RE: Why Beauty Matters
Beauty(aesthetic), Truth(Logic) and the Good(Morality/Ethics) have been in a fight about their objective nature. Empirically, I think it is clear that civilizations that goe down the path of relativity end up crumbling and imploding. When we call the ugly beautiful and when Evil becomes signs of virtues...we are in deep trouble.
We know that the Holocaust was so horrendous that no sane person would say that it was not objectively evil (meaning independent from people's opinions). As soon as we unknowledge that, we cannot escape it's logical opposite. If there is something ultimately evil, there must be an ultimate good.
Beauty is harder to defend when it comes to it's objectivity yet I think that we experience in our soul the difference between genuine beauty and ugliness. Which is why people still flock in masses to great paintings and architecture or towards Hawaii...and not towards the local dumpster.