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DEFINITION_GAME

                          The "definition game":

                          The resolution of paradox by claiming
If you can see            multiple definitions are in play for
beauty in                 different uses of the same term in the
everything than           statement of the paradox.
does it become
impossible to                                     WORDS_WORTH
distinguish
between the      AMERICANBEAUTY
beautiful and
the ugly?

The concept of beauty
can lose it's force.              UNIVERSAL_ART
Calling something
"beautiful" becomes
inane, obvious, redundant.

There needs to be an esthetic standard,        (absolute? relative?)
a way of evaluating things in order to
choose The Good, or else you're led
into some sort of vapid "It's all good,
man" philosophy.                             ("Oh, yeah?  How about
                                              *this*?  Or *this*!
    My guess:                                 Was that good?")
    different things
    are being conflated
    under the one tag                  In the movie "American Beauty",
    of "beauty".                       taking it on it's own terms,
                                       the boy-hero doesn't actually
  It wouldn't be terribly hard         seem to think that *everything*
  to come up with some multiple        is beautiful, he is in fact
  definitions of beauty, such          willing to call the teen-model
  that it's possible to claim          character "ugly".
  that "everything is
  beautiful" and still hate the           So he just has      AMERICANBEAUTY
  wallpaper, and realize that             a (relatively)
  you'd be better off with a              unconventional
  coat of paint.                          sense of
                                          what's
                                          beautiful.
      But maybe the
      definition
      game is an
      ugly solution.        EIGHT_RAVING_BEAUTIES_COUNT_EM


           Any alternatives?

           How about "category mistake":

           When you're overwhelmed by a
           vision of the interlocking
           structure of the world, the
           sweep of human history, the
           chaotic waves of manifold
           thrust and collapse and
           regeneration throughout nature...

              And you say to yourself
              "It's all beautiful!"

              You're not referring to
              every detail of existence.

              Maybe you're just                     The grand structure,
              referring to the                      including your own
              vision.                               striving for beauty.

                                                         Which sounds a lot
                                                         like we're back
                                                         to a multiplicity
                                                         of beauties.

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