Beauty, goodness and education: the Arts beyond utility

Abstract

This article takes its lead from Iris Murdoch's argument that an education in beauty can be a training in the love of virtue. Yet the word ‘beauty’ is seldom used in contemporary educational discourse, even within the arts disciplines, where aesthetic considerations are integral to the learning process. I begin, therefore, with an examination of ideological reasons why this might be the case and propose that, largely through the legacy of Kant, the concept of beauty raises a number of complex and conflicting problems for contemporary educators, making it strongly discordant with the current dominant ideology. As a result, the Arts' association with beauty remains muted in favour of a language of desirable social outcomes. I then proceed to draw upon recent publications by Elaine Scarry and Wendy Steiner to argue that, as Murdoch suggested, the experience of beauty itself can be seen as educational in an active, moral sense, without the need to resort to instrumentalist objectives outside of its domain. I do this with close reference to an early years Theatre in Education project that I evaluated in 2003; and by considering the work of Bill Shannon, a disabled dancer from Chicago.

Notes

1. See, for example, Nussbaum M. (1990); Williams B. (1993); Scarry E. (2001).

2. Taken from Wendy Steiner's book of the same title, referenced later in the article and in the bibliography.

3. See O'Toole (1992, pp. 232–235).

4. See Blake (2000), ‘The Sick Rose’.

5. In Easter, 1916. See Selected poems (Harmondsworth, Penguin) (1991) pp. 119–122.

6. This is an Aristotelian concept defining children's natural inclination to sympathise with others. See Nussbaum (1986, pp. 285–287).

7. For an interview with Bill Shannon, see http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0302/mattingly.php