Visual perceptions of human beauty are obviously learned behaviors. What is beautiful in one culture is not beautiful in another. What one person finds beautiful in a lover may horrify another.
Yet, there are social trends of beauty. These are taught to a receptive public by the drumming of visual commercial media. Long hair, short hair, tall, short, thin and plump. These all come and go with the whim of advertisers and the appetite of consumers for change.
There are also basic, generally accepted elements of human beauty which include youthfulness, muscularity, symmetry, smoothness of skin, large eyes, thick hair, white teeth, etc..
The current materialism in society, combined with relentless saturation of daily life with commercial media which use human beauty to sell things, has led to a reduction of human beauty to its superficial material value. Beauty has been reduced to a manipulative tool to achieve materialistic gains. This is a generalized prostitution ethic, which is revealing itself on all levels of society.
One result of this ethic is the devaluation of hard work and merit as keys to success. The consequences of this are obvious. When those with marketable beauty become catapulted to positions of responsibility and celebrity over those with merit, genius or dedication, the fabric of society deteriorates.
Part of my practice is a conscious attempt to focus on merit, decency and intelligence in the people around me. This practice rapidly has made me aware that those with marketable beauty are seldom the focus of my attention in public settings or in general interactions. If conventional beauty has become power and power corrupts, then conventional beauty corrupts.
