A CiRCE Institute Partner Feature

released 8/6/2024

At the annual CiRCE Institute conference in 2013, Ken Myers presented a rebuttal to the notion that encouraging the aesthetic appreciation of “higher things” is elitist and undemocratic. Drawing on Flannery O’Connor, St. Augustine, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, and George MacDonald, Myers argues that the making of judgments and the ordering of people’s hearts and minds are central to both education and culture. There really is a hierarchy of value to which one’s aesthetic likes and dislikes may (or may not) be aligned. While the idea of equality befits the political sphere, beauty, goodness, and truth are not “democratic.” 

This lecture is provided courtesy of the CiRCE Institute

58 minutes

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