21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

So there is another side to beauty that is less about aesthetics and more about seeing others in their personhood and in their humanity. Perhaps inevitably that connection reaches us at a deep emotional level. It is a step change from superficial prettiness or attractiveness to a profound beauty. It resonates with the awe that we feel in contemplating the universe as a whole.

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that if we could only see people as they really are we would inevitably love them — that love is somehow intrinsic. I'm not sure of this. At the moment I think that love is a choice we make and we may just as easily choose otherwise. Love is a much-abused word anyhow. I think further progress can be made by expanding the meaning of compassion. Compassion is the response to empathy and empathy the response to beauty. In other words, compassion is a possible response to those initial physical feelings of acceptance or rejection we might feel for another person. Compassion is a choice we can make even if our initial feelings are negative. We can (and should) have compassion for ourselves. That is a necessary step to compassion for others.

The word beauty leads us into a broad aesthetic that describes a right way of living — the ‘good life’.

In the Arts, as previously noted, the sensuous has become suspect in Western culture. Thomas Berry addresses this point here:

‘The world of mechanism has alienated us from

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