"Is There In Truth No Beauty?"

Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm a long-time Star Trek fan. And I'm talking The Original Series (TOS), with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the gang.

Since my teenage years, I've viewed each episode dozens of times and can often recite some episodes word for word.

Yeah, I'm a nerd; sue me.

The above title comes from the fifth episode of the third season. I won't go into the details of the actual episode because frankly, it doesn't matter here. The title itself seemed fitting because our modern culture's approach to life seems to be that beauty doesn't matter.

There is a certain quote attributed to the late Roger Scruton that goes a little something like:

“Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter.”

In this episode, Kirk and crew contemplate the nature of beauty...among other things.

But beauty still matters. The irony is that we live in an age flooded with images, yet somehow starved for beauty. Never have we seen so much, and yet so little of it is artistically appealing.

I've discussed at length how our culture seems to undervalue anything that can't readily be monetized and how our modern desire for immediate gratification precludes any deep appreciation for beauty in the artistic sense.

So many of the images we see nowadays can't be called art at all, just 'content'.

This trend has even been observed by comic writers (yes, I'm a comic book fan, too).

Consider Marvel's Immortal Thor issue #9. Thor's foe, the Minotaur, breaks the fourth wall and declares that he doesn't like art; he prefers to call it content.

Minotaur prefers content over art- Immortal Thor issue #9, Marvel Comics.

The writer of this story, Al Ewing, is directly calling out how some modern-day corporations treat art, and why so many artists resent the rise of what they call 'AI slop'.

I've previously discussed the emergence of AI and its potential to supplant the beauty of 'real' art, created naturally by the hand of a skilled artisan.

An image of "AI slop," I ironically produced using an AI tool...

AI Slop, or simply 'slop', as it's sometimes called, is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as:

Content on the internet that is of very low quality, especially when it is created by artificial intelligence.

Sure, there's a lot of not-so-great content out there, but the real issue with AI isn't about quality; it's about how we use it. I sometimes use AI to help me draft outlines for my posts because it saves me time. But the final product is all mine. Recently, I painted my grandmother's old home using watercolor, with just a bit of AI touch-up. I wanted to imagine how the painting would look in a frame. I called it Hiraeth, which is a Welsh word that captures that feeling of homesickness or longing for a place lost in time, or just plain nostalgia.

Hiraeth, watercolor on Bristol, AI-enhanced. 2026

For a long time now, artists have been concerned about how beauty seems to be missing from modern life. This lack in our culture can really impact how we feel, and we might not even realize it's happening. Lack of beauty and meaning in modern society seems to be a subject of concern in Edward Hopper's famous 1942 painting Nighthawks.

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, oil on canvas, 33.1"x 60", 1942

Often considered one of his most famous works, the painting visually represents the lack of beauty, meaning, and emotional connection in modern society—not through ugliness, but through a subtle emptiness. In this painting, even the streets are empty. If you look closely, you see that none of the four figures in the diner makes eye contact. The lack of beauty in the external environment mirrors the loneliness and isolation in the internal.

So now we come full circle to the above-mentioned Star Trek episode, with Kirk, Spock, and the rest doing what they do so well — waxing philosophic as they boldly go. If they were to arrive back on Earth now, what would they find? Would they discover that “content” has, in many cases, replaced real beauty? Would they be disappointed that we’ve chosen to prioritize what can be monetized over what is meaningful?

Or would they find that beauty still exists in small ways — in something like a carefully painted watercolor of a childhood home? Would they find some of the beauty that Roger Scruton warned was in danger of disappearing?

Perhaps we’ll find out in a future episode.

Someday.