Human Security and The Idiot: “Can Beauty Really Save the World”

A key point of progress in the systematic considerations of the causality and cessation of violent conflict is found in the evolving idea of human security. In a collective effort to respond to the chaotic reality of violent engagement, human security emerged toward the end of the twentieth century as a multilateral, person-centered paradigm for thinking about and pursuing conflict transformation. As human security enters a third generation of development, scholars and policymakers continue to discern the usefulness of this holistic, multilateral paradigm for security. The efficacy of human security outcomes will depend on how the individual and collective within a conflict-or post-conflict context experience and perceive an acceptable level of life improvement. This paper argues that a range of shared ideas and values that demonstrate personal realization and human flourishing are present and observable in post-conflict communities experiencing constructive and sustainable transformation. The necessary pursuit and presence of beauty is one such example. The ability to create and realize beauty is a critical point of measured progress in post-conflict societies. As a thought exercise on the idea and value of beauty, this article explores the nature and potential of beauty through the fine arts and through the lens of literature, focusing on one author and one novel: Fyodor Dostoevsky and his nineteenth-century work, The Idiot.