Only beauty can save the world.

Excerpt from James Hillman's talk "What Kind of Society Nurtures the Soul?"

“Ethics alone is not enough to make a change in the world.

Alone, ethics without aesthetics doesn’t hold. Take for instance the environment. We’re not motivated to fight for it simply because we ought to, because we should, because we must do the right thing. Of course we’re ethically responsible for our patterns of consumption and we are guilty because of consumerism. But moral persuasion is not enough for sustained motivation. Nor are high principles about Gaia, and deep ecology and future generations. Making amends. Atoning. Sacrificing. It’s all proved. It’s all noble. And even scientifically valid. Yet, the emotion is not strong enough to motivate. It must come from below the super ego, from the id of desire.

We must first be moved by beauty. For then, love is aroused. When you love something then you want it near. Always around. Not to go away. Not to be harmed. You want to help it thrive and prosper. Then you are a little blind to it’s faults and risks. And a little indulgent in your gifts to it. No questions of cost effectiveness, of balance sheets, of worth assessment of that which calls your love. 

What evokes love? As has been said in many places in many ages and felt by any one of us, it’s Beauty. An aesthetic perception draws forth our ethical care. 

First, awaken aesthesis. Breathe in the beauty of the cosmos, the meticulous crawl of an insect, the heave of the frosted earth as winter yields it’s grip. Observe the composite complexity of an ordinary stone. The eddies in the sand as the tide recedes, or hear the early morning bird call. Beauty astounds and pulls the heart’s focus toward the object. Out of ourselves. Out of this human-centred insanity that we’re living still and toward wanting to keep the cosmos there for another spring, and another morning. This is the ecological emotion and it is aesthetic and political at once.”

Excerpt from James Hillman's talk “What Kind of Society Nurtures the Soul?”