Believe it or not, this is my attempt at making this blog pretty! According to a Melbourne University researcher 'As aesthetically orientated humans, we’re psychologically hardwired to trust beautiful people, and the same goes for websites'. I said on face book this morning that I would argue against Dr Coker pronouncement in that the most beautiful people in the world are considered, in the true sense of the word, deviant! As such, there's a sense of falsity about them, fake/counterfeit in relation to the majority of people who are considered ordinary or everyday in their appearance. I think we approach 'beautiful people' (though really don't know what that means - flawless, symmetrical?) with caution, since we see them as aberrant, inconsistent. And yet, having said all that, we know that people with ordinary looks tell lies and cannot be trusted, perhaps we just associate beautiful people with particular types of lies? Indeed, I think, against the notion that the looks of ugly or unattractive people somehow reflects their interior qualities, external attributes of beautiful people on the other hand hides the fact that they maybe otherwise incredibly flawed! Perhaps we doubt whether people who are physically beautiful can also possess beautiful personalities - in other words - no one can be that beautiful and perfect! So we remain suspicious of them. Anyway, the blog is changed, I've selected 'prettier' colors for your amusement and aesthetic appreciation.
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Beauty is, at the very least, innocent of the charges against it, and it may even be the case that far from damaging our capacity to attend to problems of injustice, it instead intensifies the pressure we feel to repair injury.
ReplyDeleteMoira Corby wrote:
ReplyDelete"Thanks Julie. True Beauty Lies Within. "never give up a passion" me
Steve - do you mean that we feel naturally sorry for beautiful people? Moira - agree, totally!
ReplyDeleteI hope I quoted Elaine Scarry correctly, can't find my copy of On Beauty And Being Just ^-^, she is talking about the banishing of beauty from the humanities because beauty became politically incorrect.
ReplyDeleteis it a lot different....the background colour?
ReplyDeleteLauren
Found the book, ES says beauty is accused of distracting people from attending to wrong social arrangements, and causing injustice because looking at something beautiful objectifies and destroys it (pp59)
ReplyDeleteLauren, the colors I used yesterday made the blog look like a lolly pop, a myriad of colors, couldn't cope with it this morning so changed it back into hues that complement (hopefully).
ReplyDeleteSteve, I'm going to have to think about that in order to come up with an intelligent response. Objectifies, yes, but 'destroys'?