So what's the most disputed quality/characteristic there is . . .? Given that there are no absolute truths/answers, all we have is consensus. The only thing that makes something "true" is when there is a homogeneous perception that is in accord with humanity and most importantly with those that create the force which makes the pendulum swing.
Take beauty for instance. What is beauty? I became interested in the question so I decided to look-up the word in the dictionary and returned with the most ambivalent definition (it actually uses the word to define the term--beauty is beautiful?)
Is it symmetry that makes something beautiful, or is that rather in the realm of appeal? Does beautification work? Depends on whom one catechize. Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder, then what of a blind person or some one with one eye, or blurred vision due to glaucoma or cataract? Are we to say that people of these veins are inept/incapable and bereft of the occupation, of the requisites to be a juror of beauty--"sorry Jimmy, you only have one eye, go look at this screw while the rest of us ponder this art." For the issue in fact is not the salient question of visual beauty, to speak of just one of the five main facets of beauty would in affect miss the proverbial bus. Well or at least to 'absent-mindedly' depart from ones' belongings while boarding said vehicle.
This as the case let us not forsake the prurient emotions that we encounter and are awakened from their hypnogogic trance, when we catch the aroma and delectable labyrinth of a woman's fragrance; the sound of an uber-virtuoso's song from the essence of their very being, in an elegant yet tepid jazz solo that shakes the soul and stimulates the synapsis; the supple touch and feel of a woman. All beyond the scope of any absolute truism, yet definite to the excruciating nexus so that--although intangible/tangible, and anonymous/discovered--they provoke the admiration of the sort of idolatry that the very sights before our eyes do.
What of the beautiful sculpture, where there exist wide consensus of aesthetic appeal for such objet d'art. There are persons about that will, for the simpleton (perhaps Socratic) reasons, disagree to the hills turn red with everyone else and say that they care not for this work. That it is dilettantish, and unworthy of praise or accolades. Is it then for another under a different assumption to flippantly dismiss the dischordal dissonance of our fellow on-looker?--call him an ignorant and possibly arrogant fool that knows not the better. This leads to the assertion that beauty is in fact only skin deep. Does this notion also lend itself to the theory that beauty in every facet is much more than skin deep? Is worldly experience and empirical data neccessary to 'respect'/appreciate the beauty in something/one? Can a bum who has never had much of anything appreciate fine art as much or more than a trust-fund-/hedge-fund baby? And even still, can this refugee create such beauty that requires admiration and genuflection?
I am thinking along the lines of cognitive processes and staid receptions. For instance, one may hear the washer and dryer humm, yet it is when one listens and has acquired the neccessary data of the inner mechanisms, that he truly hears what operations are happening. Are we listening to music or simply hearing it? Maybe the same direction of thought is required to properly understand the functions of beauty.
I say the functions of beauty because if we were to speak frankly beauty is a function--it is an application; an occupation; an avocation; a terrain; a territory; a vibration; a snap of the wit; a behavior; a role; a title; a realm; a responsibility; it is the hero and heroine; the ticket, the bypass; the 'open sesame' and the seemingly impervious force-field; the indispensable mien--most importantly, beauty is an application. It is a quality that when purposefully utilized, yields relevance of enumerable compendiums.
Beauty and the possession thereof, has been shown through and through to hold seisen or ultimate control over many situations, from the court room to the class room. But do beautiful people receive such grand treatment on the count of their foreboding qualities--their voice or their sequestering eyes-- or is it because the person was going to treat any one that came along in the same manner?
All this babbling only harkens back to the initial inquest--what (maybe not exactly, truly) is beauty? Is it really that subjective?
In a word, yes.
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