Why should we (as a species, or as living beings) sometimes want to destroy, distort or manipulate beauty? Well, the answer is really obvious: beauty might be very distracting, it occludes the already well-tried and successful ways of doing things, it is most of the time, an obstacle to efficiency. Suppose you have to build an engine in the shortest amount of time. You do it once, twice, a thousand times. You will know it by heart, and you will be faster if you think only about what you have to do. Thinking about the beauty of the engine or any of its pieces, thinking about why you should build it, or what purpose does it serve, all these things are not productive, they do not contribute to your building the maximum number of engines in the least amount of time possible.
Our bodies are a little like that. Fortunately we know that today, without a theory of the kind Darwin has proposed to us, this world would be terrible confusing. But once we can see ourselves as the result of millions of years of selection of the organisms that had best ways to deal with our environment we will understand why we are the way we are. Men desire women, why? Because our fathers also desired our mothers! Why do we flee from danger? Same answer? Our ancestors were the ones that got old enough to have us as successors. We inherited their genetic makeup. We are like drivers of a gargantuan complex machine, full of ready made programs for attack, fleeing, social interaction, sexual actions, etc. Almost everything we do, from our tastes, to our fears, aspirations, immediate desires, the way we make or evade eye contact, the way we organize ourselves in hierarchical social relations, all of this is in large part the result of this inheritance: billions of programs, for eye to eye contact, to showing superiority, to dealing with the boss, choosing the spouse, taking care of the child, making love, etc. All these things are highly supplemented by culture, but we have the program in the background.
Now there are many times in our life in which we just want to be successful. "To be successful" generally means simply: to run the program without mistakes. It might be a social program (like making lots of money, finishing a course, getting a job or some position, building an aero-model, tuning a car, etc), or a biological program (like winning a fight, eating, drinking, etc). In any case, to be successful is usually to achieve a pre-determined goal. Considerations about beauty or "why should I do this" might be entertaining in moments of leisure but will be of no use if the goal was already determined and we are already using the best ways to get it. That happens in many situations, that is why beauty is so relegated to something to be ignored, used up, distorted, etc, in some of the contexts in which we live. Like we have said: it is just distracting when we have things to do. In other words, when what we need is to obey in the most efficient, immediate and accurate way possible, beauty really can't help.
Is beauty useful to anything at all. Well, one of the things beauty gives is happiness. A person surrounded by beauty may be miserable, but it is not easy, she must constantly shun away the beauty and think about something really depressing. Beauty easily brings happiness of the kind that lasts. On the contrary successfulness only brings peaks of pleasure followed by long runs on anxiety and frustration. Plato, in his book, Phaedon, has pointed out that pleasure and pain are inseparable companions: pleasure is just the absence of a previous pain. For instance you are thirsty, you feel discomfort, its disagreeable, then you drink some water, your thirst is satisfied, so you feel pleasure. If you had drunk water before you felt thirsty you would not feel any pleasure. It's the same with most pleasures and pains, most of the time one starts because the other just ended. Success is a good example: for instance if we are born in with riches (for instance having drinkable water, sanitation, electricity, a warm house, food, etc) we probably not very grateful for them. We will consider them "normal" and we will want more. We will try harder to get better, a better car, or an helicopter, or a private jet, whatever. We need to have a goal. This goal makes us feel miserable for a long time, we feel small and incomplete. And when we get what we want we have a brief moment of satisfaction. In that moment we may feel we achieved "success", we are fulfilled, satisfied. But that is just for the moment. Soon enough we will want more again. We need goals to keep feeding this never ending succession of pleasure and pain. The same happens if we start out in a real poor country. First we will feel good just because we have food, but then, like everyone else, we will feel "normal" and we will want to restart the cycle, we will crave for more and more. This means, as we can easily see, that wanting to be successful, and fulfilled, contrary to a frequent expectation, does not bring happiness, although it certainly keeps us very busy and entertained.
Beauty by the contrary has a completely different effect. Suppose you find the stars beautiful and you became an astronomer. Well you will fill surrounded by beauty. Even if this human world is going berserk with wars and blind consumerism, you know that we are just an invisible speck in a gigantic sea of galaxies. Life certainly goes on all over the universe in innumerable worlds and unimaginable civilizations. Even if we are messing it up others will come. We are just another experience in the gigantic cycle of life. In the midst of this immense Universe the astronomer may easily feel that he is contemplating by far the greatest spectacle that the human eyes have been granted. It is quite difficult to be sad if we have such a vision. Beauty feeds happiness directly, it does not depend on the game between pleasures and pains. Moreover it does not force a direction, instead it inspire us. It gives us more ways to choose from, in this respect, it is direct opposition with pleasure and pain which pull/push us in one specific direction.
How does beauty inspire us? Well, it is difficult to explain. Suppose you are in a plane, watching the landscape bellow, trees and green for miles and miles with no end in sight. Perhaps it may seem a little dull. But now you take your headphones out, you start listening to Enya's Watermark. Suddenly the landscape changes, as if a different dimension would raise from the landscape, it gains a new meaning, a new value, as if every part as an intrinsic beauty, magical, that was hidden from view. The same happens if you listen to Joe Hisaishi's, Ano Natsu He (One Summer Day), but, in this case, a different sense emerges, as if there was a hidden mystery, something that lurks deep beyond view. If, looking at the same landscape, you listen to Vangelis' Theme from the tv series "Cosmos" (taken from Vangelis' album Heaven and Earth) you might feel an indescribable sense of beauty in which everything is connected, sun and moon and every star with plants, animals of every size, grains of sands and drops of water... In all these cases (and many more could be given with no end in sight) it's like we are either uncovering a part of reality or seeing it with a filter (like in the Wizard of Oz, where the inhabitants of the city had green lenses so they would see an "Emerald City". Perhaps listening to beautiful music is like wearing colored lenses. But there is a difference, colored lenses focus on one aspect (one color) of reality and block all others. Inhabitants of the Emerald City saw everything green because other colors were blocked, they were actually seeing less than without the colored lenses. But most of the time what happens with music is that it shows us more, not less. When we turn off the music the dullness may return again. When we turn it on again the "extra dimension" seems to be on again.
Of course there might be people who say that, when they look at nature, they do not see a dull landscape but an ecstatic view, that is so full of beauty that any music, even the most beautiful, will actually only focus on a small part of that gargantuan beauty. For such a person music would be like wearing spectacles, but for us, who are dulled by such landscapes, it would seem that music was more like a telescope, or like having x-ray vision. It seems like something extra is seen. Something that is not expressible in words, not even to ourselves, that is difficult to memorize or to recreate in future moments, but that nevertheless inspires us, makes us happy, gives us the will to go forth with our plans and adventures.
So, what is beauty anyway? Well, we cannot really answer that! The reason is simply that, in general, we can only speak about relations between things, for instance I can understand how several things are related, they might be bigger, better, exert more gravitational force, produce magnetic fields, and so on. The effects that things have over other things can be observed, measured, thought about, the effects can be isolated and repeated, etc. This is how not only science but any kind of objective knowledge works. Even mathematics and geometry deal with relations between numbers or shapes. But whenever we look at the thing in itself, not in relation with some other thing, but when we ask what it is, we are going beyond the relations that it establishes with other objects. For instance if we were to study yellow we will find many properties, from a phenomenal point of view you may know its relation with other colors, what happens when you mix it with another color, etc. From a physical point of view you may find how electromagnetic waves and particles interact with each other and matter. But if you ask what yellow is, then the question seems to loose its meaning. Suppose that we do really live in a Matrix, as the brothers Wachowski have depicted. Inside a matrix, a simulation, we can easily know how two different objects inside the simulation interact. We just watch and record and try to generalize. But if you ask: "well, how was this object created by the matrix, what kind of software produces it, what kind of hardware, what was the intention of the creators of the matrix that created this particular object, why does it exist, etc» All these questions cannot be answered by describing relations with other objects inside the matrix. Now, we do not need to believe that we live inside a matrix to make these kinds of questions, but when we make them we are surely supposing an external world outside of this universe, that somehow could provide an answer to questions such as «what is beauty, what is an electromagnetic wave, etc». Talk about God follows the same kind of line, of an originator that somehow gives meaning to this universe. Now, as far as I can see, all of this talk ends in mystery. Are we in a Matrix? Is there nothing else? What is matter or time and space? What is consciousness? What is beauty? What is causal power and what gives it to objects? Why is the universe so consistent? All these questions, and all others of the same kind, need an extra world to be answered. But we do not see that extra world. So we can only speculate regarding the answers. So, summing up, we can talk about for instance, how beauty affects our lives, what our notion of freedom implies, what is the price for being free, etc. We can discuss anything that takes place in this universe and involves relations between objects pertaining to this universe. All else is certainly involved in mystery. So clarity, in our human minds, will make us know better what we can know, but it will also make us more aware that most of the fundamental questions that we (as humanity) have placed ourselves over the centuries, are simply unanswerable.
But there are situations in which beauty is very useful indeed. That happens when we are trying to find out something we do not know. Scientists for instance, are usually guided by notions of beauty and elegance when they are searching for a new theory (like in the creation of the quantum theory). Brute force, for instance trying to experiment with all possible mathematical models does not work in
We should not forget that our interests are usually limited to what makes sense to us, what we can understand. Alligators are interested in deer and in other alligators, most or even all of them probably won't notice the shapes of clouds and flowers or the intricate dances of bees. Generally what we do understand creates puzzles, raises fears and desires, and we will want to act on that. I've never been an alligator but think it's easy to understand its state of mind. «Heat from sunshine is good, makes my limbs faster, I can act, deer are tasty, makes me feel good, got to catch fragile deer...» and then there must be a lot of "thoughts" about other alligators which I cannot really imagine. However the simple understanding that sunshine is good creates a lot of notions about "good sunny spots" and bad spots, good spots in the summer might not be good spots in the winter, things will get clearer to me, as an alligator, as time goes by, and I discover plenty of things about how my world works. This very limited understanding that we are imagining an alligator to have is what allows him to desire some things and fear or hate others. The things that he loves will become clear to him, like good spots, good deer to catch, etc. With us it is the same. We might be hooked on playing some game, watching tv, making love, studying astrophysics, driving, listening to Regina Spektor, etc. But our worlds are much wider in depth and scope. When we think about food we may consider not only the taste but its nutritious value, or even how it came to our plate or the suffering involved in creating the food before us. When we have to fight for survival our world shrinks: we have to get food, water and a safe place to be. We are always thinking about the same things, we might be clear about them, but it is definitely a small world. But humankind has long ago surpassed that stage, in most parts of the world, for many millennia, mankind can plant and raise cattle and just be free to explore the rest of the time. As time went buy less and less people were needed to do the basic tasks of getting food and protection. Today most of our jobs are completely useless. We work because we have no other option of socially controlling billions of people. We create the illusion of scarcity and of the necessity of money and work because that keeps people organized, focused and well-behaved. Just like ants and bees we need to be always on the run, with everyone playing its part, either rich or poor, and the society keeps on running. It is unclear that a society with so many members would function if everyone was allowed to just think and be for himself.
It is important to understand this because, for human beings living in contemporary societies, it has a huge impact on what we desire, and, therefore, on what we want to be clear about. To expose this a little better let's imagine a relation with just two people, now two people have to build a relation from nothing, it's their own input, their receptiveness and understanding, their creativity, their joy, that will build a more or less enriching relation. When we add a third person things get slightly different for now we have more chances of inputs, diversity, an even richer relationship, but at the same time, our speech must become simpler when the three of us are together. For instance if a couple has a child, they must transform their speech, when they are together, so that the child will also be a part, so that he can understand what's going on. Now instead of three think of a group with hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Now things get really weird, because what can be common to such a multitude of different persons with different dispositions, wills, goals, desires, fears, attitudes, etc? It's just impossible to think that such a variety of people can all fit together. Some of them will want to be bandits, others will want to be saints, others will want to know, others will want to be rebels, others will want to feel, others to dance, others to be kissed, others to kiss... now, many of these things can be conjugated, to the advantage of all involved, but how can you even put all the people at the same table, following the same rules (for driving, for using money, for respecting the law and costumes, etc)? The answer is: speak only of the simplest things: sex, food, company! Create this fear: the fear of being alone, of exclusion, of punishment, and then create the fear of poverty, of enduring physical illness, cold, hunger. Then whoever does not respect the rules is condemned, expelled, reduced to nothing, suffers. Whoever lives by the rules gets wealth, admiration, companionship, "success". A community with big numbers reduces the common speech to the minimum common denominator. The speech is ripped of everything that is highly idiosyncratic, intimate desires, visions and expectations, weird hypothesis, dreams. All that remains is what everyone understands: fear and desire.
Both in big and small communities the common speech must be highly simplified. But small communities can work well without a lot of stress, in part it's because everyone knows one another, it's easier to achieve homogeneity in clothing, dialect, ways of interacting, and general behavior. But at the same time small communities may allow their members more independence. If our numbers (as humanity) were less, as they used to be just a 150 years ago, anyone could go out into the field and build his own farm. If you don't like it here just build your own place and let it be however you want it to be. But with 6 billion people in the world we don't have that luxury. People must want to live in big cities, so, although apparently there is more diversity in big cities, the opposite occurs, we cannot even have time to think about ourselves, everything must happen in a hurry, we must be always in the middle of something. In a small community we work but we also have time to themselves. Time seems abundant in small towns, we can relax! Why? Because we don't have to be so much "on the tracks" in small communities, externally we look more homogeneous, but on an intimate level we allow ourselves more independence, more freakishness. But in a city holding millions of people in small holes that we call "luxury apartments" even a little bit of weirdness can go incredibly wrong. So we will accept for people to wear strange hair and weird clothes, to be pierced all over, etc. External diversity is all right as long as we live this paranoia that "there is something very important to do today (even if I'm not sure exactly what it is - and that is part of the problem, I must find out)". In big cities laid back people are seen as pariah of society. In a small community they would just be relaxed but in a big city they are really seen as undesirable. Big communities cannot allow their members much time to think by themselves, and this feeling of guilt, of "there is something to do", makes way for other ideas to creep in, these will depend on the particular kind of society we might happen to be in, but in general they will speak about the need to be patriotic, about the need to obey, to work in order that everyone might have a better life, etc. This is why big societies like the US are so homogeneous. Everyone is taught to be free and to love freedom, and that being free is the most important thing, that the individual is more important than the state, that the state should serve the individual... well, isn't it strange that everyone thinks this same thing, and all the relevant political parties say the same thing? And how has such a big society produced so few political parties (only two!)? If there is so much diversity there should be hundreds of political parties and perspectives, but in fact there isn't, how can that be? I think that is because of the sheer number of people involved, there simply is no room for diversity, it would disrupt society. With bees and ants is the same, we must be always occupied, we must be always focused on what there is to do, we are one more wheel in a gigantic machine. So one might look weird but only as long as one thinks and behaves normally.
Summing up: what do we care about? Well, in big communities we must care essentially about how to be a good part of the system. Of having a job, marrying, keeping the kids healthy, and leaving an insurance in case we die. Being clear, in this context, is studying to get a good job, understanding how one gains and keeps a good job, a good spouse, a good family, and then as time goes by and we loose everything, jobs and people, we get clearer about what passes on tv, and about fake and real memories of our past and legend that we recount to ourselves and to everyone able to listen. When we die we were a part of a big machinery that generally took good care of us the more we took good care of it.
It is important to say that I'm not really sure if things work this way, I've never been much into sociology or even anthropology, it seems a reasonable perspective from what I've seen, but perhaps I'm wrong. In any case you could study it, you could read books about it, you could think how it really happens in your life, etc. What good would it do? Well, it would not allow you to simply circumvent the system. Understanding how traffic works and why everyone should drive on the right side (or on the left if you live in Britain) does not mean that now you can drive in whatever way you want. We must understand why things are as they are, what is their role, only then will we know if and how that can be circumvented. For instance, if you understand that the laws of traffic should apply in all situations, even in cases where there is no traffic, you will avoid driving on the wrong side even if it is perfectly safe (in the middle of a desert for instance), unless, of course, besides being safe, there is no agent of the law to see it. In that case you know there will be no bad consequences. Seeing a situation gives us the ability to circumvent the system, but not in a simple and direct manner, only by understanding the why and respecting all the needs that gave rise to that particular system will we know if we can do things in a slightly different way without harming any one. In this particular case, and assuming that the sketch above is basically correct, we might break off the bonds of society if we respect its needs of cohesion and simplified thought. This is even a more acute need when we speak about superstitions.
In any case, I cannot tell anyone what they should care about, I can only show them that the majority of people care about what they are told to care. In order for each of us to discover what "I" care about it is unavoidable to disconnect from the bonds that blindly connect us to society and that turn our desires into those of a puppet steered by illusions.