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Beauty 36

How Beauty Fits

The most fashionable and defensible position on aesthetics is to maintain that beauty is entirely subjective. Beauty doesn't exist, we are assured, at least as a quality uniting such diverse…

Beauty is the Answer

In ISI's on-going series titled "Conservatism: What's Wrong with it and How Can we Make it Right?" Gerald Russello argues that conservatives have pursued power but neglected beauty. He writes:…
Mark T. Mitchell
October 14, 2013

Unbidden Beauty

The urbane  residents of New York City like to appear austerely bored at their hometown's famous sites: the Empire State Building is an overrated tourist-trap; Times Square, garish; and Wall…

Sitting Inside a Mountain

Breaking free from the voices, soundtrack, machinery, and plastic of consumption and advertising gives an individual the opportunity to consider questions and ideas that the world outside St. Raymond’s continually…
June 20, 2011

The Beauty of Tolkien’s Quest

Tolkien understands the deepest of our longings and makes us understand them better than before.
Mark T. Mitchell
June 2, 2011

Women, The Cosmos, and Cosmetics

I still do not understand why, in a prison and particularly in a jungle prison, where needs multiply like rats, why the need for lipstick should vault to the top…

Books and the Hungry Soul

Beautifully and substantially-made books suggest something that deserve to be pored over at length, just as one lingers with friends after a wonderful meal.

Beauty and Other Transcendentals

Devon, PA.  The penultimate installment of "Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic" has now appeared at First Principles.  In Part V, I had treated of Jacques Maritain's theory of…

Bourgeois Beauty and Bourgeois Relativism

Devon, PA.  For those FPR readers interested in keeping up with my ongoing series, Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic, the third and fourth parts have appeared on First…

Conservatism as Literary Movement

Devon, PA.  Last month, I alerted FPR readers to the appearance of the first part of my essay, "Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic," in First Principles.  The primary…

The Recovery of American Beauty

Holland, MI The present age remains haunted by the specter of “atheism,” with significant consequences for our understanding of politics. I think we can distinguish between at least three different…
Jeff Polet
September 12, 2009

Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic

Devon, PA.  During the next few months, I shall be writing on the centrality of beauty and art to a flourishing human life in general, to a sound theology, and…