. Throughout the book, I paid close attention to the comparisons she made from everyday art she viewed in her lifetime, I found it interesting she could account for them all. I appreciated the fact she took her very own neglect of a palm tree and compared it throughout the entire book. Takes a lot to drag a story out.
When she brought up how beauty could be lifesaving that was a curve-ball for me. I naturally asked myself how could beauty save a life? Then I thought about that on my own terms. I thought about how sometimes we as people feel we can’t live without a person we love and it is evident that life is much more beautiful when you have someone to share I with.
He expressions of beauty were beautiful. How she brought in other authors work and compared and contrast it with her own throughout is quite mature of her as an author. I think that by her being as expressive as she is it helps that she went super in-depth trying to give visuals through her thoughts. I probably would not have read this story had it not been for this book review. However, I appreciate the contents within, this book definitely made me think of beauty was so important.
The book made me think of what and who society see as true beauty today. Who defines beauty? Why does that make people feel less beautiful? Learning to appreciate life s it has been giving to you and working for better is probably the best thing one can do these days. I would probably recommend this book to individuals seeking attention for all the wrong reasons.