The Nature of Beauty

Posted on 13 Jun 2013 @ 5:56am by Amril

3,298 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Arboretum
Timeline: MD 10: 1700 hours

[ON]

Sitting on a bench in the arboretum, Maenad was picking from a bowl of mixed fruits in her lap. She was off-duty, and alone with her thoughts. The mission was making her angry with herself, and she was questioning her role and position. She felt like a pawn in a game she'd never wanted to play, so to try and remove herself for a while, Maenad had changed into a black skirt that went to about her knees and a black blouse with white floral designs on it. Here, among the trees, animals, and fake blue sky, Maenad could pretend that she was somewhere else, back at home maybe.

Amril, on the other hand, attempted to fit in with the Starfleet aspect of the ship. He made a point of wearing his Starfleet operations division uniform everywhere, as he was at the moment, exploring the ship. Having stumbled upon the Arboretum, he decided to wander in and was in the midst of looking at the alien plants when he moved around a large fern and came upon the ship's science officer.

"Ah, hello, Lieutenant," the vorta said with his usual pleasant smile.

Startled by the Vorta, Maenad flinched and turned around, uncrossing her legs and planting both feet on the ground. She saw Amril standing there with his funny smile, still in uniform, even though she thought he was off-duty. A lot of people did that, she thought. She stood. "Hello," she said, one hand on her chest. "I'm sorry, I thought I was alone."

"Sorry?" Amril asked obliviously, cocking his head to one side, "For what, Lieutenant?"

"Oh," she smiled. "For being startled. My nerves have been shattered lately."

"Ah, well, that's quite all right. I was just passing through out of curiosity... why is this room here? The ship's replicators provide food and this room is energetically expensive."

"You mean the arboretum?" she asked with a frown. His naivety made her smirk. "It's for the study of plantlife in a natural environment. And it serves to keep people at ease. It can be hard for people to be in space for so long without seeing a natural environment."

"Why?" the vorta persisted innocently.

Maenad shrunk. She thought his questioning was almost adorable. "Here," she gestured to the bench, "let's sit down." She waited for him to sit down first, then joined him and crossed her legs, but turned sideways so that she was head-on with him. She picked up the bowl of fruit and set it on her opposite side. "Because," she began to answer his question, "having the real thing makes the environment more tangible. And we can do real tests and studies, too."

"What about the holodeck? Commander Coleman showed it to me, it appears remarkably realistic."

"Well," Maenad said after giving him a full show of her smiling white teeth, "in the holodeck, you know everything is a fake." She had always enjoyed the holodeck, like everybody else, but it was never the real thing. "When performing a study of plantlife, it's only a prediction played out on a computer model. A lot of the time, computer predictions are inaccurate. We need to produce actual results."

She tilted her head as an introduction to the next part of what she was going to tell him. "And, a lot of species take comfort in seeing these real environments. Artificial lighting, deckplates, recycled air; it all gets so... stale," she tried to explain.

"I suppose," Amril said after a moment, "I can understand why. I don't think I have such concerns. It's never bothered me where I am. The Galileo is well-designed to accomplish its mission, that is enough to satisfy me."

Maenad narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. She didn't understand, but neither was she a Vorta, so she probably never could. "Hm," she breathed. She turned to pick the fruit bowl she'd been picking from. "Want some?" she asked, holding it out to him.

"What is it?" he asked, taking a piece of the fruit and nibbling on it experimentally.

"That," she said, "is a mango." Maenad watched him eat it with anticipation. "Do you like it?"

"It has a unique texture," Amril mused aloud, though he seemed to be talking half to himself, violet eyes fixed on a nondescript point off to one side of the arboretum, "there's a little bit of sweetness to it, which is not unpleasant. I do like fruit, I would eat this one."

Maenad laughed a little, then ate a piece of mango herself. She then picked out a cut strawberry. "Try this one," she held out the bowl and pointed to it. "It's really sweet," she warned him.

He chewed the strawberry slowly. "It's different from the mango," he said, "gritty." He examined another strawberry piece. "Those are seeds, aren't they? On the outside of the fruit?"

"Yes," she nodded. "When I was little I couldn't eat them because the seeds grossed me out," she shook her head with mild embarrassment. Maenad was going to ask him about his own childhood, but then remembered that the Vorta were clones. "Well, I'm glad you like it," she said. All chopped into slices, she pointed at the others. "This is banana, kiwi, grapes, peaches, and pineapple." She carefully set the bowl down between them, and looked at him with a shy smile. "I've never seen purple eyes before," she told him. "I think they're lovely."

He was starting to pick through the bowl to try more fruit when she complimented his eyes. He'd never been given such a compliment before and he looked a bit confused. "Thank you... why are purple eyes lovely?" It was a sincere question, as if he truly could not fathom the reason.

Maenad blushed a little, looking off somewhere behind him, then back at him again. She studied his eyes unabashedly for a few more seconds before replying. "I've never seen purple eyes before. And purple is one of my favourite colours, that's all. They're quite nice."

"Ah," he said with a smile, as if that explained everything. "I do wish I understood aesthetics the way you humans seem to."

That rose an interesting question in Maenad's thoughts. What did Vortas find aesthetically pleasing? She frowned, then decided to ask him about it. "You must have a favourite colour," she said. "Or preferences of some kind. Things that you like. A certain style or look. Tastes." Her tone encouraged him to tell and her eyes watched him curiously.

Amril shook his head, laughing softly, apparently bothered by the whole matter. "Nothing," he said, "the Founders did not see fit to give us a sense of aesthetics. We don't really need it. I have preferences, of course, but not about the sort of things you mean. I like a nebula because it's intriguing and intellectually stimulating, it gives me a desire to learn more. But I never think a nebula looks 'nice,' I don't even understand what that means, but I think it's the site of something invoking emotional responses. I have emotions too, but not evoked by aesthetics."

Maenad looked downward. "Really?" she asked him. She looked out over the pond through the reeds, and at the ducks the swam by. "I find spacial phenomena interesting too," she looked at him. "But I also find some things beautiful. Your eyes, those ducks, the trees." Maenad frowned. "You must be capable of learning to find things aesthetically pleasing," she insisted. "It's just a matter of finding yourself as a person rather than an automaton designed to serve."

He followed her gaze as she spoke. "Oh, I found myself as a person when I was activated," he said, giving a small grin that showed a hint of white teeth, "all the other Amril clones were different from me, but the same as each other. There's another Amril somewhere in the Dominion, perhaps, the old one. I'm different. I've given a lot of thought about aesthetics though, and I don't think it's something you learn. I might learn what is beautiful, but I will never find something to be beautiful. However, I don't think that's all there is to appreciating a thing."

She listened intently, watching his movements, internalising how it must feel to be unable to appreciate the way something, or perhaps someone, looked. Or to share a name with countless others, all identical. Maenad seemed pensive as she considered all of this, opening her mouth a few times as if to speak, but always stopped at the last second. Finally, her thoughts arranged themselves into a question. "You're right, of course, that beauty is not all that matters," she began, "but, beauty, being subjective, isn't something that can be learned or taught," she explained. "Somebody might find me beautiful, but somebody else might find me repulsive. Somebody might love the colour red, but others hate it. I think that you are capable, Amril," she hadn't realised that she hadn't called him by rank or prefix, "of finding your own tastes."

"Oh no doubt, but they can't be tastes in beauty." He turned to one of the plants. "That flower, I know that everyone else would say it is beautiful, but I don't think it is. To me it's a biological function of a plant, and something else..." he paused, looking around, and picked up a fallen leaf, "like this leaf... I do not know if it is as beautiful as the flower or not. Or, that nebula was saw that everyone said was beautiful is very different from the flower, which is also beautiful. I don't know what they share in common though, the thing that makes them both beautiful. So I must conclude that it is not a physical thing that makes something beautiful, is that not so?"

"Interesting," Maenad leaned forward, resting her chin on her fist. "Vocabulary is quite restrictive," she thought aloud. "The flower and the nebula have nothing in common, yet both are beautiful." How could she explain it? A deep look of intrigue spread across her expression. "It is the same with the word love," her train of thought continued. "I can love music, I can love food, and I can love a person. All mean completely different things." She licked her lips, thinking some more. "It can be physical," she said finally, looking at him. "A person who is physically beautiful, for example; your purple eyes, let's say, might draw someone to you. Or the physical appearance of the nebula inspires beauty. But," she began to argue with herself, "does physical beauty exist at all? Emotions are not physical, yet what is beauty without emotion? That is a tough question," she said with a smile, looking at him again. She thought some more, deep in wonder. "Yes, I would say that you are right. Although beauty can be inspired by physical things, it is entirely subjective, and therefore emotional. Emotions are not physical, so neither is beauty. Even the flower that you point out, Amril, is not necessarily something that is universally beautiful." She pressed her lips. "Do you follow me?" she grinned.

"I do not think it follows that beauty must be subjective," Amril replied thoughtfully, "From my observations, I suspect beauty may have objective guidelines which are then filled in subjectively. That is my current understanding. Beauty is not an emotion, is it? It causes emotions, emotions do not cause beauty. Commander Coleman said that beautiful things evoke emotions."

"Yes," she partially agreed, "but beauty is not an objective thing." Maenad sighed. "Because beauty is unique to each person who sees it, beauty becomes an emotion rather than a thing. The emotion is inspired by whatever stimulus evokes it. Politeness, for example, might please or impress someone. Politeness, though, is not physical, and there are many variations of it. Some things that are polite others will find rude, excessive, or pretentious. Beauty works the same way; it inspires awe, love, arousal, fascination, but to others what is beautiful to me might inspire boredom, apathy, or disgust." She knitted her eyebrows to add, "So, I don't think there is objective beauty."

"Can beauty make you angry?" Amril asked.

Maenad's eyes narrowed sharply. Another good question. Whatever prejudice she had once had for the man had by now vanished. "Yes," she decided. "It can make you jealous. It can make you spiteful, it can make you feel inferior." She turned to him again, her eyes filled with an intellectual wonder about him. "Why?"

"Are those beautiful emotions?" Amril persisted.

"No," she straightened. "No, not at all."

"Then beauty cannot cause them, only be the subject. One might be jealous of a person's beauty, but that is not because they are beautiful, it is because ones desire what they have which one lacks."

"Sure," Maenad agreed with a slow nod, not quite sure where he was going.

"When you look at something beautiful, though, it makes you feel... happy, just because it is beautiful? It is because something is beautiful that you feel happiness?"

"Happy, yes," Maenad thought. "I suppose, that's true. Beauty can can also excite you or relax you. It does many things, depending on what kind of beauty it is. It can even make you sad, nostalgic. Regretful." She smiled. "But it all depends on the person, really," she held his eyes for a few seconds. "Why do you ask?" she wondered with another curious tilt of he head.

"Because," Amril continued with a chuckle, "that shows it is as I said. Beauty can cause an array of good emotions, but not bad ones. So there must be guidelines, like 'beauty always evokes positive emotions,' that all beauty shares in common. That's objective. If it was not, then jealousy would be beautiful, and so would hate. If beauty is only subjective, we would not be able to have this discussion at all, and I would find things beautiful, since I am able to have subjective opinions."

"No," Maenad sighed, but was still smiling. "No, beauty is not objective, Amril," she told him. "Because..." she began, but then stopped. She didn't know how to explain it. "All right," she breathed, "because what is beautiful to everyone is different, it is subjective. There is no such thing as objective beauty," she tried to clarify. "Beauty does not always evoke positive emotions, either; it does most of the time, but not always. Jealousy, for example; that's not a positive emotion at all. And we can have this conversation, why not?" She watched him for a second, the question being rhetorical. "Replace the word beauty with another adjective, and you get the same subjectivity. Pretty. Good. Best." Maenad smiled again, showing her teeth once more, which meant she was enjoying herself. "A pretty girl, a good book, the best ice cream. A beautiful animal." She leaned forward a little. "Do you see?"

"But we showed many objective aspects of beauty," Amril objected, "and no substantial aspects that are subjective. We already agreed that jealousy was not caused by beauty, only something that people felt because they desired it, but that is not the thing itself. Pretty, good, and best are not the same as beauty. No one on the bridge said it was the best nebula because it was beautiful, or even that it was a better nebula than another. Aesthetic value is not what makes something good, or the best. Of course, it is possible that I do not have the capacity to understand the intricacies, but as someone who does not experience it, I can offer an unbiased... objective opinion."

Maenad just stared at him. "Well," she paused, "when you say that something is beautiful, or when you say that something is good, or that something is the best, they are all subjective. Beautiful is a description," she explained, "and these things are always subjective. It is subjective in that its criterion are varied." She carefully watched his expression, hoping to see some flicker of understanding, like when explaining a concept to one of her students. "People usually have the same response to whatever it is that they find beautiful, but beauty itself is varied. The emotional response could be objective, I'm not sure, but the cause of it is not." She tilted her head a little. "And saying beautiful is like saying best, Amril," she added. "Because beauty is the pinnacle of aesthetics. The aesthetic is beautiful. And because my beautiful is different from someone else's beautiful, there is no objective meaning behind it. After a Penderecki or Bartok symphony, I might sit back and think it is beautiful, while many people cannot stand to hear it at all."

Maenad looked down at her bare knees and pinched her nylons for a second, pulling the fabric away from her skin and letting it snap back when she let go. She was smiling to herself at the conversation; she found it refreshing, really. "I remember when I used to be on the dating scene," she said with an embarrassed shake of her head, eyes still on her knees. "My friends would say things like 'wow, I saw the most beautiful girl last night,' or 'Mae, there was this beautiful guy that you totally would have loved,'" Maenad flicked her eyes to Amril's briefly, then back to watching her fingers play with her nylons. "I used to tell them that they would have to be a lot more specific than that, because my friends and I had very different opinions of what a beautiful person looked like. Or, even what made a person have a beautiful personality." She sat back now, raising her chin. "So, I guess what I am telling you is that maybe our responses to beauty might be similar enough to call it objective, but what inspires the emotions that beauty invokes are not."

Amril considered everything carefully, his analytical mind trying to process a concept he had never experienced. At last, a thought occurred to him, sparked by her mention of dating. "Perhaps," he said, "not everyone who says something is beautiful is correct, or not everyone sees all beauty. I was reading a medical article from a Federation journal the other night and it explained the phenomenon of colorblindness. Fascinating... but, one might say I am completely blind to beauty, so perhaps others are beautyblind, restricted in the beauty they distinguish, just like some cannot see all colors. I do not know. But I'm glad we talked about this. I will need to consider everything more carefully. Thank you, Lieutenant." He rose from his seat.

When he stood up, Maenad looked sullen. She was enjoying their chat, but it looked like he'd had enough of her. She made a silent sigh and drooped her shoulders. "You're leaving?" she said quietly, a tad plaintively.

"I must," Amril said, sensing her plaintiveness and attempting to alleviate it, "I very much enjoyed our conversation, however; we must continue it sometime. But I must tend to the operation of the ship."

"Oh," Maenad said. "Very well." Still, she was disappointed.

"I am still not convinced you have shown that beauty is subjective," he added as a parting comment, giving her one of those wily vorta smiles reserved for negotiations and the like. "It is hard to show subjectivity objectively."

She watched him go, then went back to staring out over the pond, wondering if she could talk to anyone without them getting tired of her.

[OFF]

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Amril
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo
played by Psylus Anon

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