Beauty

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The doctrine of Original sin, which is contained in the story of Genesis – one of the most beautiful concentrated metaphors in existence – is about the way we human beings fall from treating each other as subjects to treating each other as objects. Love, respect and forgiveness come from that. When we treat each other as objects, then we get the concentration camps. – Sir Roger Scruton, The Soul of the World  

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Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter….beauty is an ultimate value – something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations. – Sir Roger Scruton, On Beauty

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Nobody who understands the experiences of melody, harmony, and rhythm will doubt their value. Not only are they the distillation of centuries of social life: they are also forms of knowledge, providing the competence to reach out of ourselves through music. Through melody, harmony, and rhythm, we enter a world where others exist besides the self, a world that is full of feeling but also ordered, disciplined but free. That is why music is a character-forming force, and the decline of musical taste a decline in morals. – Sir Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music

Tonight’s musical offering:

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2, Mvmt. 3 – Argerich, Takács-Nagy, VFCO