(no subject)

[jookitcz]

I pinned it down.  The argument against any anger at the "pretty people" bias, instances when the physically attractive get what they want with less effort, generally, than everyone else.  Generally, any nose-wrinkling at this trend is met with--"Well, you hold intelligent people in high regard.  People are born with good looks just as people are born with intelligence or sweet tempers.  It's not anyone's fault."  You're right, it's just jealousy, I hang my head in sheepish shame. 

Then I realized.  Intelligence is useful.  Attractiveness is not (particularly, we're overpopulated so that doesn't count.)

Discuss. 

The fact that I can think of maybe three photographs over the course of my life that don't make me look ridiculous has nothing to do with this entry.

Comments

[spence137.livejournal.com]

No it’s not.

Certainly one can use intelligence for “useful” purposes. But so can one use his intellect to manipulate and cause harm. Nothing (as far as innate traits go) is inherently useful, really. What makes something useful is how it is applied to ones environment.

There are plenty of people (i.e. movie stars, models, etc.) who have made and donated to needy causes money earned from their beauty, just as there are plenty of intelligent people who contribute nothing to society and abuse their natural abilities for personal gain.

[jookitcz.livejournal.com]

Only a small percentage of the population qualifies as making so considerable a profit on their looks as to be able to significantly contribute to charity, so small a percentage that it's almost negligable, in fact. It seems like more because the people are high profile. If we ignore the extremes, moderate intelligence is more productive than moderate beauty, because in most cases, personal gain and societal gain are one and the same, considering technology, inventions, and medicine. Intelligence still requires (Protestantly moral) effort for any effect, and has more applications than beauty.

To pounce on your rhetoric--"abuse their natural abilities for personal gain"--making a profit intelligently suddenly sounds much more diabolical than simply enjoying showering wealth from catwalks and dieting, and writing a check to UNICEF every year.

[spence137.livejournal.com]

Discrediting my examples doesn’t change the principle that usefulness comes not from what a person is given, but form how they use it.

You say that, “Intelligence… has more applications than beauty.” I think that’s true, but in both extremes. Intelligence provides a broader spectrum of opportunities to do “good,” but so does it also hypothetically allow the person greater access to do harm to society than does a surfeit of beauty.

You claim “personal gain and societal gain are one and the same,” but your argument began by lamenting over the fact that attractive people acquire personal gain too effortlessly. In either case, I don’t think they are the same. Selfishness is selfishness.

But my point is this: Counting someone’s attractiveness against them is no different than counting a person’s high intelligence against them. Or, for that matter, low intelligence or physical ugliness. An individuals worth is not dictated by what lot they are dealt, but by what they choose to do with it.

[jookitcz.livejournal.com]

Ah. So if intelligence has a more extreme potential for good and bad than beauty has, and you imply that the two extremes cancel each other, then you must be making the assumption that there is an equal amount of malice and altruism in the world. Selfishness, to simplify things, can probably be treated as an unavoidably neutral.

But what if we assume that people are basically good, and want to do good things? As soon as the balance swings that way, then the greater potential of intelligence for good wins compared to the smaller potential of beauty. On the opposite side, we could assume that people are basically malicious, and that would actually make beauty more morally redemptive (or at least, less harmful) than the misused intelligence.

Input from the former bio major.

[andera-mishelle.livejournal.com]

In defense of attractiveness, certain traits considered "attractive" are often the physical results of certain evolutionary benefits (immunities, virility, hardiness). That's part of why what is considered beautiful changes over the span of generations- because the needs of a society are constantly changing.

For example, the reason blondes first came around was because they had more estrogen and other stuff that made them better at reproducing and the blondeness was just an unrelated side-effect. People (this is a looong time ago) associated blonde with attractive when, really, it was just that they were better for making babies with, and people needed lots of babies since the infant mortality rate was so high. They made a correct observation without knowing the true reason.

That may be why blondeness is not as cared about in our society now- we have plenty of babies and don't want to be overpopulated.

So, attractiveness is evolutionarily useful. Basically.

Also, I feel your pain in regard to photographs. The camera hates me. : (

Re: Input from the former bio major.

[jookitcz.livejournal.com]

I move that we override our biological prejudices. Viva la revolution!

[theazureshadow.livejournal.com]

Attractiveness is useful, but perhaps only in a societally-limited way, rather than in any intrinsic way. People will pay more attention to a teacher that is attractive, they appreciate more the attention of an attractice waiter. Attractiveness is personally useful: it gives people that much more reason to get to know you, even discounting your other personality traits. And of course, people wanting to get to know you leads back into you being a more comfortable person, and being that much more attractive. On the other hand, people avoid ugly people, they are less likely to get into a conversation with them, and I would think it would lower their self esteem, thus making them less attractive.

It's a bit of a sad thing, but there's no denying it's usefulness. I like society's current trends to make less conventionally-attractive people more attractive. Nerds and people on the fringes of society are portrayed more positively than they used to be. I think this may lead to a broadening of the standards of attractiveness, and a greater emphasis on personal taste (developed preferences of beauty, etc).

Being not notably attractive myself, I am not particularly happy with attractiveness being a positive thing (I think this is more jealousy than logic). But I'm still grateful I'm not deformed or anything, however insensitive that may sound.

Just throwing in a few of my cents.