What if survival of the fittest is not enough to explain nature? What if we also needed survival of the prettiest? These are the provocative questions of the New York Times magazine article, “How Beauty is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution” (1/13/19).
How refreshing it was to read this article and discover that life isn’t just a dreary slog of survival. It has been brimming with exuberance since the beginning of time.
For example, in 2010, scientists revealed that a crow-size dinosaur was beautifully adorned: “gray body plumage, an auburn mohawk and long white feathers with black spangles.” Why did this dinosaur evolve feathers? To repel water and regulate body temperature? To fly? Not this dinosaur — its feathers were too primitive for flight or gliding. So why? Perhaps the dinosaur just wanted to be beautiful.
Why are feathers beautiful? Why are flowers beautiful? “Philosophers, scientists and writers have tried to define the essence of beauty for years . . . perhaps the initial attraction [of flowers] was purely utilitarian: the promise of fruit or grain.” But why did we then bring them into greenhouses to magnify their inherent beauty? Following is the last stunning paragraph of this article:
If there is a universal truth about beauty — some concise and elegant concept that encompasses every variety of charm and grace in existence — we do not yet understand enough about nature to articulate it. What we call beauty is not simply one thing or another, neither wholly purposeful nor entirely random, neither merely a property nor a feeling. Beauty is a dialogue between perceiver and perceived. Beauty is the world’s answer to the audacity of a flower. It is the way a bee spills across the lip of a yawning buttercup; it is the care with which a satin bowerbird selects a hibiscus bloom; it is the impulse to recreate water lilies with oil and canvas; it is the need to place roses on a grave.
Perhaps beauty is central to the history of life. What about your life? What is the most beautiful thing you’ve seen today?
(After I photographed these feathers, I noticed that the arrangement looked like a bird!)
I read this article the week before Mary Oliver died, and while re-reading parts of it to write this post, couldn’t help but think of her. Some Oliver quotes:
“We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it.”
“I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.”
“I got saved by poetry and I got saved by the beauty of the world.”
Perhaps that’s why I own 1,200+ volumes of poetry and walk 40+ miles a week outside.
I should have added that this article also challenges the long-held assumption that colorful feathers evolved as a way for the male to either court a female or protect a female and her young. Colorful feathers have zero effect on the females of some bird species. So what use do they have? Perhaps just to be beautiful!
Your post reminded me of a recent story from the Guardian, which author Louise Erdrich posted on Facebook, “Poetry Sales Soar as Political Millennials Search for Clarity.” One excerpt:
“At these moments of national crisis, the words that spread and the words that were heard were not the words of politicians, they were the words of poets,” said Susannah Herbert, director of the Forward Arts Foundation, which runs the Forward prizes for poetry and National Poetry Day. “Almost everything a politician says is incredibly forgettable. There is a hunger out there for more nuanced and memorable forms of language.”
Here is a link if you’d like to read the rest of the article:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/21/poetry-sales-soar-as-political-millennials-search-for-clarity?CMP=share_btn_tw&fbclid=IwAR3YAW1gadgL8QM30NguGHsrt_RwZmaDBUHjRxSiYMDYcWTny67sv49Sqvo
This is the reason so many of us who love the poetry of Mary Oliver are particularly bereft at her recent death. It’s not so much that we expected her to live forever, it’s just that we need her words now more than ever. We are blessed that she left us so many poems … so much beauty … to carry us through both personal and national times of crisis.
Thanks for posting the link to this Guardian article, Beth. I am SO happy that poetry is finally catching on — so much better than tweets. I especially like this perspective in the article:
“Poetry as a form can capture the immediate responses of people to divisive and controversial current events. It questions who has the authority to put their narrative forward, when it is written by people who don’t otherwise hold this power . . . . Writing poetry and sharing it in this context is a radical event, an act of resistance to encourage other people to come round to your perspective.”
Nevertheless, poetry persisted.
Regarding the necessity for beauty, I was reminded of when my brother-in-law, Peter, died. His family was there, everyone steeped in grief and taking care of themselves as best they could. I tried to stay close to his wife, Susan, in order to support her however needed. The hospice worker had cleaned Peter up, putting on a fresh shirt. Just before the mortician arrived to take him for cremation, my sister-in-law, Susan, plucked a long stem red rose from a vase beside him, handing it to me asking that I remove any thorns. When I returned, Susan placed it in Peter’s hands, which were folded on his chest, saying, “I want him to have some beauty with him.” I will never forget her tender loving gesture, sending him off with beauty from this life to eternity.
Yes, Beth, beauty “is the need to place roses on graves.”
Thanks much for reading my post and sharing these beautiful comments.