grammars of beauty (or, is everyone beautiful?)
thanks to natalie, dan and michael for your excellent comments on the last post. so many interesting points, and so much to think about.
here is a question i am not sure how to answer: is every person beautiful? if i take 'person' to mean something like 'self' and beauty to be non-physical beauty, then i don't know what to say. but even if i take beauty to be physical beauty, then i'm still not sure how to answer the question.
on the one hand, it seems to make perfect sense to think of physical attractiveness as a kind of spectrum: on one end, some people are beautiful, and on the other end some people are ugly, and then most people are in the middle somewhere between the two extremes. on the other hand, however, part of me also wants to say that all people are beautiful -physically beautiful- just in virtue of being people. if one just looks at a person in the right way -whether they are young or old, pale or dark-skinned, fat or skinny- then you will see that the person is truly (physically) beautiful.
i am not sure what to make of these competing intuitions. as a first approach, perhaps we can say that we have two different 'grammars' of physical beauty, two different ways of speaking about physical beauty that are somewhat separate from each other. the first way of speaking allows us to make distinctions between what is 'beautiful' and 'ugly,' and to make all the other familiar evaluations of appearance -cute, handsome, pretty, dreamy, etc. the second way of speaking allows us to say things like, 'everyone is beautiful' and 'you can find beauty in every face.'
i have the suspicion that it isn't easy to reconcile these two grammars of beauty, that behind each of them is a different set of criteria, a different way of making judgments. i also have the suspicion that each of these two grammars is consistent in its own way, and thus that its not easy to show that one is 'wrong', or for adherents of one grammar to 'disprove' the adherents of another (and perhaps most of accept both in some way).
these two grammars of (physical) beauty seem to be attached to different ways of seeing people. to adopt a certain way of speaking about physical appearance is to adopt a way of looking at people, of approaching their bodies, of allowing their bodies to appear to you in a certain way. to speak/think about physical beauty in a certain way is to be alive to, or closed off to, certain aspects of the bodies (and via the bodies, the selves) of those whom you encounter.
one consequence of this connection between speaking and seeing is that we can, without contradiction, recognize that our way of speaking/thinking about beauty might be wrong, simply because we cannot see properly. that is, it might be that we are not in a position to critique our own ways of speaking about physical beauty because our whole way of seeing and experiencing physical beauty is distorted.
here is a question i am not sure how to answer: is every person beautiful? if i take 'person' to mean something like 'self' and beauty to be non-physical beauty, then i don't know what to say. but even if i take beauty to be physical beauty, then i'm still not sure how to answer the question.
on the one hand, it seems to make perfect sense to think of physical attractiveness as a kind of spectrum: on one end, some people are beautiful, and on the other end some people are ugly, and then most people are in the middle somewhere between the two extremes. on the other hand, however, part of me also wants to say that all people are beautiful -physically beautiful- just in virtue of being people. if one just looks at a person in the right way -whether they are young or old, pale or dark-skinned, fat or skinny- then you will see that the person is truly (physically) beautiful.
i am not sure what to make of these competing intuitions. as a first approach, perhaps we can say that we have two different 'grammars' of physical beauty, two different ways of speaking about physical beauty that are somewhat separate from each other. the first way of speaking allows us to make distinctions between what is 'beautiful' and 'ugly,' and to make all the other familiar evaluations of appearance -cute, handsome, pretty, dreamy, etc. the second way of speaking allows us to say things like, 'everyone is beautiful' and 'you can find beauty in every face.'
i have the suspicion that it isn't easy to reconcile these two grammars of beauty, that behind each of them is a different set of criteria, a different way of making judgments. i also have the suspicion that each of these two grammars is consistent in its own way, and thus that its not easy to show that one is 'wrong', or for adherents of one grammar to 'disprove' the adherents of another (and perhaps most of accept both in some way).
these two grammars of (physical) beauty seem to be attached to different ways of seeing people. to adopt a certain way of speaking about physical appearance is to adopt a way of looking at people, of approaching their bodies, of allowing their bodies to appear to you in a certain way. to speak/think about physical beauty in a certain way is to be alive to, or closed off to, certain aspects of the bodies (and via the bodies, the selves) of those whom you encounter.
one consequence of this connection between speaking and seeing is that we can, without contradiction, recognize that our way of speaking/thinking about beauty might be wrong, simply because we cannot see properly. that is, it might be that we are not in a position to critique our own ways of speaking about physical beauty because our whole way of seeing and experiencing physical beauty is distorted.
posted by micah at 11:10 AM
2 Comments:
i agree that there seem to be two different grammars of beauty. one determines what is beautiful namely in terms of what is deemed by culture/media to be beautiful (young, thin, fair-skinned, etc.). this is the more popular way of speaking of and conceiving of beauty. then there is the other grammar, the one i prefer, where in a real way everyone is physically beautiful. and if we are unable to see that beauty, i agree with you that it's a problem in the way the seer sees, not in the person being seen.
i think it's a person's context, and how well they do or do not resemble the cultural standard of beauty that determines whether one person will question our culture's narrow definition of beauty more than another. i think it's necessary to have a strong "hermeneutic of suspicion" in hearing the definitions of beauty given by our culture--but i realize that people who benefit from or are empowered by the current definition of beauty are typically more likely to think up reasons it that definition is legitimate, since they have something to lose.
so maybe i question the cultural standard of beauty more than others because i don't fit with it. because if i'm going to wake up and look in the mirror every morning and somehow believe i have been molded and formed by a loving Creator, that i am indeed fearfully and wonderfully made, i am forced to question the statements of my culture that would tell me otherwise. whereas someone who does meet the cultural standard is not forced to question the definition as urgently or frequently.
maybe it's also because i deeply enjoy the company of people with developmental disabilities, who most often do not come close to achieving the culture's definition of what is physically beautiful. but in terms of my students, i really enjoyed looking at them, and did find them beautiful in a physical sense--some of the most beautiful looking people i've known, in fact.
i also question the notion that beauty should be defined in terms of utilitarianism. to me that seems to come more from our cultural values of production, capitalism, and efficiency than from a system of values that believes in the intrinsic belovedness of each individual person, no matter whether they are able to contribute to society in some kind of tangible, industrial way. (i think meaningful contributions are often less tangibly measurable, anyway.)
i realize this response is more personal than theoretical, but like all big ethical questions, and maybe this one even moreso, it seems to me that the answerer's own context and experience seems to me to have a profound effect on the way she will answer. i'm very interested to hear what others think about your post. thanks for throwing it out there.
Micah and Bethany,
there is something a tiny bit disturbing to me in both of your posts, as if either 'grammar' or an 'ethics' could in any way solve this problem. the former (i.e. that there are two grammars), in my opinion, is hopelessly Wittgensteinian (or post-modern). as if, because we could never learn fluent Japanese we will never be able to communicate in some way with a Japanese person. this seems to conclude that every culture (or language) has their own norms of beauty, and no two cultures can really understand the other.
one movie that i saw recently, disregarding any ethical stance on it, was called '8 Iron' and it is about an (extramarital) relationship in which the lovers never say one word to each other throughout the entire one hour and a half film. i admired this, only because our culture is too visually and aurally- oriented. let's say that i was blind and deaf. how would i experience the beauty of another person? not by means of appearances, vocal communication, or grammar. (to get a little bit theological, what senses would we use to experience the beauty of the holy spirit? not actual seeing or hearing certainly)
i don't mean to be hopelessly simplistic, but in this instance, there is nothing grammatical about beauty since it is tied to a particular qualitative pleasure that we feel. no matter if it is a person, a glass of wine, a sunset, etc. this does not necessarily depend on looks or cultural values, although we cannot totally ignore these. but this (ontological) basis of beauty certainly can support the thesis that every single person is beautiful.
the second problem that i have with your posts ties to what we were speaking of earlier, and that consists in reducing beauty to the good, or as bethany said toward the end of her comment, "i realize this response is more personal than theoretical, but like all big ethical questions, and maybe this one even moreso"--again, it is my opinion that there is something particularly unique and special about beauty, that can, but need not necessarily, include the good. this is something that, in quoting Isaiah and Christ, requires us to recognise the fact that we 'listen and listen, but never understand, look and look, but never perceive' (Jerusalem Bible translation).
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