Beauty versus Ugliness

distinct and somewhat influential middle class spawned by the Industrial Revolution as the first complete manifestation of modernity. Popular culture instantaneously became affordable and accessible. Popular culture is often contrasted with the official or high culture of the upper class (aristocracy and nobility). It is likewise regarded as frivolous and “dumbed down.” Some yet perceive it as one-dimensional, consumerist, sensationalist, immoral, and corrupt. It is perhaps best represented in the domains of such cultural products as arts, music, film, television, radio, literature, fashion, sports, advertising, print media, and internet culture. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, relentless scientific discoveries and technological dynamics created in people a sense of perpetual expectation, hope, and insatiability. People wanted more of everything, and those things were expected to be always better, faster, and brighter. There was so much in life to be experimented and enjoyed by everybody. Opportunities were limitless and on hand. Life was not to be wasted on lethargy, traditionalism, and religious conformity. It was to be lived to the fullest. Excessive and abstract intellectualism, as well as religiousness, were not welcomed either. Suddenly, people felt about life as though they were kids in a candy store. It was as if the rising middle class was bent on taking matters into their own hands. The irony was that in terms of serving as authority and a point of reference, the intellectual and cultural elites now became treated by the masses in the same way as the elites had treated the traditional and religious authorities. Things came full circle. The elites and their high culture became more and more bereft of influence and credibility. Due to their centuries-old inability to solve mankind’s perennial ontological quandaries, and lead to the right path, the elites (including religious leaders) were perceived as inadequate, yet failures. The past and its traditions were ever more loathed and rebuffed. The only solution was to live in the moment and for the self. As Friedrich Nietzsche put forth that in this world, we should live our lives to the full and get everything we can out of it. The only issue was how best to do that in “a godless, meaningless world.” Beauty was only that which generated and enhanced people’s hedonistic and, to some extent, rational pleasures. Consequently, pure philosophy, art and religion, as exclusive intellectual pursuits and potential behavioral compasses, were increasingly losing their sway and appeal in favor of the rapid advances of empirical science and technology. The latter was the source of every modernist legitimacy, including the questions of goodness and beauty, in that they were making everyone’s life interesting and enjoyable. Machines and gadgets were turned into objects of love and worship. As Bertrand Russel said: “Machines are worshiped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power.” The same holds true insofar as all the other objects of people’s biological needs and desires were concerned. This explains, for example, why many people nowadays – especially youth - are addicted to, yet worship, their smart phones, allowing their gadgets to shape their lives. Rather than being in control, they found themselves controlled. As a result, smartphones became a symbol of popular culture and people’s behavioral idiosyncrasy. Their ostensible trademarks are beauty, empowerment, and relative affordability. They are windows to the world, self-determination, and freedom. Smartphones and the way people use them further stand for a microcosm of modernity’s lack of spiritual and moral compass. It is obvious that people are both the culprits and victims of modern civilization’s spinning out of control, with popular culture being the arena of stars and main proceedings. Popular culture soon developed into a prevalent and almost universally accepted phenomenon. It became part of the mainstream. High culture could not stem the tide of the former’s growth and spread because the elites lived in ivory towers, even though, with respect to the actual value and substance, high culture fared no better than popular culture. In their own respective ways, they both personified and promoted untruth, uncertainty, non-conformity, and loss of purpose and direction. However, without right worldviews and proper orientations in life, those developments later proved detrimental for the whole of mankind and their planet earth. The results were out-and-out ugliness, repugnance and sin, which, in collaboration with other transgressions of the modern man, led to the destruction of personal moral values, the family institution, human relationships, and the harmony and order of nature. The Loss of Beauty Consequently, genuine beauty became all but extinct. It became a scarce luxury that could be enjoyed only by certain categories of people. It became most expensive. The global art market is estimated today to be $64 billion worth (Gaby Del Valle). Cultural and aesthetic junk was made available for the masses within the provinces of shopping centers, sports venues, mass media, literature, entertainment, fashion, dance, music, cinemas, cyber-culture and even education. The lowest of values were encouraged so long as there were happy takers (consumers), and the matters could be commercialized. Everything was subjective and good enough, as beauty was “in the eye of the beholder.” Beauty was banalized, trivialized, and aimed principally for financial and other material gains. People were happy because they could express themselves and make their voices and banal preferences heard. In terms of their vain and inconsequential life missions, the domain of popular culture proved an expedient medium for people’s self-actualization. Ugliness thus was promoted in the name of beauty, backwardness and primitiveness in the name of progress and civilization, ignorance in the name of knowledge and education, and wretchedness in the name of happiness. So much so that authentic beauty, both as an idea and palpable reality, was often openly despised and poked fun at. Chances are that it will soon join the grades of absolute Truth and virtue, which are neither deliberated, nor seriously pursued, by anybody. Without a doubt, today’s modern civilization is predominantly junk. People own many things but are in indigent. Living in the Information Age, they are educated, but ignorant, let alone wise. They talk so much to one another but are bad communicators. They seem happy but are discontented. They furthermore seem to be enjoying life but are suffering. Just as consuming much junk food destroys gradually our health and body, so does consuming junk components of culture and civilization destroy our total being. It destroys our humanness. This ubiquitous sentiment perhaps prompted Musa Ćazim Ćatić, a famous Bosnian poet of the early 20th century, to supplicate to God in one of his poems: “O God! Grant me a sense of beauty (and save me thereby).” It could be argued that modern ungodly civilization is an experiment that went horribly wrong. With the current profane worldviews and voracious ways of life aboard, humanity seems to be doomed. It is no secret that Islam only has the proven capacity to offer a total and viable alternative to the existing global cultural and civilizational mess; hence, this macro Islamophobia crusade by various ideological and political axes of evil. Positively, devil and his associates never sleep. To them, anything but Truth makes sense and can be accommodated.