Beauty is a confusing concept. I would love to have the comforting feeling that beauty some probably naïve mixture of peace, harmony, aesthetically beautiful things, and, not to forget, great music. But sadly it isn’t.

A war started. And it made me wonder – isn´t the kind of beauty I thought was important rather silly and irrelevant in the current context?  I dedicated the last 15 years to finding out what we actually mean when we talk about beauty and how our different views on it relate to wellbeing. And somewhere in the back of my mind was an assumption that when we better understand beauty, it might contribute to our wellbeing. 

And then someone claims the future of his beautiful country is threatened and is convinced that the only solution is to start a war. So much for beauty and wellbeing. Images of ugliness and suffering are everywhere. Reality is about death and destruction.

An opening question in Project Beauty’s survey is “What is the most beautiful thing you still hope to experience in your life?“  No one has ever answered: ‘war’.  Finding true love or a soulmate, getting married, having kids, seeing grandchildren grow, traveling, seeing the aurora borealis, making music: these are the kinds of things most of us would like to see in our futures. (Example of the results of the latest UK responses on this question.)  Fleeing to another country because the facade of your kitchen is bombed away is on no one´s bucket list. 

At the same time, beauty isn’t only in harmony and peace. Beauty often comes with judgements, for example when a conviction or an idea is deemed beautiful. Some adherents of religious forms of beauty label things which other people hold beautiful as profane and dangerous. E.g. in some fundamentalist Islamic traditions, people are convinced violence is an option to prevent a woman from showing her hair. But in most Western-oriented civilizations, having a great coupe is a real asset, a sign of health and beauty, often perceived as attractive, and even envied. By the way: Buddhist monks resolve this issue by completely departing with any hair at all.

Beauty comes in many varieties, and almost everybody knows a version they find difficult to understand.   When confronted with such a manifestation, “It’s all in the eye of the beholder” is often an easy platitude to cover up these painful differences. But these ‘differences’ don’t disappear by invoking the platitude.

On the contrary, different ideas about beauty can ultimately become potential sources of conflicts. In the sphere of the beauty of religious ideas for example, the Crusades waged in the Middle Ages are a sad testimony to this truth. Protecting or recovering the beauty of the Holy Land was a strong drive.

But even on much smaller levels, beauty can create unease and friction. When it comes to the beauty of buildings, architects were sometimes sued, because the shape or the color of a façade wasn’t appreciated by its neighbors. Neighbors with a slight accent, the wrong kind of outfit, or an ’ugly’ car can become ‘not our kind of people’. In many cases ideas about beauty can create division.

So beauty doesn’t always lead to harmony. But – and perhaps more shocking – beauty and violence can sometimes be friends . Vietnam veteran and author Tim O’Brien, who wrote a number of novels about his war experiences, stated, “.. but in truth, war is also beauty.”

With his statement he aims to lift the lid on an even more troubling line of thought: for him, the struggle with the temptation to surrender to the allure of war is an inseparable part of human nature. In his own words: “You hate it, but your eyes do not.” 

“You hate it, but your eyes do not.”

Nowadays, in our usually peaceful world, we see this allure manifest in the popularity of violent sports like kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts. Although controversial, these fighting events are highly popular and even have their own tv channels. Watching someone get KO-ed can also be beautiful for some people. 

The Bayreuther Festspiele (the Salzburg music festival dedicated to the German composer Richard Wagner) some years ago asked itself the question, ‘How much Hitler is there in Wagner?’  Drums and fifes used to lead soldiers onto the battlefields. Violence and music can go hand in hand.

Fighting and brutality do not describe everybody’s kind of beauty, but if we want to get a glimpse of what beauty really means, we should – at least for a moment – forget about ourselves. Violence is not the opposite of beauty.   Beauty is more complicated and not always about lotuses and sunshine. It can also be muddy, it can hurt. Some types are connected to harmony and compassion, others to violence and aggression. What might bind them is that every form of beauty has the power to suck someone in, sometimes to the extent that a person becomes ‘blinded by its light’ and, to protect his or her idea of beauty, starts a fight, or worse, a war. My idea, and I am sure those of many others, then dies.

A lot of intentions, plans and dreams have fallen apart over the course of the pandemic–and many are still shattering. Intentions to see old relatives, plans to expand a business or dreams to go on new journeys. Instead, all over the world, quarantines and lockdowns limited our outlooks and sometimes even scarred our lives.

The American psychologist Barry Schwartz coined the now infamous phrase “the secret to happiness is having low expectations”. Well, living in a consumer-oriented society where advertising and other promotional messaging has become totally pervasive, low expectations don’t come easy. Fun, comfort, adventure, inspiration, titillation, excitement, seduction are standard expectations in what is sometimes called our “experience economy”. So when all shops, gyms, football stadiums, theatres and museums closed down to battle a virus, we suddenly had a serious expectation management issue on our hands. The experience economy was gone, everything we looked forward to, reduced to illusions, leaving us to look around and ask, “what’s left?”

There’s a Will Smith movie from a few years that speaks to our current moment in poignant ways. In Collateral Beauty, a father who lost his six-year-old daughter to a rare type of cancer battles depression and struggles to cope with his immense loss. He starts posting letters to the three imaginary powers he blames for his suffering and her death: love, time and death.

In one scene, his wife is waiting in the hospital while her daughter is dying, in tears and grieving what’s to come. Next to her in the waiting room sits an old lady who in the movie represents death. She asks the mother if she is losing a loved one and the mother confirms. The old woman is silent for a moment and then replies: “Just make sure you notice the ‘collateral beauty’.”

“Just make sure you notice the collateral beauty.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, many of us have lost life(styles) we’ve worked hard to achieve, ways of living we dreamed of and had become accustomed to. Truckloads of high expectations came tumbling down. No matter your individual experience, one loss we’ve all shared is the ability to move freely in the world without fear. The new normal is working from home, walking around the house and even spending the holidays in Hintergarten (Back Garden). Almost everybody has experienced limitations, and for some of us the loss is great. So where on earth should we find the ‘collateral beauty’ of such a situation? Does it even exist?

“Collateral” is a marred adjective. In the age of drone warfare, it has mainly been used as a euphemism, to ‘soften’ the message about large numbers of unintended civilian casualties in military airstrikes. When searching for synonyms, words like ‘complementary’, ‘parallel’ and ‘accompanying’ come up, all indicating something that is happening at the periphery of our focus, almost accidentally. Something that is easily overlooked.

In Collateral Beauty, after a period of grieving, the mother finds new moments of beauty in the feelings of connection to other people, animals, and even the universe. The implicit message: try not to wallow in feelings of loss and grievance. Shift focus, and open your eyes for new forms of beauty.

The good news is our experience doesn’t have to be as dramatic as in the movie. Feeling connected to the universe is probably a quite a rare experience for many of us, but there are other, less overwhelming, types of collateral beauty . Many years ago Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) professor of philosophy Yuriko Saito wrote an interesting book titled ‘Everyday Aesthetics’. In it she describes many ways of discovering beauty in (daily) life by looking with different eyes at often unnoticed but special things in our surroundings, things that we do not notice anymore because they have become familiar. These unseen forms of beauty could become noticeable again by a process she calls unfamiliarizing. We can, for example, become sensitive again to ordinary things like the beauty of laundry hanging from the line and drying in the wind.

Dealing with disappointments and unfulfilled expectations is an art. We had and still have to deal with it in this pandemic period, more than we ever could have imagined. What could the term ‘collateral’ bring us in such circumstances? Well, it seems to indicate a path by letting us stop focusing on what we thought should have happened, and instead trying to search for something else. Something which may only become visible when we shift our attention away from our deflated expectations. “Look again”, the “collateral” seems to say. And if you don’t see anything, just wait a little while, take a step back, and look again, look deeper.

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Additional information

• A short video about how it all started: A Beautiful Journey
  
• The English questionnaire that is at the heart of Project Beauty can be found here. (For local language versions visit the specific country section of the website)
  
• Stay updated on Project Beauty: follow us on Facebook.
  
• So far the core survey of Project Beauty has been used for national representative surveys in six European countries, the USA and Peru. Project Beauty now covers data about perceptions of beauty of over half a billion people worldwide.
  
• Recently we also started offering an in-company version. In case you are interested to learn more about applying Project Beauty within your organisation: please contact us.
  
• Project Beauty was made possible by the generous support of various research agencies (Dynata Benelux, Blauw Research, PanelBase, Narodni Panels), several funds (e.g. Nadační fond Propolis 33) and numerous wonderful individuals.
  
• To support Project Beauty you can purchase your country version (e-)book from the Seeking Beauty series or donate via our Patreon account.
  
• Please contact us in case you are interested in a branded version of these books as a special value-based corporate gift.

Being around beauty causes all sorts of emotions: most often happiness or joy, but a euphoric feeling or even sadness and greediness are also common. But how do these beauty connected feelings guide our actions? What are their behavioral consequences? What does it mean to be motivated by beauty?

Motivation is an emotion that sits on the threshold between thinking about doing something and actually doing it. A human fascination for this correlation between motivation and action goes back a long way. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have claimed: “Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.”

So how do our actions come about? Do we actually choose what we do? Or do we just stumble around blindly? Are most of our actions a result of conscious decisions? Or are we driven by motives beyond our scope? Where does beauty come in? What is the interconnection between motivation and beauty?

One of the current scholars on this concept, Lambert Deckers, defines motivation as “to be moved into action.” He states: “motivations refers to the why of behavior, (.. and not the how)” (Deckers, 2018, pp. 19). ^[1] Building on this ‘why’, when he mentions the role of beauty, he refers to evolutionary psychology. Looking at beauty through this lens actually means that our sensitivity to it is a psychological mechanism, stemming from natural selection or sexual selection in human evolution. The approach goes back to Darwin’s proposition which states that ultimately we are all wired according to principles that are linked to the procreation of the human species.

In classical Darwinian theory, only a certain kind of beauty plays a role: the type that refers to outward appearance. Here, the sole importance of beauty has to do with the fact that characteristics of what we regard as a beautiful human being can be traced back to certain aspects of healthiness which are important for the securing of offspring. It is this principle that lies at the heart of the title of the seminal publication on this topic by the American Harvard psychologist Nancy Etcoff: Survival of the Prettiest. Hers is the quote “In the United States more money is spent on beauty than on education or social services.”.

“In the United States more money is spent on beauty than on education or social services.“

So although it is obvious that the physical aspect of beauty is strongly linked to the existence of an entire industry, one could ask if the buck stops at this purely evolutionary view of beauty’s role in human motivation. Does it do justice to the complexity and significance of beauty as a driving force behind our behavior?

Personally I don’t think so. The role of beauty as a motivational driver in other areas of life than  breeding, is conspicuously absent in the psychology of motivation. Surprising, in fact, since  we also go into nature to find beauty, buy beautiful art because it inspires us, love beautiful interiors that make us feel great, attend Mass to find spiritual beauty etc. etc. Maybe with some explanatory effort procreation might also be linked to all these sorts of human actions, but we would seriously have to stretch Darwin’s’ view about passing on our fittest genes. Beauty’s motivational role is about much more than just physical attraction.

Why is it important to gain a broader view on beauty and motivational psychology? Well, this knowledge may help us better understand to what extent beauty moves and drives us, and thus give us more control over our lives. Nowadays many professions apply knowledge from theories about human motivation o  design situations aimed at influencing our behavior. For specialists in fields like health behavior, traffic behavior, or buying behavior, human motivational theories are a must. They often also apply tools related to beauty. Catering to our longing to be seduced by some dreamy image or story makes us actually want to jump through the commercial, or whatever sort of hoop they hold in front of us.

“Know thyself.“

Thus, if we aspire to have as much control over our own lives as possible, some curiosity about theories of human behavior and motivation – and beauty’s role –  might be helpful. How much of our beauty seeking buying, leisure, travel or even mating behavior is actually contributing to our personal well-being? And maybe wider even: is beauty as a behavioral guide contributing to a thriving planet? Or do we sometimes damage our planet by our search for beauty?

Many answers will circle back to the ‘why’ of our behavior. But not just to from an evolutionary perspective: beauty as a driving force can also be explored in social psychology, aesthetic psychology, environmental psychology and the psychology of religion. All these knowledge domains can provide us with deeper insights into various aspects of beauty.

“Know thyself” is an old Greek exhortation  inscripted in the temple of Apollo in Delphi. This adage compels us to look in the mirror and acquire as much self-knowledge as possible. Some self-awareness about how our actions are driven by the search for beauty (of whatever sort) surely would please the Greek author of the inscription.

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Additional information

• A short video about how it all started: A Beautiful Journey
  
  
• The questionnaire that is at the heart of the project can be found here. (US version)
  
  
• Stay updated on Project Beauty: follow us on Facebook.
  
  
• So far the core survey of Project Beauty has been used for national representative surveys in five European countries, the USA and Peru. Project Beauty now covers data about perceptions of beauty of over half a billion people worldwide.
  
  
• Recently we also started offering an in-company version of this inspiring project. In case you are interested to learn more about applying Project Beauty within your organisation: please contact us.
  
  
• Project Beauty was made possible by the generous support of various research agencies: Dynata, @Blauw Research, @PanelBase @Datum Internacional) and numerous wonderful individuals.
  
  
• To support Project Beauty you can purchase your country version (e-)book from the Seeking Beauty series.
  
  
• Please contact us in case you are interested in a branded version of these books as a special value-based corporate gift.

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Occasionally I do share new developments and findings about Project Beauty on social media like LinkedIn and Facebook, so when Twitter started many years ago I also created an account and tried it out. But soon I made a choice: this was a bridge too far. Given how much I appreciate my offline time, this new channel with which to share a slice of my life was just too much. Even the recent option to look directly into the mind of a US president wasn’t temping enough – no Twitter for me.

But then, about a week ago, a friend forwarded me a tweet from Elon Musk, adding: “Quick, pick up on this!!” And after seven years I actually tweeted again. Elon’s tweet (see above) reads: “define … beauty”. It looked like Mr. Musk was ‘asking’ for a universally valid description of this wonderful but often also rather complicated concept ‘beauty’.

“Define … beauty”

There are a number of phrases that describe what it means to define something; one of them (Cambridge Dictionary) states, “to explain and describe the meaning and exact limits of something.” An effort to define something is often aimed at preventing confusion. By drafting some sort of fixed ‘authorized’ description that holds true for as many persons as possible, we then accept it as a truth. It seems Elon was looking for the truth about beauty.

Truth is one of three core concepts coined by the ancient Greek philosophers and known as ‘the Transcendentals’. The other ones are Justice and Beauty. It is almost like, by distinguishing this trio of phenomena, the classical scholars tried to describe three deeply complex and at the same time fundamentally different experiences. Like three dimensions of looking at the world.

Asking for the truth about beauty is a bit like looking at one dimension through the eyes of another. To compare it to our three-dimensional world, it’s like asking: ‘What is the depth of the height?’ It just doesn’t make sense. The terms belong to different universes.

The urge to find a common denominator in different dimensions is of course very human: our brains are structured to comprehend things, trying as much as we can to create unity out of diversity. However, a brain is just a brain, and not a heart, so its function is limited. Brains are needed for truths, not for beauty: they can understand emotions, but not experience them. And here Elon’s error kicks in. He was trying to look at beauty through the eyes of his brain. Definitely an interesting exercise, but not an easy one.       

“Lies can be beautiful.” 

So, in essence, different dimensions are not comparable because they are deeply different. But can they collide? Well, yes: in a three-dimensional model all axes may have the value of zero: they meet at the ultimate starting point. The same thing could be argued for the transcendental dimensions of Truth, Justice and Beauty. John Keats had a moment like this in mind when he wrote, “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.” When someone actually used this quote to reply to Elon’s original tweet, Elon commented with, “Lies can be beautiful.’ It would of course be interesting to learn what lie he had in mind, but his comment mainly proves a unison of Beauty and Truth is not so usual. 

A meeting of all three Transcendentals, Truth, Beauty and Justice, in the same moment is probably even more unique. Maybe this instance cannot be described with words sufficiently, but only with a sound. Maybe the ‘Om’ chant in yoga? The sound seems to have a magnetic power …

Finally, and this intrigued me, notice how Elon wrote his tweet: ‘define … beauty’. Why the dots … ? Hesitance? Doubt? Irritancy? Contemplation? Was he trying to make a point? If you linger for a moment on these three small mysterious black marks, you may see something more. Perhaps Beauty?

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Additional information

• A short video about how it all started: A Beautiful Journey
• More info about Project Beauty is available on the website.
• The questionnaire that is at the heart of the project can be found here. (US version)
• Stay updated on Project Beauty: follow us on Facebook.
• So far the core survey of Project Beauty has been used for national representative surveys in five European countries, the USA and Peru. Project Beauty now covers data about perceptions of beauty of over half a billion people worldwide.
• Recently we also started offering an in-company version of this inspiring project. In case you are interested to learn more about applying Project Beauty within your organisation: please contact us.
• Project Beauty was made possible by the generous support of various research agencies: @Dynata, @Blauw Research, @PanelBase @Datum Internacional) and numerous wonderful individuals.
• To support Project Beauty you can purchase your country version (e-)book from the Seeking Beauty series.
• Please contact us in case you are interested in a branded version of these books as a special value-based corporate gift.