9.8 Conclusions: Beauty and You

We live in an age of Instagram, Pinterest, and pop culture. Magazines, video-feeds, beauty contests. Ad campaigns, web sites, fashion design. More than ever before, we are bombarded with pictures, songs, movies, television programs, paintings, posters, people, and pop stars all of which seem to demand of us that we find them beautiful. We are “arts overdosed.”

The study of aesthetics can help you navigate this flood. It can give you tools to understand why you find some things beautiful and (most) others not. As you come to understand the intellectual struggles of the philosophers who we have met in this chapter you will, I hope, begin to better understand how you come to your own aesthetic judgments—you will, in short, develop a sense of taste. You will learn to navigate through the “pulp” of modern media to find the jewels, the works of art that resonate most with your inner longing for beauty. You will have the tools to discuss why you find them beautiful. You will be able to use these tools to find a community of “aesthetes” who, like you, appreciate the finer things in life.

May you have an exciting journey.