| | I was watching the Dr. Phil show today, which included a segment on people who were unhappy with their racial appearance and wanted to change it.
At the beginning of the show, pictures of three different women -- one Asian, one black and one white -- were shown to several people who were asked who they thought was the most attractive.
The consensus seemed to be the white woman who was blonde. I thought the black woman was the most attractive, even though I generally prefer Asian women, which is not to say that I don't find women of other races attractive. One of the best looking women I ever met was a combination of Latin and Japanese -- just stunning. But in this case, I didn't find the Asian woman attractive at all, nor the blonde. But the white people, male and female, who were asked to rate them thought the blonde was the best looking. I didn't think so. I thought her mouth was too small and face too pinched to be attractive.
Anyway, one of the Asian woman on the show had her eyes altered to incorporate the fold of skin that Asians lack. As far as I was concerned, this cosmetic change made little difference in her appearance, but she felt it was important enough to undergo the risk of surgery.
There was also a Philippino woman who considered her nose too flat, and one of her relatives on the show was encouraging her to have it altered, but she decided against it. I thought she looked fine, and I'm not sure changing it would have improved her appearance; it might even have detracted from it in my judgment.
Then there was an Italian guy who felt the bridge of his noise was too big, and who was going to have it reduced. I don't know . . . I suppose if he wanted it done, fine. But I thought the prominence of his nose lent a certain distinctiveness -- a certain "character" -- to his appearance, which he would lose if he had it altered to look just average.
Awhile ago, I brought up the example of early English settlers in Africa who encountered an African tribe that had never seen whites before. The African men thought the English women unspeakably ugly. I raised this example to illustrate that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that it is a socially based evaluation. Unfortunately, Erica thought that I had introduced the example, because I expected the African men to be attracted to the English women and was surprised they were not. She said that it was absurd for me to think that the African men would find the English women attractive. Actually I didn't think that at all, but I thought it was fascinating, if not entirely surprising, that they found them unspeakably ugly. As I said before, it makes sense though, because the English women would almost certainly have looked very strange to the African men.
Years ago, I worked briefly for an all-black company. I was the only white person in the building, so I got used to seeing nothing but black people everywhere I went. Well, at one point I walked into the restroom, saw myself in the mirror and jumped back with shock. I had expected to see another black person, and the person I saw in the mirror looked unexpectedly strange to me, even though I was seeing myself. It was a curious experience and one that I would never have expected had I not experienced it.
I think that what people find good looking is largely a matter of what they are accustomed to seeing within their respective societies, and I think that, as I noted earlier, the people considered the best looking in a given society are those that exhibit the least deviation from the social norm. If one takes a large number of different faces and performs a computer generated average of all of them, the resulting face will be considered beautiful by a person raised in that society.
Someone mentioned that symmetry is a key feature of beauty. It certainly seems to be a necessary condition for it, and maybe the computer-generated program was achieving that by blending the various faces into a single composite.
There was, of course, some objection on the Dr. Phil show to altering one's appearance, especially if it involved changing a distinctive racial feature. Michael Jackson comes to mind, but he was never mentioned. As I say, I didn't think it was much of an improvement, if any, for the Asian women to get the eye folds done, or for the Italian guy to have the bridge of his nose reduced, but if it made them feel better about their appearance, then what's there to object to? It also looked like the Asian woman had gotten breast implants, but nothing was said about that.
What do the rest of you think about plastic surgery, breast augmentation, lip augmentation, eye enhancements, nose jobs, face lifts, etc.? Is this narcissism run amuck, or a perfectly reasonable form of elective surgery? One woman I talked to -- an Objectivist -- viewed it as vain and unnatural.
- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 3/26, 10:42pm)
(Edited by William Dwyer on 3/26, 10:47pm)
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