James Hillman: Only Beauty Can Save The World

"What would make you want not to destroy something? It would be your sense of appreciation of its beauty. If we start with the world as something beautiful, we would want to keep it around. That's the simplest answer to the problem of the world. The Greeks thought that the word cosmos, meaning the whole thing, was an aesthetic term. It meant orderly, beautifully, carefully, considerately... and it was closer to the word for cosmetics than it is to the word cosmonaut in the Greek world. It meant an adornment, so the world, the cosmos, was an adornment. Something extraordinarily beautiful that you could see in the night sky, you could see in the forest, you could see anywhere in a person. Once we really appreciate beauty, we can fall in love with the world. Not just love it, but fall in love with it. And you only fall in love with it if you're aesthetically alive to it."

James Hillman brilliantly illuminates; the myth of the hero killing animals as the cross-cultural origin of humanity's separation from "nature", the consequences of that sense of separation, human greed as a virtue of capitalism, how Descartes created litter, the ensouled nature of psychological phenomena, the strength and resilience of soul, the ugly American, the poetic culture of Iran, the anesthetization of Modern consciousness, denial in the American psyche, the cult of innocence, the fundamental importance of psychological transformation, the automobile as a self-mover and an empowerment by God, and closes with a discussion on the importance of fear for responsible action.

Originally uploaded by Tree TV: / @treemedia-n2k

James Hillman was an American psychologist. He studied at,
and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He
founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut. For more information on these interviews as well as more interviews: https://www.n2k.world/the11thhourarch...