“Beauty will save the world”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

What is beauty? And what does it mean?

Dostoyevsky here must be referring to a redeeming quality of beauty that is deeper than mere aesthetics. He must be talking about truth and goodness. What does the world lack that it necessitates saving?

Does he consider the world corrupt and broken from its ways, of God’s original design? He must be referring to men and women than the world they inhabit. He must be referring to the way humans have exploited and driven themselves into corruption.

So, beauty here might be either an innate inscription deep within the hearts or something that pierces us from outside. Beauty might be something or someone outside a human system. Beauty might be a light that illuminates the path, open our eyes to what is true and good. It must have a redemptive nature. Without which, we would spiral into chaos and destruction.

What is true and good must be beautiful. Is it possible for something to be beautiful yet be against truth or goodness? Can something mimic radiance only to lead us astray?