Aesthetic Education in Everyday Life: The Role of Care

Our aesthetic life is not limited to the experience of those things that stand out from everyday life, such as art and spectacular nature. Nor is it exhausted by the experience of beautiful things. The occasions for aesthetic experiences abound in our management of everyday life, ranging from objects of daily use, environments of our lifeworld, social interactions, and activities we perform. They together affect the quality of life and the state of the world through the aesthetically motivated judgments and activities we undertake. As such, it behooves aesthetic education discourse to address this often-neglected dimension of our aesthetic life. I explore aesthetic education in everyday life with “care” as its focal concept. Despite the common understanding of care as a one-directional attitude and act toward the vulnerable population, care defines the authentic mode of our social existence, supporting and being supported by a web of interconnected relationships with other people, nature, and artifacts. Aesthetic considerations play an indispensable role in cultivating and sustaining these care relationships. I advocate engaging in everyday aesthetic education by cultivating aesthetic sensibility, developing an awareness and attunement with our whole body, practicing everyday aesthetics, and working with the world.