Conversando sobre belleza y asco / Minecraft

Simon Bale: Beauty, Fragility, and “Carnal Poverty”

The speaker begins by discussing Simon Bale’s Beauty, focusing on the section on beauty and fragility:

• Beauty can be “close” and fragile—like blossoms that die quickly.
• Beauty can be “distant” and immutable—like stars.

They connect this to a Christian mindset that prizes humility and poverty, where:

• God is seen as distant,
• and humans are seen as weak, humiliated, and dead.

They argue that Bale extends this idea into the “beauty of carnal poverty.”

The Argument About Art and Misery

To illustrate, the speaker reads a long passage suggesting that:

• Truthfully depicted human misery is moving and beautiful in art.
• Wealth destroys that beauty because it lies—hiding misery behind luxury.
• A small, modest restaurant where people eat simply can overflow with poetry, while “normal” restaurants erase hunger and suffering.

Personal Highlight: Midnight Cafe

This leads into a personal highlight: the speaker compares Bale’s writing to the manga Midnight Cafe.

They emphasize the shared appeal of a humble nighttime world—filled with tired workers, drunks, prostitutes, mobsters, and adulterers—where:

• ugly lives and misery are precisely what create the work’s beauty.

Shift to “Carnal Disgust”

The video then moves into carnal disgust:

• Historically, bodily realities tied to biology (sex, bodily functions, blood, scatological material, even food) are often treated with contempt.
• Food is partly “saved” by being socialized, turning meals into ceremony and protocol.
• But that socialization also reflects class divisions:
  • upper classes make meals ornate,
  • while the poor often eat closer to raw need.

Biological and Cultural Explanations (Colin McGin)

The speaker explores how disgust functions both biologically and culturally, referencing Colin McGin’s The Meaning of Disgust:

• Disgust helps protect us from death by keeping us away from toxic things.
• It also serves as a reminder that we are mortal animals.
• Even when we reject disgust, we may still feel interest when it appears in art—because it isn’t truly disgusting, it’s imitation (like a “civilized taste test”).

They also introduce Kant, claiming disgust is the “negative” of beauty—it removes the distance needed for aesthetic judgment.

Reaction: The Anime Smoking Cat

A major reaction point is the speaker’s discussion of the allegedly gross anime Smoking Cat (which they haven’t watched).

They criticize how grossness can feel invasive and culturally “unalignable.” They also joke that they prefer portraying addiction grotesquely rather than romantically.

Side-eye gist: “I haven’t seen it, but I heard it’s incredibly unpleasant… cigarettes stuck in feces… explosive diarrhea.”

Culture Clashes Around Disgust

Finally, they broaden the discussion into culture clashes about disgust:

• Some cultures may treat feces in ceremonial ways, but from the speaker’s perspective it’s nauseating.
• They mention Roman baths as another shock—public defecation in company.

They contrast this with a Japanese tradition of aestheticizing the act itself, citing Yunichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows:

• the Japanese toilet can be framed as spiritually soothing,
• with a mention of quotes describing defecation as a kind of “delight.”

The speaker’s takeaway is that what Westerners treat as dirty can be reframed as “beauty of shadow.”

---

Main Highlights / Jokes / Notable Reactions

• The “beauty of misery” argument applied to a small restaurant versus an “average restaurant” that hides hunger.
• The strong comparison to Midnight Cafe: misery and night-side characters as a source of beauty.
• A semi-joking, side-eye reaction to Smoking Cat (without watching it): “cigarettes stuck in feces… explosive diarrhea.”
• Culture shock examples: Roman baths and the idea that disgust isn’t universal—Japanese aesthetics can treat bodily functions differently.

Personas / Recurring Figures Mentioned

• Simon Bale — author of Beauty
• God / Christian mentality — discussed as a contrast/mirror for the poverty-and-humility theme
• Kant — disgust as the “negative” of beauty
• Colin McGin — disgust as biological protection plus “interest” in art
• Yunichiro Tanizaki — In Praise of Shadows and aesthetic reframing
• Natsume Soseki — quoted within Tanizaki’s discussion
• Referenced anime/manga: Midnight Cafe, Smoking Cat