“Accepting that things fall apart — is something I’ve been resisting for my entire life, and it’s something that’s been happening every day.”
-Devendra Banhart
February 13th, 2022 - Anchorage, AK - Issue 20
Beauty does not intrinsically have an ethic. Beauty often doesn’t concern itself with political ramifications at all. Beauty can be seen keeping abreast of the latest fashion trends, relying on makeup from brands that still test on animals, and reducing relationships to transactions.
Beauty is sort of like class1. To be beautiful, and to be rich similarly unlocks access to echelons of power which have historically been the habitat the oppressor. Beauty and wealth are not in and of themselves oppressive, but they afford comfortable asylum from liberatory struggle in an apolitically defining way.
Unlike class, beauty does not apply solely to humanity. While subjective in nature, beauty to most people applies broadly. Nature as a whole asserts its originating claim to beauty, and beauty is often present in manmade works of art and technology as well.
Though it has no intrinsic ethical rule, beauty in all its vast applicability can be a consoling and directive lens through which to view a life. (Directive meant in a helpful and hopeful way, as in Chiara Francesca Galimberti’s We Will Build a New Compass.) Beauty arises in unexpected places. Encounters with beauty can imbue humans with meaningful sources of artistic inspiration and drive to create. To prioritize beauty of this sort is to prioritize the quality of existence.
Beauty in its meaningfully instructive form is arguably best defined as art. In a recent Bobo’s Void podcast episode,2 hosts Bobo and Donavon describe art as relief from the pain that is existing. They compellingly sort different intersections of cultural identity into different corresponding orientations towards art based on that definition of it.
Regardless of its personal meaning, many would qualify art as something that has the ability to resonate with them. Perhaps it could be said that the best art strikes a chord that sounds a lot like what is universal? One such possible universal human reality is the futility of attempts at control.
Control often proves to be impossible, at least in absolute form. Arguably one of the most controlling forces over human behavior in modern day, the behavioral surplus-for-profit model of much of the internet, still cannot ultimately avoid inevitable subversive efforts by those it controls. (VPNs, encrypted messaging, etc.) And no one else has absolute control entirely dialed in either, even hegemonic forces who have some degree of control still resort to use of violence3 in order to maintain their power.
Lack of absolute control seems to be something that many humans at all intersections of identity have difficulty grappling with, be it due to direct experience of oppression or resort to out of control acts of oppression, there is a generalizable lack of control over reality at the core of human experience.
At this point it may yet seem unclear, but the correlation of beauty (this perspective on it) to control is related to the rare instances of artistic value where both beauty and clarity collide, or what was previously described as art. The thing is, meaningful clarity is hard to come by. Fortunately for art and humanity, powerlessness to control inserts itself into greater experience, and while not a common response, it can be conceptualized as an instance of beauty.
Due to the collective inability to control the entirety of every aspect of existence, the antidote-level power of art (or meaningful beauty), in coping with existence serves as a rare moment of relief. In the process of this reconceptualization, many new things can be wisely defined as beautiful and efforts can be made to limit harmful and nonconsensual attempts at control given its futility. Attention to beauty will conjure it everywhere, including the experience of being out of control.
“If I want to know something about discernment and attunement I’m going to gain skills with that by recognizing beauty. Right? Beauty becomes a way in which I notice that I can have the skill of discernment.
…And so in this sense, there’s a kind of irony that people who encounter beauty tend to try to possess it, they try to grab it, they try to take control of it. And well, I don’t know, I can make the observation that if you do that in a relationship with something or someone that’s beautiful, it ain’t gonna last.
And so there’s a sense here in which, to really become skillful in discernment is to actually become skillful in preserving beauty, right? To nurture beauty, to in a sense do that. And in that particular sense you do it not by constraining the person through some sort of logic or trying to constrain nature through some sort of machine process, at best you can use it as a facilitation for it to remain in sovereignty.”
-Forrest Landry, in a recent recorded discussion with Tim Adalin
WWADWWAD (?) Featured Curiosities:
- @Schrodingrsbrat with the facts:
-This thread:
-This helpful info on how one can “disrupt the carceral state” from the jury box
-Not so much a curiosity as an action item, but information on how to submit public comment on Alaska State Trooper body cameras
-This gift of an actual primer on consciousness by a dear fellow person on the internet, Kasra, writer of
-This musing:
-This essay that was shared with me in the discourse that evolved in response to the above musing
Upcoming Events
Online/Worldwide, AKST Time:
Elizabeth Peratrovich Day - February 16th
Local, AKST Time:
Community Action Night - February 13th at 6PM, at the Trophy Lounge (inside Jewel Lake Bowl), casual social community organizer meetup, ideal meetup to attend for the first time/bring friends
Positive and Adverse Childhood Experience Training - February 16th at 6PM, hosted by Choosing Our Roots sign up here
Iditarod Ceremonial Start, March 4th, 2022 at 10AM
Community Action Meetup- March 14th at 1PM, message @baileywwadwwad on Twitter or email for location
PFD Application Deadline - March 31st
The origins of this idea are unclear to the author and so for purposes of this writing, attribution of this idea should go to Bobo Matjila, who in her content regularly describes beauty as women’s class struggle
For a recent example, see the U.S., a global superpower, shooting down a weather balloon and only vaguely informing the American public of the nature of ensuing defensive military actions . Or for a strong example, see the long history of U.S. foreign intervention .