Towards an Abolitionist Concept of Beauty: The Aesthetics of Counter-Communities

Abstract: Many oppressed groups describe their forms of life in aesthetic categories. This article explores the implicit conception of beauty and the shared characteristics of counter-communal aesthetic practices. It reconstructs the hegemonic conception of beauty via a reading of Schiller and explores two exemplary discourses on the beauty of counter-communities: Peter Weiss' reflections on the aesthetics of resistance and Saidiya Hartman's description of Black fugitive aesthetics. What both examples share is that they locate beauty not in harmony, but in conflict and struggle. They lay the foundation for an aesthetic standpoint theory: counter-communities are economically, politically and culturally marginalized, but they are more beautiful than dominant forms of life.