"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Closing lines of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats

200 words

Certainly, one needs to know a great deal more. But there lies one difference between poetry and philosophy.

As Western civilisation nears its likely end, attention has passed, in the manner of a rearguard action, to the imperative of truth against those who care nothing either for truth or reason. Strictly speaking, what counts is not the imperative of truth, which is seldom definitive, final or knowable absolutely, but the imperative of fighting obvious or demonstrable falsehood, this being certain and widespread.

Note, tho, that Truth operates within the medium of language. Animals, lacking language, cannot operate with truth; at best, with a recognition of deception and mistakes, deception being close to universal.

In music at least, and arguably in other spheres, talk of “truth” is a category mistake, or a metaphor. (Here is an example of a category mistake: “Green ideas sleep furiously”.)

In music, and in some other art forms, beauty functions like truth in the world of language.

If there is a contemporary assault on beauty, rather than occasional satire, this may be seen as an accompaniment to the disregard for truth.