, 6 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Y'all keep asking the same question. Awe is not the same thing as the experience of beauty. There is a sense of being overawed that we feel in the face of something vast, powerful, and largely incomprehensible. You can feel awe before an ocean or a storm or someone else's temple.
But beauty is something else (see Longinus or Burke's 'On the Sublime and the Beautiful'). We find beauty where an experience approaches an ideal that is known to us. You can appreciate the beauty of a horse or a wine only where you know a thing or two about horses or wines.
In fact, the more you know about horses and wines, the better you are able to recognize the beauty that is present in a given instance. That's why no one ever asks me to judge among horses or wines.
So I don't mean to doubt the awe an ignorant persons feels upon entering the temple of a religion they don't understand. But the depths of its beauty are hidden from someone who knows nothing about the ideals that guided the markers of the temple, of which it is an expression.
So no, I will not relent on this point: If you know nothing about the tradition, then you may be awe-struck by it. But your observations as to what is beautiful and profound in it will be shallow and ignorant. If you wish to discern and judge, you will have to learn something.
*makers of the temple
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