Wen beauty?

I recently went on a trip to Europe. It was my first time going there in quite a long time. We went to several cities, but one stood out to me: Venice.

When we first arrived, its beauty struck me. It was so beautiful that it got me thinking, ‘What even is beauty?’ That is when you know you are in the midst of something spectacular.

So, what is beauty? In this case, I think it is the longevity. It was remarkable how long the buildings have been there. They have been there so long while at the same time still looking so elegant and robust. It was sad in a way. It’s not like crying sad, but in the way ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ is sad. It was hard to be there and not imagine what it was like when it was the center of the world.

I came back to Miami and found it difficult to imagine anything built recently that would fall anywhere near ‘beautiful.’ Especially not something that anyone would classify as beautiful 500 years from now.

So why aren’t things built to be beautiful anymore?

When I ask this question, I can’t help but think of the Roman Empire, which is hilarious because it is precisely like the meme. The shorter the time preference, the more feeble the culture. The most beautiful things that we look at and treasure from the age of the Roman Empire were not built when it was on its decline. Only an ascending empire makes the things that will last generations. 


So, with that in mind, what has the US built that will last? If the United States is descending and the future will look back at this empire, what has it left as its relics?

What is strange about pondering this question is that so many of the things that future generations would treasure were not built in the modern age. Are we not rich? Do we not have the means to construct beautiful, long-lasting relics now?

Interestingly, most of our most beautiful structures were built in the Gilded Age—the age when the United States was the most prosperous, ascending, and borderline gluttonous.

When does a nation or a group of people collaborate to make beauty instead of making it to see tomorrow? That is the real orange pill.