Saving beauty

by Byung-Chul Han

Paper Book, 2018

Status

Available

Call number

111.85

Genres

Publication

Cambridge : Polity Press, [2018]

Description

Beauty today is a paradox. The cult of beauty is ubiquitous but it has lost its transcendence and become little more than an aspect of consumerism, the aesthetic dimension of capitalism. The sublime and unsettling aspects of beauty have given way to corporeal pleasures and 'likes', resulting in a kind of 'pornography' of beauty. In this book, cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han reinvigorates aesthetic theory for our digital age. He interrogates our preoccupation with all things slick and smooth, from Jeff Koon's sculptures and the iPhone to Brazilian waxing. Reaching far deeper than our superficial reactions to viral videos and memes, Han reclaims beauty, showing how it manifests itself as truth, temptation and even disaster. This wide-ranging and profound exploration of beauty, encompassing ethical and political considerations as well as aesthetic, will appeal to all those interested in cultural and aesthetic theory, philosophy and digital media.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member stillatim

If nothing else, it's refreshing to read a philosopher who knows what he's talking about, but doesn't feel the need to talk about it for 500 pages. Han brings together a number of different points, and sometimes it doesn't hang together: the substitution of 'design' for 'beauty'; the idea of kitsch

(though here assimilated to the smoothness of modern design); alienation; various critical theory-ish thoughts about what art should do, and therefore what beauty actually is; the history of aesthetics (Plato, Burke, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Adorno, Badiou); the social history of art (its roots in religious experience and ritual); various other thinkers who touch on beauty in one way or another (Scarry, Arendt, Weil).

That's a lot to cover in a few pages, and I suspect it might be a bit impenetrable for anyone who doesn't know the figures and ideas that Han covers. But I think he's chosen the right ideas, and it's nice to sometimes just read what you already think.

This also gives me the opportunity to point out that another of Han's books was reviewed by Inside Higher Ed, and that someone chose that review to post on the official amazon page for the book. Here's what IHE had to say about Han:

"Han is among the philosophers who have interpreted the world not only without seeking to change it... but also without giving sufficient weight to how messy it was before they started paying attention."

So, someone at MIT Press might want to complain about that, as amusing as it is.

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