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The Death of Beauty
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2023-07-21 at 8:42 AM UTCI was discussing an animu recently, wherein the creator committed the cardinal sin of "having a sexy woman character who wears something closer to a mithril bikini than 50lbs of steel plate armor". See, I was making fun of someone for trying to justify this design choice and explain it terms of the setting/lore (he had a good justification too, despite how obviously untrue it was in terms of explaining why she was dressed that way). I joked that I think "women only complain about sexy warrior women in bikinis because they find it funny watching men squirm to explain it without admitting it's because they practically worship feminine beauty", and it struck me that the weakest part of that theory (ie the part some brainless fuckwit is most likely to start an argument over) is the idea of 'feminine beauty'.
I really hadn't internalized it before, but women aren't beautiful. They aren't allowed to be beautiful anymore. What physical traits make a woman's body (hereafter, I will be dropping the "'s body" part, because it's hella autistic) less beautiful? I could rattle off a handful of things off the top of my head no problem, sure, but what about our culture? Like... body positivity has replaced our culturally shared understanding of the womenfolk's beauty with a culturally shared void, in which echoes the implication that a woman's beauty can't or shouldn't be understood. (Body positivity, as a philosophy at least, extends to all humans - "the beauty of a human body" is a concept that shouldn't exist. That is not the reality of the body positivity movement in practice, of course. Even those who are truly philosophically engaged with the idea are unlikely to adhere to the idea with religious conviction.)
They still get to have Opinions about which drapes look ugly too. Actually... wait... shit, do they? This was originally a poast about body positivity, but I got to that line and I had to rewrite stuff 'cause it dawned on me: someone made those drapes. They get to have opinions about drapes for now, until a prominent drape maker goes viral on Twitter saying they feel "so attacked" by people saying mean things about their drapes. After that? I'm not so sure they can. Making drapes is art, and you can't just go around saying mean things about people's art - only a total piece of shit would do that.
Fuck. The end is nigh. Society is an evil totalitarian regime, only it's not a 1984 or a Brave New World situation...
It's...
It's Harrison Bergeron. Gross. Goddammit.
I'm seriously just stuck in the worst timeline, huh?The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2023-07-21 at 9:03 AM UTCBAP did a long segment on this but two things stick out as interesting for me:
1. The Greeks and Romans had a principle that beauty is inseparable from good, and things that are ugly and deformed are by definition bad and wrong.
2. This one is usually misinterpreted but Schoepenhauer pointed out that it's impossible for men to be able to judge whether a woman is aesthetically beautiful or not because it's impossible for them to be objective when their most basic instincts relate to attraction and reproduction; they can be easily tricked.
I guess that's only really tangentially related to the OP, in terms of what beauty is and what it means. more directly it's a symptom of a society that's been intentionally configured to prefer acceptance and complacence over aspirationThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2023-07-21 at 9:18 AM UTCin short,
Revolt of the Ugly -
2023-07-21 at 9:22 AM UTC
Originally posted by aldra 2. This one is usually misinterpreted but Schoepenhauer pointed out that it's impossible for men to be able to judge whether a woman is aesthetically beautiful or not because it's impossible for them to be objective when their most basic instincts relate to attraction and reproduction; they can be easily tricked.
therefore pædophillia is the only true judge of beauty.
of course a child, or children cant reproduce and therefore men's attraction to them is simply, and ourely due to their beauty.
anyone who have watched japanese anime and thinks anime girls, catgirls etc etc are cute does so because anime girls are saturated with child-like characteristischs.
in child-like ratios and child-like proportions. -
2023-07-21 at 9:48 AM UTC
Originally posted by aldra BAP did a long segment on this but two things stick out as interesting for me:
1. The Greeks and Romans had a principle that beauty is inseparable from good, and things that are ugly and deformed are by definition bad and wrong.
2. This one is usually misinterpreted but Schoepenhauer pointed out that it's impossible for men to be able to judge whether a woman is aesthetically beautiful or not because it's impossible for them to be objective when their most basic instincts relate to attraction and reproduction; they can be easily tricked.
I guess that's only really tangentially related to the OP, in terms of what beauty is and what it means.
The Schopenhauer one is good, and I was familiar with BAP's take on it (homie is never beating the allegations: he gay af). You're right that it's not exactly the same but it is definitely whateverthefuckI'mtalkingabout-adjacent (like I said, this started as a body positivity shitpost and... evolved - idk wtf im talm bout).
The Greek one I had heard of, but didn't know where it came from - I knew a weird esoteric guy from totse, who knew a guy who subscribed to this belief, and the girl dating the weird esoteric totse guy relayed this to me. I miss the philosophical/'spiritual'/esoteric sliver of the totse community a lot. Their absence has left a psychospiritual void. Alas, they were into hermeticism, taoism, and all that good shit... so they've all already Ascended to higher planes of existence, probably. Cool to learn it traces back to the ancients, although that fits given what I know of the interests of the people involved. I have been hung up on the implications of this ever since. I'm not sure how you square a disfiguring injury with this belief (do you become evil overnight? does it take time?), but I'm sure the ancients had a way - people convinced themselves of the 4 humors theory of medicine, after all. This idea feels... similar to that, in a lot of way. Also kinda feels like there's something of value there though, like it isn't all bullshit. Then again, I guess leaches really did help sometimes.
Originally posted by aldra more directly it's a symptom of a society that's been intentionally configured to prefer acceptance and complacence over aspiration
Humans gonna overcorrect, I guess. We probably have historically put far too much stock in appearance, so it follows that we'd 'fix' that by entirely rejecting the idea that beauty exists or has meaning. Two ways it goes from here: either we end up slowly realizing how retarded we are, or we overcorrect again in the opposite direction - probably by exterminating the uggos and immanentizing a Bogg'd eschaton.
I am not hopeful. -
2023-07-21 at 9:55 AM UTC
