beauty

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Thu Aug 1 17:19:33 PDT 2002



> > >> But isn't beauty a function of class anyway?
> >
> > >Of evolution.
> >
> > Don't be silly.

Carrol Cox:
> The simple response probably to such silliness is that beauty isn't a
> trait, & only traits are inheritable. What we call beauty would be a
> more or less random assemblage of traits evolved quite independently of
> their relation ship to "beauty."
> ....

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

More precisely, as a self-appointed pseudo-intellectual, the best sort, I would look for _beauty_ in the form of various inherited, genetically-specified functions in the nervous systems of beauty-beholders which are refined by experience, culture, and other teachers, very much like language but much more fundamental -- even insects appreciate beauty. That's why plants grow flowers for them.

-- Gordon



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list