On Destroying Something Beautiful

A friend reached out to me recently through instant message. His spirit was broken. For one reason or another and he was looking for an action or activity that could serve as an emotional Band-Aid. There is a significant difference in age between us and he was trying to draw upon my experience in this area to point him in the right direction. The what, where, when, and who are virtually insignificant though. The point lies in the philosophy of the answer I provided him, and his response, “why?” As conversations go, it was as straightforward as it gets:

Him: I cannot seem to shake these feelings of sadness and melancholy, what should I do?

Me: Have you tried drowning your sorrows?

Him: Yes, but drunkenness was not the answer I was looking for.

Me: Have you tried doing so in the presence of strippers? Better yet, alone at a strip club on a slow night?

Him: I have but did not find a solution. Now what?

Me: Sounds like destroying something beautiful would do you some good.

Him: Why?

The last question provides the turn in the conversation, which prompted this writing. My friends and I have been using this phrase to describe a specific set of actions for years now. However the practice and understanding behind the words have gone without intense scrutiny and critique. For us, destroying beautiful things is just something that monsters do. If you acknowledge that you have the capacity to be a monster from time to time, you therefore take with that sometimes, beautiful things get broken.

The phrase itself is probably most notably coined in the movie “Fight Club”. One scene in the movie depicts Edward Norton’s character beating a young Jared Leto’s unmercifully in a spectacular display of pugilism. The two characters aren’t drastically different except that Leto’s character is younger, with dyed blonde hair, and more well liked because of his perceived attractiveness. Though the amateur match was semi-organized and understood to be consensual, the display was unsettling and gratuitous. When questioned about his actions Norton’s character retorts unflinchingly that he felt like, “destroying something beautiful”.

That scene is so memorable because of its embrace of such a drastically irrational behavior explained through such a whimsically abstract and poetic sentiment. To focus our critical lens further, it could also be said that Leto’s character was a symbol of cultural standards of beauty and normalcy, and that destroying something beautiful was an embrace of deviance and alienation. It stands to reason that the beating was a symbolic embrace of being culturally imperfect and ugly; it was an affront to such notions a challenge to the foundation of such widely held beliefs. Finally, the act could be understood as a statement that the beauty of Leto’s character was not natural, what was natural and pure was actually the desire to subdue and destroy him.

But let us not stop there. The concept of destroying something beautiful is more than a line in a popular movie (or the book that provided the foundation to script said movie). The concept of destroying something beautiful resonates with many who hear the phrase. It’s not meant to be taken as literal as much as it is a general sentiment toward embracing deviant behavior. To destroy something beautiful is an affront toward our very nature and all that we know is right, ethical, moral, and upstanding. The act in whatever form it takes is a gesture that mocks rationality, modernity, civility, and the order of things as has been ingrained in us since our youth.

The process of destroying something beautiful assumes that the actor is rational, that (s)he acknowledges the subjective worth of the individual/object that is to be harmed. The actor knows full well the ramifications of their actions and follows through with them because of this knowledge, not in spite of. It is this methodical and calculating nature that makes the notion and practice of destroying something beautiful both cathartic and utterly monstrous.

The actions associated with the term amount to more than defacing art, or nature. This blight that we speak of is an emotional crime. It isn’t enough that you know what you did, others (if only one) must know what you are capable of and the actor looks to feed off of the reaction such knowledge brings. You see, (s)he carries an interest in the feelings of the other, as in this instance the actor is a voyeur manipulating the other for their own entertainment.

The process has many forms, like when you pick up the phone and ring a known admirer. In and of itself this is not bad, but it is when you do so with the intent of inviting them to an event that will surely end with a crushing heartbreak. This is the very essence of destroying something beautiful. Taking an innocent on a ride that will cause their heart to flutter and mind to wander for only the sake of breaking that person irreparably.

Few of our philosophical and literary giants have been noted as being more adroit in this systematic process than Soren Kierkegaard. His account as laid out in “The Seducer” tells of how a man (Johannes) courts a woman (Cordelia) to this end of destruction. Through working his methodology Johannes finds great pleasure in pushing Cordelia to fall further into a state of euphoria and irrationality.

It is said that “The Seducer” is somewhat autobiographical in nature, though details of the passionate affair with the love of his life stack up somewhat differently. Regardless of how much of the tale was based in reality, his reasoning and method were sound. His destruction of someone beautiful had to do entirely with himself and his desire to exert power and control over another to a satisfactory end.

He pushed her until she wanted nothing more than to submit completely to him. When that was her one and only desire, when her total understanding of love, life, and happiness was based upon this…he slowly undid everything he had done. As methodically as he had drawn close to her and carefully weaved an elegant tapestry of sentiment, he emotionally and intellectually withdrew. This action sent poor Cordelia into a panic, a state of painful lonesomeness and confusion. Satisfied with his work, he ended his affair with Cordelia and coldly stated, “[I]t is over now, and I hope never to see her again…I will have no farewell with her; nothing is more disgusting to me than a woman’s tears and a woman’s prayers.” As you will note in his statement, he even denied her the satisfaction of understanding what had happened. There was no closure or tidy conclusion to the fiery romance they shared.

Though Bertrand Russell doesn’t write about this topic directly, as an admirer of his rationality and insight I often include his work in discussions such as these. Russell would point out, this person that Kierkegaard describes to be a megalomaniac. Like narcissism, megalomania is a condition that may or may not be associated with the lunatic who has lost touch with reality. Though it could be argued that Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club was insane, we have no reason to believe that Johannes was.

Russell goes on to state that many of the great men in history such as Alexander the Great and Napoleon were megalomaniacs, but more of the excessive insane variety. He states, “The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved.” I think this holds true for the character from Fight Club, Johannes, and our own purposes here.

He also makes the observation that one commonality that megalomaniacs share is some form of excessive humiliation in their past. This of course was true for the sickly Soren Kierkegaard and certainly true for our fictional movie personae. However, while this may or may not be true for us as individuals who want to destroy something beautiful, it more than likely holds true. Humiliation may not come at the hands of another it very well could come from a failure to capitalize on our own aspirations and expectations. Hence, cultivate a love of power over others because we have failed in cultivating the same ability over ourselves.

Russell continues, “A man may feel so completely thwarted that he seeks no form of satisfaction, but only distraction and oblivion. He then becomes a devotee of “pleasure.” That is to say, that he seeks to make life bearable by becoming less alive.” I find this statement so eloquent as it harkens back to the very nature of the beast for whom we began this discussion. The monster straddles a line that Kierkegaard (in Either/or) describes as laying between the aesthetic and ethical. This simply means that the monster itself is not one or the other, but walks the line between the individual using others and the world around him/her as entertainment, and being content in one’s own company.

The monster both knows the repression of the mask and the freedom of mastering himself without it. Though I think that social inequality has no rational basis, I believe that due to social circumstance there are several caste of monsters. Regardless, in walking the line between the sacred and profane some beauty and innocence is bound to get broken. All that we’re saying is that there is no need to seek permission.