For or Against: Britain's beauty

Britain recently hosted a debate that has gotten a lot of airtime across the pond, debating the statement 'Britain has become indifferent to beauty.' With the exception of multiple references to the (British) National Trust and some purely English rhetoric, it's a debate that would feel equally at home on these shores. If Americans were to have a national debate on the topic of beauty, that is...

The Guardian lays out the respective positions with 4 short essays from some avid, diametrically opposed bastions of culture. That's my kind of journalism: argumentative, honestly biased, and a tad mocking. Stephen Bailey goes right for the jugular in the opening article with an ad hominen attack, "Bereft of optimism or enthusiasm, bloated with sly and knowing cynicism, [my opponents] see no value in contemporary life. Nothing to them is so howlingly funny as poor people going shopping in Tesco." And it gets better from there.

Check it out, and find out the similarities between Botticelli's Venus and a Kate Moss ad. Oh, and the coldly intellectual beauty of Roger Scruton makes an appearance as well.