Paleo Retiree writes:
- “Acknowledging inherent sex differences isn’t harmful or sexist; differences don’t necessitate one sex being better than the other.”
- Why are so many intellectuals so fascinated by Brutalism?
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The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
“Acknowledging inherent sex differences isn’t harmful or sexist; differences don’t necessitate one sex being better than the other.”
That statement is only true in a vacuum. In actuality, of course sex differences are used to elevate some and limit others. I’m not in favor of gender-neutral parenting as far as toy or clothes choices go, but the reasoning behind this movement should be understood.
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Does anyone find the reasoning behind it hard to understand?
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I wouldn’t have thought so, but the author of that article appears to be having some difficulty.
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I think a lot of intellectuals like Brutalism because it’s a denial of beauty as a form of control over bodily pleasure. Certain intellectuals love nothing more than attempting to subvert bodily impulses and deny their power over the mind as a way of propping up their own cleverness and perceived separation from regular people. Enjoying beauty, of course, requires one to acknowledge forces greater than the individual.
There’s a place for such cleverness, and hell, I’ve typically dwelt in those places, but as you once stated in a previous virtual incarnation, architecture is different than art in that’s it’s relatively permanent and is imposed on public spaces.
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I think intellectuals like brutalism because their single biggest motivation is contempt for the plebes and separating themselves from them (the intellectuals’ equivalent of status signaling). Brutalism satisfies in a few ways.
1. It’s ugly, and the creators and critics of it KNOW it’s ugly. But they don’t have to live there.
2. It serves as a big middle finger to the people they hate, polluting their public spaces, entrapping them in hellish, soul crushing buildings.
3. At the same time, by creating a façade of words to justify the ugliness as somehow wonderful, they further their own egos. This plays into Peterike’s rule of the avant garde, which states that literally NOBODY on earth enjoys avant garde art of any kind. It exists entirely to allow a small in-group to sneer at the very large out-group by pretending to like something they actually know is complete crap.
The principle emotion behind “high art” and architecture since, oh, the 1950s or so, is contempt.
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JV, Peterike — Those are certainly some of the best hunches and insights into the topic I’ve ever run across.
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Brutalism is signaling. Like the above commenter said, it is ugly and they know it.
Brutalist architecture is like forcing people you don’t like to drink really hoppy IPAs.
“IPAs are the best beer!”
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Now wait a sec, IPAs really do taste great!
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Fistfight!
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