I think beauty is amoral. Neither good nor bad. It’s just a word to describe our appreciation of something. We can appreciate all kinds of things: good, bad, indifferent.
I drive past a tank farm on the way to the airport. Just after it, there is a business that tears about cars for recycling. The city made the company put up a fence, so visitors wouldn’t see this blemish on the face of the city.
Personally, I really love that business. I love the piles of torn-up metal. I love the concept of recycling and aethetically, I find it moving. Do I want more of it? Well, depends what more means. I’d love to be able to walk through those piles of scrap and see the crushers at work. But I don’t want the city filled with the things.
Like you, @z28proximo, I see beauty everywhere, in all of what you call God’s creation. My environment is an amazing and beautiful thing. Even trash blowing down the street can be beautiful.
I think beauty means appreciation. A particular kind of appreciation. Where you see things, and get this peculiar internal jolt that makes it impossible to pass it by without looking, and wanting to look more. Maybe even to live with it.
It means appreciation, and also, desire. You are so moved that you want it, to be with it more often. I think it actually has a bit of a consumeristic side. If it’s beautiful, you want to consume it in whatever way is appropriate. If it’s Yosemite, you want to stare; if it’s a painting, you want to take it home and live with it; if it’s a beautiful woman (or man), you want to possess her or him in that ultimate way of possession.