The Negative Side of Beauty

Conner Evans

September 5, 2014

English 1100

The Negative Side of Beauty

Everyone knows beauty as good thing but not too many understand the negative effects. Beauty might be amazing to others but for many it’s not all what it’s cracked up to be. It’s very hard to maintain beauty, for example physical beauty you have to always watch what you eat work out and there the whole problem with age. Many push themselves and indoor some pretty harsh thing to remain beautiful. No one really understand what it takes to be beautiful all they know is that you’re indeed beautiful. Beauty can lead to anxiety depression, and other issues. How can beauty cause that? Well let’s say someone is beautiful well it’s because they work at it, always watching what they eat, always pushing their bodies and always wondering when age will catch up with them, and no one wants to live life worried. And if you’re not beautiful where does that leave you always feeling second rate always being looked down on that’s not a way to live either and that’s just physical beauty.  People can be or what they’ve done can be considered beautiful if they have born with traits like potential skills, or intellectual excellence. For the people who don’t have that it’s a uphill battle to evolve themselves to an ever changing consumer society. As Denis Dutton’s said in hid TED Talk “A Darwinian theory of beauty” “Beauty is in the cultural conditioned eye of the beholder” (Dutton 2:20). What this means and how this relates is that an every changing society consistently remodels and changes beauty as society changes itself. For beauty isn’t just rainbows and other aesthetically pleasing things it has a negative side too.

With the desire for beauty and beautiful things no one quite understands the level of stain beauty causes. Dennis Dutton a very well respected philosopher talks about beauty and that out of all the critics and experts on beauty the best expert was Charles Darwin. Dutton goes on explaining some of Darwin’s theories of beauty and the one that raised my head was “sexual selection”. This to raise my head for what Dutton says next “The experience of beauty is one of arousing and sustaining interest” (Dennis Dutton).  It seems that sexual selection is about being lucky with of which traits you inherit. For a lot of people they aren’t born with striking looks and defined features. They struggle of trying to always make it work or hide there not so nice side. How is this fare? How can we single out human beings for not looking as pleasing as we would want them to be? This is a cold hard fact that everyone deals with. When you first meet someone your first impression is on looks their beauty. We don’t know if they are good, intelligent, or nice we just make assumptions on looks. Which brings me back to my main point of this whole paragraph beauty causes a lot of stress and negativity in people’s lives. People want to be Beautiful. The want to walk down the street and everyone takes a look their way because they can just sense the beauty. It’s this impossible goal that is making people make irrational decisions like wasting money on surgery and products to improve their physical features.  It’s this problem which reflects the negativity and problems beauty causes.

Another negative effects of beauty is acquisition of something of thing beautiful. People want something to take pride in. Whether it’s a skill like the ability to sing or maybe being able to dance. It can be physical beauty like a model or something you personally created like art or a new invention. Better examples would be already famous things like the Monalisa or Adelel. We all dream of accomplishing and or creating these beautiful thing but it’s a sad truth that most people just won’t meet their goals.  People fail, and fail, and keep failing to find this and a lot of time people just give up. Perhaps the best example is American Idol. In the audition rounds countless number give it their best shot to “make it Hollywood” but in actuality only few make it and everyone else failed to reach their goals. And it entertains us but is it really moral to do that? What we just saw was something quite sad. You just witnessed someone’s dreams crumble before them. They wanted their beautiful pride and joy to be their voice but fail in a entertaining fashion. That’s just one example though. All day everyday people fail to find their beauty. People invest all that they have into what they think is acquirable. If they fail then they have nothing is it worth it to lose everything? To them to get their beauty they would sacrifice everything. We strive to be great like Messi and Beyoncé who do great things that can only be described as beautiful but that’s the problem with beauty we all can’t be great.

The changing of society and what society says is beautiful is a negative aspect of beauty. Societies crave for the next thing has caused many of problems. People always want the best and the best is always changing, so you can see the problem here. People want and want and take and take but don’t really understand what they sacrifice. For one, they lose a bit of sanity. Like psychopathic murders they have a taste in their mouths that they have to satisfy. The can only get what’s considered the best the best clothes, the best gear, and the best make up. All of this to satisfy their self-image so they can make themselves feel beautiful. However how some people obtaining these items can only be described as ugly. People lie, cheat, steal to get what they want. For example we have all seen the black Friday mobs. People have died literally died trying to get these goods. Last year I saw on the news an anchor was talking about how an old women fell in a crowed entering a store. Well she died from all those people stepping on her. All those people ignored an old lady in the thirst of getting new shirt or IPhone. Can’t you see how awful that is? I bet they all had the same look in their eye when they trampled that old lady like viscous animals. All people want is to improve themselves to be beautiful and their nothing wrong with that it’s just how people get when they want something is the problem.  It’s also how society can rapid changes view on beauty that we get this problem. There’s no solution to the problem there is no way you can stop the monster that is society.

Beauty isn’t just all the pretty things in life there is a dark negative side to it. Beauty cause a lot of harm to all of us. . It’s very hard to maintain beauty, for example physical beauty you have to always watch what you eat work out and there the whole problem with age. Many push themselves and indoor some pretty harsh thing to remain beautiful. As it’s also very hard to acquire beauty a lot goes into and not too much comes out. Beauty is the root to many problems in society today. Everyone knows beauty as good thing but not too many understand the negative effects.