The late Oxford writer and philosopher Roger Scruton said, “Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter.” He called our culture’s loss of beauty the “postmodern desecration.” Scruton chose “desecration” carefully: it’s a religious word that implies the spoiling of what is sacred.

I couldn’t help but think about Scruton’s words after watching a segment of the Super Bowl halftime show earlier this month. Lewdness replaced loveliness; empowered self-expression supplanted beauty. I was appalled and embarrassed. 

And yet to some, the halftime show was a glorious display of two female “artists” expressing themselves in culturally and artistically significant ways.

Is this the bar for art in our culture? How far we’ve fallen from the grip of the truly beautiful.