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It’s hard to understand how Zadie Smith defines beauty when we ourselves cannot even define it. In class on Thursday we did, or at least we attempted to. We defined beauty as being an entity that does not change. Though our definitions of beauty are constantly in flux over time, e.g women during the renaissance who were considered voluptuous and therefore beautiful, would be shunned in today’s culture and even considered repulsive, our own personal notions on beauty are static…as Becca explained in her post.
Forster and Change…
In Forster’s book we come to understand that though its apparent change can happen, and some say it’s even inevitable, essentially seeds are planted within us that define who we are and what our mental states are. To unearth or unroot such seeds seems impossible, no matter how hard we try to change (the most we can do with such seeds and the crop they produce is harvest them…though they will eventually grow back). I would say that Forster, in his metaphor of the seed, does not believe in a change of mentality.
Smith and Change…
What are we then to do with Smith’s character Jean-Paul Sartre when he states that “We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are” (On Beauty, p. 326)? I think it may tie back into Forster’s notion of seeds being planted in our brains (unfortunately I don’t remember the exact page number we discussed in section). Seeds in general may have evolved over time in ways that we may not witness or even understand, but their crop fundamentally make-up the environment that surrounds them. If our brains are home to such seeds, then they define who we are, what we want. Maybe we do not know why we desire beautiful things, but we are ultimately responsible for that feeling and the actions that stem from it. I think Smith is telling us that we are who we are and that change is not an option when we cant even define why it is “we want”. Essentially, without an answer to the why there is no way to understand or even change our mentality.