In a comment on a recent post on this blog, I wrote "freedom is high up on the shelf, but I live and die for beauty." And I was thinking about that. The reason I place beauty above freedom is because, to me, beauty is happiness. And the way I see it, the purpose of freedom is to give us the ability to pursue happiness (since happiness is so mercurial that it can't simply be prescribed). Perhaps freedom has an intrinsic value apart from its utility in steering us toward happiness, but I can say that if I had the ability to be happy at the cost of my freedom, I'm not sure how valuable freedom would be anymore. Isn't that why all these conservatives who are perfectly content with the way things are (or used to be) are trying to take away our freedoms?
Anyway, it led me to an interesting thought experiment. If you had to choose between two alternatives, which would you prefer? A world in which all are free to go nude, at the cost of everybody being ugly...or a world in which everyone is beautiful, but nobody is permitted to go nude? Of course, it begs the question of whether there is any value in beauty if it's covered up. What if I said you could be surrounded by beautiful naked people, but you couldn't take your own clothes off?
I can say I would be hard-pressed to choose between those two alternatives, but neither one would be totally satisfactory. The ideal, of course, is to have both - freedom and beauty. But I do feel as though I'm often made to choose between the two. To spend a day alone and naked in the woods, or clothed with friends? To visit a nudist resort filled with old and sagging bodies, or put on a swimsuit and surround myself with bodies that are less ravaged by age? My solution is to alternate between the two, as opportunities arise. But I still dream of a world in which we can have both, simultaneously...
