2. For this blog, I
will be going off of the main points explored in the previous post: “For
Nietzsche, man is the sole source or origin of meaning in the world; that is,
the world alone, or what we would call ‘Nature’ is void of any meaning other
than how man perceives and comes to understand it” and “Beauty, by these terms
is not an object in the world waiting to be stumbled upon, nor is Beauty a naturally occurring phenomenon[1] ; Beauty is
created in the mind, in the consciousness that is subjective perception,
through a process of creating meaning and understanding, thus further
conquering the world and its objects.” According
to this understanding of Beauty, I would like to explore the concept of
universal beauty; or rather, beauty as a cultural standard. According to Nietzsche, Beauty is created and
understood subjectively; however, it seems there are certain objects in this
Western culture that are generally accepted by the majority as ‘beautiful’ or
containing ‘beauty.’ Take the red rose
as an example; it seems safe to say that a majority of people would agree that
an ideal rose is beautiful or has some aesthetic value. Did this understanding of the rose as a thing
of ‘beauty’ come to be so through the constant reinforcement of the object in
contexts that elicit positive emotions, or does the rose contain beauty as a
naturally occurring phenomenon? The rose
also symbolizes love, but the word ‘love’ would not be used as an adjective to
describe the rose. Another example of an
object with universal aesthetic value that I considered was the sunset or the
sunrise. These events contain aesthetic
value and would be considered ‘beautiful’ across cultures. According to Nietzsche, beauty is created
through the ‘conquest’ of nature, or the process of man establishing meaning
for the world around him. Events like
the sunset hold a universal meaning in the world; it is the passing of time,
the end of the day, the chance to begin again.
The rose, seen in this light, contains aesthetic value for a culture
that has commonly used the rose to symbolize love. Perhaps their is some correlation between
objects/events that universally hold aesthetic value and objects/events that
hold a common meaning or understanding for human beings.
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