A question about beauty in our soceity?

Question

During the late medieval through to pre-industrial era through art and stories inner qualities like kindness, goodness, faith, loyalty, etc. where portrayed through physical beauty and good looks. Hence the hero or heroine of a story was said to be handsome or beautiful, more so than normal.

Our present day society is based on foundations from this era and we have brought many of its ideas and ideals with us from then into our modern day. However as with many long held traditions and customs the meaning of can be lost over time, people just going through the motions and not understanding why.

So my question is, can this artistic cheat explain our society’s current pre-occupation with physical beauty and/or attractiveness? Trying to find the most beautiful but not understanding that that does not guarantee 'inner beauty' as it were?

AND

If so then what does that say for our society and its views on beauty and attraction? What would be a better way to approach the subject?

Please explain your answers.

I thank you in advance.

(P.S. Please do not discuss evolutionary science, survival of the fittest, etc. that is not the point of the question.)

Answer 1

The idea to which you refer came from the notion that physical beauty was an external expression of internal beauty.  The cheat is that today external beauty is no more than a facade.  The qualities which represent good character, those of integrity, loyalty, and responsibility are missing in our leaders, role models, parents, teachers, police, etc.   As a result, we are experiencing societal decay.  We are no longer truely beautiful, only hollow shells.

Answer 2

In your additional comments you have asked people not to discuss evolutionary science, or as you ignorantly call it; " survival of the fittest ". You have made your question unanswerable and trivial with that proviso, thus missing the " point " of your own question. Then, I must assume you want some superficial social science explanation that " begs the question ". Female reproductive strategy has long shown that unconsciously women do know the difference between physical beauty and what you so euphemistically call " inner beauty". Women have long, as part of their strategy, married the " inner beauty ", while capturing the genes of the physical beauty. Your ignorance of this basic evolutionary evidence ( and by extension, many answerer's here ) brings again into sharp relief why social science remains more social than science.

PS The perspective has not changed. Symmetrical is still in!

Answer 3

The southern USA during the 1700-1800's and Europe for many centuries considered women to be beautiful if they were plump and pale.  It suggested wealth.  

Social desires tend to lean toward youth in some form.  It is a purely primal and sexual draw.

Answer 4

In my  opinion we are a nation totalled ruled by the marketplace, i.e democracy.And have been told what we want by advertisers since radio and especially television.We have become very surface oriented.

Answer 5

Today the pre-occupation with looks appears to stem from media pressure and capitalism.  When you think about, who are the bold and the beautiful?  They are those of status, power, money and youth.  What is quite interesting about our time is that people can "purchase" good looks via plastic surgery, an option that was not available to our forefathers.  I would think many still believe that external beauty does not guarantee inner beauty.  In fact many assert that brains and "inner beauty" are just as important or more so than ones physical appearance.  Maybe this thinking is not completely reflected in the main stream media where physical beauty is a billion dollar industry.  But let's face it, we all look at physically attractive people, but sometimes when these people open up their mouths to speak, we become instantaneously turned off.  What seems to matter for most is the "whole package" deal.  Looks, intelligence, humour, health etc.  These traits seem to be quite important.  Physical beauty is ephemeral and most people know that.  And what one considers beautiful, another one may dismiss as unattractive.  So beauty is really in the eye of the beholder.  Do we today think that beauty of heart, kindness, faith, loyalty is represented by physical beauty?  Don't think so, not anymore.  All you need to do is look at Hollywood and see all of the "beautiful people" and look at how they behave and act towards themselves and their fellow men.  They epitomize the standards of physical beauty and just look how shallow they are.  What a turn off.

Answer 6

NO , no  . Although you are correct on the "beauty " brainwash in todays society and from whence it came . You must realize that in those times , a beautiful woman was very volumptous , otherwise "thick" . Not the skin and bones that proclaim beauty now-a-days

Answer 7

Every society values beauty - although clearly there are very different standards for it around the world. (Thumbing through any issue of "National Geographic" from the past several decades could tell you that much.) Even in Western society, standards of beauty have shifted over time.

The value of beauty - as with other qualities that we value - is that it is not something everyone has. I don't think it's necessarily fair to suggest that we are more superficial today, per se. Heck, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which is a glurgtastic display of the physically afflicted, personally suffering and hard luck types being redeemed with appliances from Sears, has outlasted the original Extreme Makeover wherein ugly people were given new noses and teeth. So clearly we value things like generosity, kindness, intelligence, humor, etc.

I think what has happened now is that:

1. Technology has enabled us to create not just heightened standards but utterly artificial and unattainable ones. When even Gisele Bundchen gets airbrushed, what hope is there for the rest of us mortals?

2. We live in such large-scale societies that we commonly interact with people, or through media, learn to know people whom we never meet, or speak to, or interact with in any way. This level of dissociation would never happen in smaller scale societies.

There are also interesting psychological studies suggesting some evolutionary basis for valuing beauty. For instance, women are most likely to o****m with a partner with highly symmetrical features. People shown many different faces pick the most symmetrical ones as the most beautiful. Is this perhaps a sign of genetic fitness? Is that why we find such things beautiful?