20 Comments

I love this. And I hate the mid-century bright aesthetic in coffee shops! - bring back the grungy overstuffed couches and questionable art and dimly lit corners :)

Ever since having my son who has a disability 11 years ago, I've grown to value the ways in which we just don't fit the mold. I also grew up Catholic and with a staid midwestern family, and often feel out of step with the evangelical culture, even though I've been part of it for 15 years now. But as I got into my 40s it all just started mattering less.

I love Gerard Manley Hopkins on this topic:

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

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Praise God for dappled things. :) If only the algorithm cared about that too. LOL

You're right that as we age some of the tighter ties to what's successful or trendy dissipate.

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Same. Same. Same.

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I often bemoan the lack of “aesthetics” in our houses, because we’ve lived in some quirky places. But they have always felt homey and (mostly) clean. Our boys have stacking cots instead of real beds at the moment, because they are small and our house is 1500 sq feet with 7 people. Floor play space is at a premium. So the function is often taking precedence over aesthetics, or we’re limited by budget. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing (and I suspect there’s more of us like this than the picture perfect houses). I read an article along similar lines you might enjoy:

https://cupofjo.com/2024/06/26/why-im-done-making-my-home-look-like-a-magazine/

The author realizes that this aesthetic is about control, but lacks personality, there is nothing defining about it.

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That was a fun article, thanks for sharing. I love how she mentions in making it conventionally beautiful, she'd left out the stories. Indeed.

I suppose we think our own stories aren't enough that we must make them Instagrammable stories.

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Yessss! Thank you for thoughtfully articulating all of this.

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Such a well-written, thought provoking article. Thank you for this excellent piece Ashley.

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You're welcome, Adriel. Does this same thing happen in the same way in Australia? I'd be curious to hear.

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Yes it’s very similar.

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Except, I think, the “evangelical woman” you’re referring to. I don’t think we have the equivalent of that here in our very much post-Christian society. But similar in the whitewashing (subway tiling) way we have of idealizing an aesthetic and how that reflects back on a lack of imagination—that’s the part that’s very similar. And would certainly apply to church culture as well.

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I'm currently investigating beauty (actually, the lack thereof) in our modern architecture, so I found this post a very interesting read. Particularly, the division between what you name as beauty (pleasing) and sublime (awe and terror). I hadn't heard that distinction before. I think the truly beautiful must be undergirded by the sublime — the awesome/awe-ful. Christopher Alexander is an architect I've been very into lately and he uses the term "life" to get at the same idea. The "life" of things and objects. The flat subway tile, the hats — these are things devoid of life because they are devoid of the sublime, as you so wisely observe. Interestingly, one of the 15 principles he thinks makes up true beauty is "roughness," and I would have to agree. There's something about roughness that portrays the real, the work of nature, the work of a human hand. Not industrialization. Not aesthetic. But authenticity.

Anyways, your post made me think. It's unendingly interesting to consider all the different ways these concepts manifest themselves in our world.

Thanks for sharing :)

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Great article, Ashley. It's given me a lot to think about.

Just to play devil's advocate though, I feel like our tastes have become so atomized and customized that a part of me rejoices when a lot of people bond over the same thing. There's so much media and content out there now that when I ask people what music they like, I feel like I've hardly ever heard of the bands they mention. I totally understand the dangers of blandness, flattening, and decontextualizing you're talking about when people adopt the styles they see online as some key to the good life. But what about the coffee bros who've found their identity in Christ but just like that neat tile look (I ask this as a barista who works in the grungiest, coziest coffee shop in Louisville and loves the cozy vibe infinitely more) or the evangelical woman who knows her worth is found in being God's daughter who just happens to dig that boho style? Or, what about the nonreligious people who aren't looking to find their worth in these popular styles, they just like them? Is there space to celebrate when people bond over something (no matter how bland it seems to us) in this postmodern world that's flooded with so many styles? Must we be skeptical of suburbification with every new home design/style fad?

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This is so good, Ashley. Thank you…

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Part of me just wonders if many people don’t know what they like, so it’s easier to copy!

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I do think that's part of it -- on many levels. Does anyone even know what they'd do that wasn't productive? Do we know how to have a sabbath?

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Isn’t sabbath for making us better people? 😉

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#OptimizeSabbath! #ProductiveRest! #MechanizationFortheWeary!

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Ah, this is so good. My husband and I spent this past winter backpacking SE Asia and were dismayed by the number of coffee shops around the world "flattened" to meet the current Instagram-worthy aesthetic.

The suburbification effect and its impact on Christian women is a fascinating study. Thank you for bringing it to light. After years (decades) of realizing I would never quite fit into the prescribed (and ever-changing) molds, I finally realized I DON'T WANT TO ANYWAY. I prefer the richness of variety in texture and color--and ways of thinking.

This month we are wrapping up a two-year process of selling or giving away 99% of what we own so we can hit the road as full-time, permanent global nomads, living out of our truck and owning nothing that we don't carry along with us. The process of breaking free from the prescribed aesthetic of the American ideal has been so freeing. We can't wait until the day--very soon--when we will finally drive away and leave all that nonsense behind.

And that video from Wisdm slays me. 😂

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The video is indeed amazing. Thanks for weighing in; sounds like your global nomadic life will be quite an adventure! The permanent nomad thing, too, is an aesthetic of a different sort and it'll be interesting to see ways in which you look to subvert that trope too. The "unattached wanderer" is popular on IG too. ;)

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I sure hope we will have a different take on the unattached wanderer IG trope. As middle-aged teachers who left the classroom early and sold everything to become students (of the world), I think we are already a little off the beaten path. 😉

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