Essay #3 Final

Olivia Nyhammer

Professor Young

English 110

November 3, 2014

What is Beauty?

When asking yourself what is beauty, it’s important to consider the words true definition, which is a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. For example, since the beginning of mankind our ideas about what is beautiful have remained generally universal.We, without even realizing it, describe a wide range of art, people, sceneries, families, and especially skills as beautiful on a daily basis, mainly because we find any of the items listed above as aesthetically pleasing. Our natural reaction to describe these things as beautiful can only be rooted to our natural and sexual selection meaning it, for the most part, completely beyond our own control. Denis Dutton, a philosophy professor and editor of Arts & Letters Daily, presented a compelling speech about how beauty is a part of human nature entitled “A Darwinian theory of beauty” at Ted Talks in 2010. Based on Dutton’s persuasive slant on what beauty really is, one cannot help but conclude that the fascination in the well acquired skills it takes to create something so close to perfection will be beautiful until the end of time, and ultimately is derived from our psychological and cultural influences.

Primarily, Charles Darwin introduced the theory of natural selection which stated that organisms who have certain skill sets better enable them to adapt to different environments, avoid predators, and dominate competition for food and mates will survive and reproduce more than other organisms, thus ensuring those favorable traits in the future generations. To illustrate, Dutton uses natural selection to explain our basic revolutions such as fears and the stench of rotting food but elaborates, “Natural selection also explains pleasures -- sexual pleasure, our liking for sweet, fat and proteins, which in turn explains a lot of popular foods, from ripe fruits through chocolate malts and barbecued ribs.” (Dutton, par. 4) In general, natural selection subconsciously attracts us toward more favorable qualities in people, places, food, and even movies. It is embedded in our culture and our ancestors, and then handed down to us. One’s taste for an aesthetically pleasing, beautiful dish is generally influenced from our natural selection, with a cultural reinforcement. For example, Indian cultures have consumed very spicy foods for centuries so the taste of the spices have become embedded into their genetic cultural palate and thus more favorable.  Natural selection proves we cannot help but admire anything that has been beautifully constructed, and because our genetic cultural influences are so dominant in our everyday lives, it is clear that we inherit cultural views of beauty and can’t deny our psychological tendencies making beauty forever timeless.

That is to say, sexual selection is a certain aspect of natural selection which occurs when organisms with more favorable qualities produce an exceeding number of offspring because they mate more in comparison to other organisms of the same gender and as result, promise the survival of the more inclined genetic traits. Dutton analyzes, “...the experience of beauty is one of the ways that evolution has of arousing and sustaining interest or fascination, even obsession, in order to encourage us toward making the most adaptive decisions for survival and reproduction. Beauty is nature's way of acting at a distance, so to speak.” (Dutton, par. 5) We cannot help but conform to what our mind and surroundings subliminally choose for us. When examining the result of timeless beauty in families and groups of people all over the world, sexual selection is the only logical answer.

Even seeking answers from the animal kingdom, looking at Dutton’s example of peacocks and sex dimorphism, it is evident to see the attraction and beauty in a natural element. A female peacock will select the male with the most desirable feather display, this in and of itself is an example of natural selection and sexual selection. Dutton argues, “It's women who actually push history forward.” (Dutton, par. 5) the female peacocks cannot help but select to mate with the males who have more aesthetically pleasing feathers, therefor making the peacocks beautiful feathers last for centuries. This provides an example of both natural selection because the male peacocks are not all the same, one is more decorated than the other, and an example of sexual selection, because the female would want to mate with the male with better features making the beauty in their feathers timeless.

With this in mind, it is apparent that tremendous quality in one’s skill is key to the creation of beauty, but especially in art. When studying the history of art, most would assume that the earliest known works were the ancient cave paintings which are roughly 32,000 years old when in fact, our race discovered aesthetic pleasures about 1.4 million years ago. As an illustration, The Acheulian hand axes were a very popular tool for centuries, until homo erectus began crafting it into slim stone blades that represented the shape of a teardrop. (Dutton, par. 8) These hand axes where found virtually everywhere early human life existed, scattered throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa, yet the compelling thing about this tool is, the scarce number of them they found globally, as well as the lack of wear on the blade, indicating that the Acheulian hand axes could not have been for hunting use. While pondering upon what these ancient artifacts could have possibly been used for, Dutton explains, “The best available answer is that they were literally the earliest known works of art, practical tools transformed into captivating aesthetic objects, contemplated both for their elegant shape and their virtuoso craftsmanship.” (Dutton, par. 9) For that reason, it is undebatable that the beauty of the stone was not only in the stone itself, but the expertise it took to hand craft it. The Acheulian hand axes stands as an archetype to why skill is the key to success in forming something beautiful, and why even today, the rarity of the elite skill it took to create one is seen as captivating.

Correspondingly, what is so mind blowing to people today is how the hand axes was communicated throughout the land when there was no language. It’s almost unbelievable, but the hand axes was made approximately 50,000 to 100,000 years before language was even developed. This furthermore explains why these skills were so glorified and Dutton points out, “Over tens of thousands of generations, such skills increased the status of those who displayed them and gained a reproductive advantage over the less capable.” (Dutton, par. 9) As noted, advanced skill sets contribute to sexual selection due to its way of heightening a person’s status. Therefore, we cannot help but see beauty as timeless because the assets we use to achieve beauty are what are being considered in potential mates for procreation which is being taken with us generation, through generation.

Going back to the ancient cave paintings, consider this, when we see these works of art in museums we gawk and gaze at each individually beautiful piece when in reality, a six year old could have drawn a better animal. It is important to comprehend that personal interest is not in the symmetry of the lines and design, but in the articulate abilities it took to create these works of art prevalent to it’s time. Our aesthetic taste is not only what's on the surface, but what is deep in our psyche. Evidently, beauty is, should, and always will be timeless due to its ability to be recreated based on culture, skill, and ability.

                 Works Cited

Dutton, Denis. "Denis Dutton: A Darwinian Theory of Beauty | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. TED, Nov. 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.