MILLENNIALS & MODERN ART
Millennials are enchanted by Modern Architecture. On Zillow homes boasting modern architecture are sold quicker and higher above asking price. On Pinterest images of interior design are monopolized by modern architecture. Every apartment building that pops up these days boast the curvature of a shipping container and the elegance of a whiteboard. Why is it that modern people are so fascinated by modern art & architecture? Why do secular atheists—which is the largest cohort of “faiths” among millennials—prefer modern art & architecture? Why are people that use contraception far more likely to desire modern art & architecture? And why does turning away from these things change our artistic taste? Many people that begin to reject these modern mores report that modern art & architecture has grown unappealing to them. It’s a ubiquitous experience that those who go through a conversion of heart and mind simultaneously go through a conversion of taste—away from modern art & architecture and toward the substantive forms of art & architecture that modern man cowers in fear away from. How is it that that’s such a universal occurrence for those who flee the worldview of the modern world?
The soul desires balance. What we don’t have inside, we seek outside; what we have inside, we desire to be complemented by what is outside.
Emotions
Emotions—passions—are physiological reactions we feel in ourselves toward desirable or undesirable objects. If there’s something we want, we desire it; if there’s something we want to avoid, we feel disgust—or aversion—toward it. If we get the thing we want, we feel joy; if we are unable to avoid the thing we tried to avoid, we feel sorrow.
Our emotions are not infallible though. Far from it. It’s very possible—and even common—that we accustom ourselves to desiring bad things, or detesting good things. The drug addict desires something destructive and degrading to their being, yet they want it and feel glad when they get it. At the same time, good things—justice, Church, reverence for rightful authority, exercise, healthy eating—are often detested by people. Emotions don’t tell us whether something is good or evil absolutely—they tell us what we’ve accustomed ourselves to desire as good and detest as evil.
The lone exception to this subjectivity of emotional experience is the consequent emotion of peace. Peace is an emotion that only comes in the wake of something done that is objectively good. It’s very possible we regret avoiding something that was actually good—maybe we wish we had gotten hammered on a vacation that we remained sober for, or hooked up with someone that wasn’t our wife when we were younger. But when it comes to peace, only an objective good will produce that emotion.
“Test everything; hold fast what is good—” Saint Paul tells us in his first letter to the Thessalonians. (1 Thess 5:21) We could substitute “good” with that which brings lasting peace. Only what is truly good can bring lasting peace.
Vice
Vices disorient our emotions. Bad habits incline us to desire things that aren’t good for us to desire. This can come in the form of bodily and material vices—gluttony, lust, laziness, greed. But it can also come in the form of spiritual and intellectual vices—pride, despair, relativism, frivolity. The two sets of vices complement one another, so the more you fall into one set (say, bodily vices), the more you dispose yourself to the other set (spiritual & intellectual vices), and vice-versa. Our age is one of rampant vice—and there’s no sign that this trend is slowing. The more we automate away our lives and our society, the more room we carve out for our vicious desires to expand into the excavated space. The consequences of all this ever-expanding vice is that our desires deform evermore rapidly, and peace grows evermore scarce. However, as we said, the soul desires balance.
Desire for Modern Art