Beauty and the Anthropocene: A Case for How Experiences of Beautiful Places in Nature Can Contribute to Emancipation from Instrumental Rationality

Abstract

This article investigates, theoretically and empirically, the proposition that beauty—I consider experiences of beautiful places in the natural world in particular—can contribute to the emancipation of modern persons (and thereby developed societies) from instrumental rationality. The article begins by theorizing instrumental rationality as a major driver of the socioecological crises of the Anthropocene. After elucidating the effects of instrumental rationality through Horkheimer’s work, the article draws from Buber’s concept of the I–Thou relation to conceptualize ideal noninstrumental relations. It then draws from recent scholarship on beauty to claim that beauty is not merely an aesthetic experience, but also a relational one: When not conscripted into serving unscrupulous ends, beauty can produce profoundly mutual I–Thou relations between an individual, the beautiful entity, and all manner of more-than-human beings. Remote interviews and focus groups with thirty-five residents of Juneau, Alaska, suggest that experiences of beautiful places in the natural world do indeed possess the theorized emancipatory potential, precisely because they invite humans into meaning-making I–Thou relations of which many citizens of the modern world find themselves bereft. The article ends by discussing the findings in relation to contemporary, especially Indigenous, thought on the agency of place.