 Book Reviews On Beauty and Being Just By Elaine Scarry Reviewed by Robert P. Mills Nov/Dec, 1999 |
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Although justice and beauty are both Biblical concepts, rarely are the two connected by mainline churches, which obsess about justice (often quite pragmatically defined) yet ignore beauty. Indeed, in these politically correct times, even referring to a thing, or worse, an individual, as “beautiful” is perilous. That is our loss and to our shame. It is our loss, as Elaine Scarry helps us see, because “beauty prepares us for justice,” a line of thought one might charitably describe as “underdeveloped” in the social justice machinery of Protestant liberalism. It is to our shame because Scarry cites Christian philosophers from Augustine to Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil in support of her claim “that beauty, far from contributing to social injustice … actually assists us in the work of addressing injustice.” Defending that assertion in this short, thought-provoking essay, Scarry, a Harvard professor not writing from an overtly theistic perspective, provides Christians with a challenge to recover the full wealth of our Biblical heritage. |
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