The Opposite of Beauty
Sometimes, when you’re trying to talk about really big concepts—like, oh I dunno, Beauty and Truth—they can be hard to pin down. Maybe impossible.
They resist attempts at definition, in any way that is meaningful or says much at all about the way we actually experience them.
We can see them more clearly, perhaps, if we look at them indirectly. Through art, certainly, which you’ll see me talk about a LOT on this blog and in the podcast. But also by trying to figure out their opposites.
Let’s start with Beauty, as I often do.
What is the opposite of Beauty? If you leaped immediately to “ugliness,” well, so did I at first. But I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe that’s not entirely accurate.
When in doubt, I go to the Merriam Webster:
1a: offensive to the sight
b: offensive or unpleasant to any sense
2: morally offensive or objectionable
3a: likely to cause inconvenience or discomfort
b: surly, quarrelsome
4: frightful, dire
That second definition—morally offensive—that one might be an opposite of Beauty. But the others, what they’re really talking about is something that evokes disgust, that is repellent. Beauty attracts, therefore it’s opposite must repel, right?
But what about things that are repulsive at first, but as we get to know them, as we pay attention to them, as we become accustomed to them, we see Beauty in them?
Famous example: the folktale of Beauty and the Beast. Has this ever happened to you? I know I have met people that I loathed at first, would rather break a toe than spend a minute with, who eventually became some of my dearest friends. How many romance novels are based on the premise of hate at first sight, that becomes passion, that becomes love? Like…all of them?
Spiders. I used to think they were gross and scary, and then I get to know them a little. Learned they’re not nearly as dangerous (most of them) as we think. That the way they move is SUPER INTERESTING (it’s a whole hydraulic system). And now spiders are fascinating and beautiful to me.
Maybe something like this has happened to you, too?
So, what I’m saying is that I don’t know that ugly is the opposite of beauty. Maybe most of the things we find ugly are really Beauty that we just haven’t paid enough attention to, or approached with enough curiosity. More on that in a later post.
No, I actually think the opposite of Beauty is…”meh.”
Meh is a thing mass-produced. You would never call a McDonald’s cheeseburger “beautiful,” even if you happen to love it.
Meh is an event with no spark in it. A sermon that moves no one. A movie you forget immediately after you’ve watched it.
Meh is passionless. Worse than that, it’s intended to have no passion. It’s intended to blend in, to be unnoticeable, to make sure everyone is comfortable and a bit dull. Meh is servile and simultaneously egocentric.
Meh evokes…nothing.
What is the villain in The Neverending Story? A force called The Nothing. A creativity and life killer. A destroyer of vision. It is the “emptiness that is left” when people “lose their hopes and forget their dreams.” A vast and consuming “meh.”
What is the villain in A Wrinkle in Time? The It, a force for conformity. A force to dull the mind and the appetites, to make everything simple and identical and controllable. A brain without a body. (There will definitely be more on A Wrinkle in Time at a later date.
Neither Beauty nor ugliness are any of that. Which is why I don’t think they’re opposites.
People often say that the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. Very much like that.
Meh are all the things that are, y’know, just fine. They’re ok.
We need “meh” sometimes, for practical purposes. I’m looking at my coffee maker right now. It’s serviceable, the shape works for what it’s supposed to do. It’s entirely functional and looks all right on my counter. But there’s not much Beauty to it.
(Although, as I’m thinking about it, there is Beauty in how it works, in the inventioning mind that envisioned harnessing steam and drip.)
But the coffee maker itself? It’s pretty “meh.”
This Japanese-style siphon coffee maker that I just found online and am now coveting? Not “meh.”
Be cautious of “meh.” Our lives are made duller by “meh,” less interesting, less worthy of the shockingly little time we have in these bodies.
I’m not saying give up your coffee makers, or only buy the finest Italian leather shoes. Some things need to be serviceable and affordable.
I’m just saying…it’s good to be a little aware of the “meh.” It can drain you, like adding leeches to your bathwater.
Ok, that was gross. I just grossed myself out.
But I like the metaphor.
It’s not “meh.”