What is the Purpose of Beauty?
"Civilizations and It’s Discontents," was published in the winter of Sigmund Freuds life. At seventy-four Freud writes about societies tight reign over human happiness, characterized as the fulfillment of libidinal and aggressive drives. As he solidifies this theoretical view of society, he writes, almost as a secondary observation, societies positive appraisal of beauty.
He writes “The enjoyment of beauty has a peculiar, mildly intoxicating quality of feeling. Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it”. 1 This observation poised by Freud makes me question with astonishment; what is the purpose of beauty? With the little research I have done, I think the implications to this question could be beneficial. I have a personal conviction that beauty and its observation has an ability to heal and foster growth within the individual. It could be another tool that a psychotherapist uses in their practice.
I hope in future essays I will investigate this question vigorously, through the literature of the past, but also using my own experience to look towards. The potential answers will be undeniably painted with subjectivity, but to that I quote another psychologist in the pantheon of its thinkers.
“Thus I have come to see both scientific research and the process of theory construction as being aimed toward the inward ordering of significant experience. Research is the persistent disciplined effort to make sense and order out of the phenomena of subjective experience” 2
This pursuit will be deeply personal, and I cannot avoid that, but I hope its implications could be beneficial to those who have shared similar experiences or those who are open to new avenues.