Reading 5

Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just, 1999
 
Scarry’s main argument is to reveal the inconsistency of political complaints against beauty that it distracts our attention from wrong social arrangements and our act of generation of beauty is eventually destructive to the original object (beauty). However, when she points out that beauty assists us in our attention to justice, I guess her concept of beauty might be based on more than humanities even though she does not clarify. 
 
Because, personally, I am thinking justice relates to the law of the universe beyond the human value; wrong or right, good or bad. I have believed the law of the universe, like the identical seeds that germinate with a time difference to avoid sudden extinction under the changing environment, is beauty. I would say maintaining (or following) this beauty is justice whether or not a human being can understand or feel it. As a microcosm of the whole universe, a human being has the innate power to detect, interpret and recreate beauty. 
 
However, like Ten Thousand Beings in universe realize the reasonable perfect system in milliard ways, it is also natural that the human gazes toward beauty are inevitably distorted and the act of generation of beauty mirrors the original in a wide variety of appearances. So, I would happily accept this inconsistency that beauty not only distracts our attention from (wrong) social arrangements, but is destructive to the object. Because this is the way it is. I could be tempted to set up the idea of sublime and demote beauty because it allows me to relieve wrestling with changing appearances of beauty.

For me, pursuing beauty means journey to the law submerged under the surface. It could be ugly, hysteric, and aggressive, but also lead me to the real nature that frees me from the unjust attachment to the world. So, I like to think that beauty have never been banished from humanities in the last two decades, just have worn different colors.