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#Post#: 6513--------------------------------------------------
What Is Beauty?
By: Kerry Date: December 28, 2013, 12:19 pm
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What is beauty? Have you ever thought about it?
I heard a show on NPR about this this morning. I found a link
for anyone who may want to listen to it or parts of it.
HTML http://www.npr.org/2013/04/19/174724704/what-is-beauty?showDate=2013-12-27
I found the bit by a model named Cameron Russell the most
interesting, "Does Being Beautiful Make You Happy?" She told
of some of the drawbacks of being so beautiful. Generally
speaking, the beautiful people I've met had life so easy, they
failed to develop their personalities. Some women were so used
to being able to get whatever they wanted from men, they didn't
develop healthy relationships with men, seeing them as predators
from the way . . . well, you know how men can be around
beautiful women. This woman knew all that and didn't seem to
be vain. In fact, she said it made her insecure since she made
her living by being beautiful, so she was always thinking if her
hair was shiny enough and so on.
The entire show is about an hour; and I found it interesting,
but it seemed to me they missed a critical point. There are
people who say beauty is relative, lying in the eye of the
beholder. To some degree, that may be true; but I think there
some beauty can be said to exist in a factual way. So that's
the question, "What is beauty?"
#Post#: 6514--------------------------------------------------
Re: What Is Beauty?
By: George Date: December 28, 2013, 8:32 pm
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This is certainly an interesting question, and I have thought
the same thing to myself. I think that beauty when referring to
people or creatures is in the eye of the beholder. I think it
was the 1800's when pictures of women were mostly larger women,
and in that time it is said bigger was beautiful. I've heard it
had to do with poverty and the amount of mal nourished people in
those days. In general well proportioned larger people were
thought to be of a higher class who could afford to eat well.
This could be a myth; but that is what I was told. Now days if
we look in the vogue magazines and tv we see that thinner is
considered beautiful, and we hear stories of women starving
themselves to be excepted or to secure there jobs in the
modeling industry, at the same time there are still people who
prefer larger women/men. Thus I think it is true that beauty is
in the eye of the beholder. There are other things that I think
share a common understanding of beauty. For example a nice
bouquet of flowers, I think most if not all people will see
beauty in that, a picture of a snow cap mountain or fall leaves
on a mountain setting are also things that I think most if not
all will find a common beauty in. I think that the question
"What is beauty?" is a complex question and one would need to
narrow down what are we comparing or looking at to describe
beauty. Certain personalities are beautiful, someone who seems
to be unselfish, caring, Loving, warm hearted is considered by
all to be a beautiful person. Beauty may also be simply said to
be an opinion, there may not be an exact definition of what is
beauty. Would you say that you can describe what is beauty, and
it be concrete, or more than just an opinion?
#Post#: 6515--------------------------------------------------
Re: What Is Beauty?
By: Kerry Date: December 28, 2013, 11:08 pm
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[quote author=George M. C. Jr. link=topic=663.msg6514#msg6514
date=1388284368]
This is certainly an interesting question, and I have thought
the same thing to myself. I think that beauty when referring to
people or creatures is in the eye of the beholder. I think it
was the 1800's when pictures of women were mostly larger women,
and in that time it is said bigger was beautiful. I've heard it
had to do with poverty and the amount of mal nourished people in
those days. In general well proportioned larger people were
thought to be of a higher class who could afford to eat well.
This could be a myth; but that is what I was told. [/quote]That
was certainly true in Hawaii when the fatter you were, the more
upper class you were.
It may also depend on where your family came from. The ability
to store fat is a trait that is valued in areas that were prone
to famines. Skinny people died out. That passed the "fat
genes" on.
[quote]Now days if we look in the vogue magazines and tv we see
that thinner is considered beautiful, and we hear stories of
women starving themselves to be excepted or to secure there jobs
in the modeling industry, at the same time there are still
people who prefer larger women/men. Thus I think it is true that
beauty is in the eye of the beholder. [/quote]Ah, but think
about those skinny young girls who try to make themselves even
skinnier by starving themselves. Boys don't really find them
all that attractive. I don't think so, anyway.
The modeling industry has its standard, but it's almost like
propaganda, perhaps the result of having so many gay people
designing clothes? The women often look like boys. One woman
actually models men's clothes at times. Some have hips so
narrow, I wonder if they could give birth right. The
difference in the hips of men and women tends to be genetic;
and men tend to be attracted to women with the hourglass figure
-- broad hips is a good sign of being able to give birth more
easily than women with skinny hips.
[quote]There are other things that I think share a common
understanding of beauty. For example a nice bouquet of flowers,
I think most if not all people will see beauty in that, a
picture of a snow cap mountain or fall leaves on a mountain
setting are also things that I think most if not all will find a
common beauty in. I think that the question "What is beauty?" is
a complex question and one would need to narrow down what are we
comparing or looking at to describe beauty. [/quote]The program
found that people of all sorts like scenes that showed areas
that looked like where humans evolved.
[quote]Certain personalities are beautiful, someone who seems to
be unselfish, caring, Loving, warm hearted is considered by all
to be a beautiful person. Beauty may also be simply said to be
an opinion, there may not be an exact definition of what is
beauty. Would you say that you can describe what is beauty, and
it be concrete, or more than just an opinion?[/quote]The program
talked about people's favorite color. People around the world,
they said, like blue. From all cultures, it was one quarter of
the people who liked blue best. But does that make blue
beautiful? They didn't answer that.
Some artist once painted a canvas all one color. Is that
beautiful? Is it even art? Or is painting one stripe of one
color on the background of another color beautiful? It may be
making a statement, but it's not art to me. It's not beautiful.
I read too where people were going to hear a piece of music --
but there wasn't any music. The orchestra sat there for a long
time without making a sound. That's not music to me. I
wouldn't attend such a show.
I think beauty comes from relationships between things. You
have to have different things -- different colors, shapes,
shadows and so on in paintings. If your mind perceives the
harmony in them all and sees them as a unity, we say it's
beautiful. Music is like that too. It's not all sound. The
brief silences are needed too -- but complete silence isn't
music. It's having sounds and silences that make music. It's
having different notes and different instruments that come
together and form a unity when he hear them.
Is rap music? Some people say no. The words may be different;
but the musical notes are always the same. Think of a song.
Usually you hear the melody once or twice, and then it's
varied. That variation is heard as similar to the original
melody. It's different but it's also the same. Sometimes
it's done by having different instruments take over the musical
lines in between someone singing. They can do the exact same
notes or vary them but it's still perceived by the mind as the
same thing.
Has your taste in music changed over the years? Mine has. I
hear some songs I used to like and can hardly stand them now. I
heard one the other day, and the singer was off-key. When
younger, I hadn't noticed that. My tastes matured.
We don't think of food in terms of beauty; but there is
something pleasant about mixing textures and tastes as you noted
before when we add butter and salt to potatoes.
Finally, I think the idea of beauty has something to do with the
idea of "the image and likeness of God." We are told we are
all in the image and likeness of God; but we're all different
too. Do we perceive that as harmony or not? Right now, it's
a struggle with different parts of humanity seen as conflicting
with others, yet the Bible talks about every nation, tribe and
tongue in heaven as if they are all necessary. Wouldn't we be
bored if everyone was the same? I would be. That makes me
figure that being "godlike" does not mean we are all the same.
It means we are all unique but are meant to fit together in a
way that is harmonious.
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