I was sitting on a bench in Toronto the other day just looking around. I was astounded at the sheer ugliness of modern life, and I’m not talking about the homeless addicts and filth everywhere, although they are the outward manifestation of the obvious inward decay. This “piece of art” in front of me told a story about every Western nation: that ugliness has overtaken every facet of life and beauty has become undesirable. We are told that this is art and it should be appreciated for what it is, whatever it is. In a world where objective standards have been decried as bigoted, everything becomes good and beautiful by definition.
The online memes highlight the problem. Young leftists post about their “euro summer” or how they long for yet another “European vacation” filled with museums, cobblestone street cafes, fashion, and that old world charm. But, they find themselves in a terrible predicament. They are helplessly enamoured with the beauty of what the old world built, yet despise the beliefs that inspired the men of centuries past, to build it. The irony is fascinating to consider: modern progressives love their “Euro vacays;” to gaze in wonder at what medieval Christians built, yet despise those same transcendental Christian beliefs that inspired them to build with such care.
Which brings me back to the ugly statue in front of me, and the cookie cutter, cheap glass and steel buildings I was surrounded by. We build nothing lasting anymore; nothing for future generations to look at and be inspired by. Modern people are not interested in understanding anything outside their pointless existence of consumption and hedonism. They yearn for the beautiful, yet have no desire for what that entails.
Foundationally, you can’t have a conversation about why everything is ugly without talking about the removal of God from society. Atheism and modern paganism are at the crux of the war on beauty and the apathy towards God; the source of all beauty. This is reflected poignantly in our music, art, architecture, and people. Why do beautiful things move us the way they do? A landscape, a cathedral, a painting, a song, or the face of another? It’s because beauty is a transcendental attribute of humanity; a sense of something that we’ve been imbued with, from outside us and above us.
Most days I walk right by this image below. We have settled for elementary school drawings on concrete as architectural lipstick to hide what’s underneath. Graffiti is a symbol of decay. It is not art, it is the desecration of art, and we do nothing to stop those who vandalize our cities. We have accepted and grown used to the subversion of beauty to the point where we now crave the ugly and celebrate it.
The debasement of beauty crushes the human spirit and makes us miserable. This is the necessary outcome for those who have rejected the source of all beauty. A nation that rejects God gets what it deserves. Maybe the defilement of the beautiful has been the goal all along.