To continue with the REM analogy a moment:

"What we want and what we need has been confused" and yes, it has...by superficiality at all levels of culture and society. "Beauty" in its most purest form, is, now, like the days of yore, only a memory at best...it is, however, best observed in animals who have no interest in the almighty dollar.

As GB Shaw once wrote: "I really don't think I could consent to go to Heaven if I thought there were no animals there."