Another refreshingly original and thought-provoking SOS article! Coincidentally, I keep getting served an ad for the gag calendar, “Dogs Pooping in Beautiful Places.”
The cover combines three things from your piece: flowers, gorgeous vistas … and dung. It makes me feel both desire and disgust at the same time, so I haven’t quite known what to make of it. (I also don’t have a dog.)
> What explains the common strategies used by Beauty players in their production of beauty? E.g., clean lines, smooth surfaces, symmetry, repetition of forms, intricacy, elaboration, rich colors, strong contrasts. Are there underlying principles here? In particular, I'm intrigued by the idea of beauty products as proofs-of-work.
To this point, and your 3) commonality between pollinators and us - *aren't* symmetry, bright and consistent solid colors with no patches, clean lines, and intricacy all strong signals of overall fitness and health?
To achieve those, you need both good genes, and to have navigated your overall environment "more successfully than average" for as long as you've been alive, to be standing in front of somebody with clean lines, colors, symmetry, etc.
It seems a pretty clear "proof of work," because those are the two things that matter most, for both descendants (same species), and for nectar production (pollinators / cross-species), meat volume and quality (game and domesticated animals / cross species), smartness and capability (pets / cross species), and so on.
And this should be true in both pre-handicap regimes and post-handicap Zahavi regimes where runaway sexual selection has occurred.
THANK YOU for this essay! A couple of years ago I wrote a poem about orchids and bees in an attempt to articulate (to myself) this pattern I saw people missing because of its subtlety— that dominance is not the only way to survive and get things done, and that beauty is a kind of counterweight to violence. When I frame solutions to work problems through this lens, people seem to instinctively get it, and it feels like they’ve been hungry for language and permission to do things differently. I’ve felt totally nuts about how clear this is and how no one seems to be talking about it this way (architecture losing its character as a symptom of a society over-invested in dominance, etc) and your essay has made me feel sane again. This is articulated so clearly and broken down so well.
Many many years ago Hans Eysenck published "Sense and Nonsense in Psychology" in which he discussed beauty at length. At the time it appeared, and may very well still appear, that the concept of beauty is baked into humans. It is what we find aesthetically appealing, and even those untrained in aesthetics agree with the self-appointed experts that certain shapes and proportions and color combinations are more visually appealing than others. A beautiful mathematical theorem obviously requires specialist knowledge to be appreciated.
Another refreshingly original and thought-provoking SOS article! Coincidentally, I keep getting served an ad for the gag calendar, “Dogs Pooping in Beautiful Places.”
https://dayscape.co.uk/products/funniest-calendar-of-the-century-artistic-expression-of-furry-friends
The cover combines three things from your piece: flowers, gorgeous vistas … and dung. It makes me feel both desire and disgust at the same time, so I haven’t quite known what to make of it. (I also don’t have a dog.)
> What explains the common strategies used by Beauty players in their production of beauty? E.g., clean lines, smooth surfaces, symmetry, repetition of forms, intricacy, elaboration, rich colors, strong contrasts. Are there underlying principles here? In particular, I'm intrigued by the idea of beauty products as proofs-of-work.
To this point, and your 3) commonality between pollinators and us - *aren't* symmetry, bright and consistent solid colors with no patches, clean lines, and intricacy all strong signals of overall fitness and health?
To achieve those, you need both good genes, and to have navigated your overall environment "more successfully than average" for as long as you've been alive, to be standing in front of somebody with clean lines, colors, symmetry, etc.
It seems a pretty clear "proof of work," because those are the two things that matter most, for both descendants (same species), and for nectar production (pollinators / cross-species), meat volume and quality (game and domesticated animals / cross species), smartness and capability (pets / cross species), and so on.
And this should be true in both pre-handicap regimes and post-handicap Zahavi regimes where runaway sexual selection has occurred.
THANK YOU for this essay! A couple of years ago I wrote a poem about orchids and bees in an attempt to articulate (to myself) this pattern I saw people missing because of its subtlety— that dominance is not the only way to survive and get things done, and that beauty is a kind of counterweight to violence. When I frame solutions to work problems through this lens, people seem to instinctively get it, and it feels like they’ve been hungry for language and permission to do things differently. I’ve felt totally nuts about how clear this is and how no one seems to be talking about it this way (architecture losing its character as a symptom of a society over-invested in dominance, etc) and your essay has made me feel sane again. This is articulated so clearly and broken down so well.
:D
I will relay this message to the author, I am sure he will be delighted.
This piece made me renew my paid sub. The writer has an inviting and playful style and explains his ideas so well-reminds me of Tim Urban!
It's a great article - more posts coming from Kevin!
Many many years ago Hans Eysenck published "Sense and Nonsense in Psychology" in which he discussed beauty at length. At the time it appeared, and may very well still appear, that the concept of beauty is baked into humans. It is what we find aesthetically appealing, and even those untrained in aesthetics agree with the self-appointed experts that certain shapes and proportions and color combinations are more visually appealing than others. A beautiful mathematical theorem obviously requires specialist knowledge to be appreciated.
Brilliant!!