We have technology, convenience, security, and a measure of prosperity. But where is the beauty?

Where is the beauty that we know we cannot really live without?

In 2009, the late English philosopher Roger Scruton warned that beauty is vanishing from our world

and that a cult of ugliness is taking its place. The magnificent architecture of past centuries stands in jarring contrast to modern landscapes

dominated by monotonous concrete and glass towers, uniform suburban sprawl, and abstract

soulless buildings.

Contemporary music is increasingly mediocre and formulaic, while the paintings and sculptures of today pale in comparison to the splendor of the great masterpieces of past centuries.

Nature retains its timeless beauty, yet even this aesthetic sanctuary is being destroyed by reckless exploitation.

In this video, we argue that as beauty vanishes, cultural depravity

and individual immorality rises. We also examine why people turn away from beauty towards

the shocking and perverse, and explore the profound truth of Fyodor Dostoevsky's bold assertion,

voiced by Prince Mishkin and the idiot, beauty will save the world.

Throughout Western history, philosophers and theologians have regarded beauty as one of the

three ultimate values alongside truth and goodness. We are instinctively drawn to this Trinity of

virtues because, unlike goods that are pursued for some further end,

beauty, truth, and goodness possess intrinsic worth.

They are valuable in and of themselves.

Or as Roger Scruton explains,

there is an appealing idea about beauty which goes back to Plato and Plotinus,

and which became incorporated by various roots into Christian theological thinking.

According to this idea, beauty is an ultimate value, something that we pursue for its own

sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given.

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