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Re: Discussing Aesthetics...

Title: Re: Discussing Aesthetics...

In French, we have a common expression ( well, common enough between my partner and I anyway)

"les Gouts ne se discuttent pas"

i.e.  Individual tastes can't be discussed ( at least not very easily)

But it is my contention that while personal tastes and aesthetics are subjective minefields that can't be discussed, sustainability and ethical land use can be discussed, even  "measured".

Does it care for the earth, Care for the people and return a surplus ? Maybe you can get the discussion to start there.....


From: Lsmitholy@aol.com
Reply-To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 12:47:14 EDT
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: help, taking care of the earth is becoming illegal!]


In a message dated 8/10/01 11:28:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
martin-g@iafrica.com writes:


But the underlying reaon for the complaint
is aesthetic.  There are two things people don't like in their distorted
modernist idea of beauty: food and natural vegetation.  They think natural
vegetation is 'unkempt', and food is 'cabbage patch'.   How do we change
this perception?


Here, in Olympia, Washington, we are undergoing an aesthetic battle as well.  
A series of man-made lakes was created along the capitol building in 1950.  I
moved here 5 years ago and think the lake is pretty.  I just learned,
however, that the lake is dead and needs to be dredged every so often to keep
it from filling with silt.  This is expensive and not any longer permitted
under environmental regs.  So there is a movement to let the lake return to
its natural estuary state.  I think it would be wonderful to have an estuary
downtown and to be able to watch the salmon swim in from the sound every
fall.  The majority of the town seem to want to keep the lake--our jewel.  
With all the issues involved, it really does come down to aesthetic, and I
don't know how you go about addressing that.  It's an interesting issue.

We plan to distribute photos of what it used to look like.  People fear
smelly, ugly mud flats.  Ideally, we'd like to find talent to draw a vision
of what it could be.  A picture is worth a thousand words...

Linda Smith ---
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