Beauty Good and Ugly Bad?

We live in a world where beauty is treasured and success assured for the beautiful. This is a world where glossy magazines are adorned with gorgeous people, selling everything from clothes to television sets. The same televisions conjure an imaginary world where all the people within it are unrealistically beautiful. Make-up is a huge industry that makes billions of dollars by hiding imperfections and exaggerating perfections. Cosmetic surgery is on the rise and people all over the world are spending grand sums of money having all sorts of enhancements. Pharmaceutical companies are spending as much time and money working on a cure for baldness as a cure for cancer. Nearly everyone is guilty of spending far too much time looking at themselves in the mirror, attempting to adjust their hair or their clothes to look the best they can. George Clooney and Brad Pitt are two of the biggest movie stars around. Is it a coincidence that they are also two of the most handsome? Is it a coincidence that Hollywood’s most sort-after couple is always its most beautiful? We want to be beautiful, we want to watch the beautiful, and we want hear all about them.

The advantages in life enjoyed by the attractive do not stop there. I have seen it first hand in the job market. If you pleasing to the eye it seems you’re pleasing to many employers – at times even at the expense of experience or qualifications. As Jerry Seinfeld once mused “You don’t see any handsome homeless” – sure being homeless doesn’t usually help in keeping-up ones appearance, but there is a message here – beautiful people do find life easier – they have more luck with jobs, making friends and attracting the opposite sex. Conversely, life for the ugly is hard, and filled with the constant battle to prove that ones looks are unrelated to ones personality or skills.

The question that now must be asked is: Why are we, as a society, biased towards the beautiful? There must be a reason why it has become so ingrained in our collective conscience that we are not even aware of the prejudice based on beauty that abounds.

The obvious answer is natural selection – based on a theory of genetic evolution or Darwinism. In other words, for the millions of years we roamed the caves, the advantages of beauty must have lead in some way to survival of the species. It is easy to accept this explanation with qualities such as intelligence or strength, which clearly have helped Man survive, but beauty seems to provide no benefit to our survival at all.

With genetic evolution discounted I decided to forget about things for a while. I picked up the Harry Potter book that lay nearby and settled in for a read. Shortly thereafter I came across a sentence where the author described the unpleasant character of Pansy Parkinson as “Pug-faced”. And I thought about the other characters in the book and for the most part – the bad, hurtful, nasty characters were physically ugly, whilst the good ones were not… and it suddenly dawned on me – beauty has been ingrained in our psyche since we were born. We have grown up listening to stories and fairy tales where the maiden is always beautiful and most often saved by her hero – a handsome prince. The evil forces that attempt to destroy this beauty or prevent the hero from succeeding, are always described as ugly, and thus we are subconsciously taught that beautiful is attached to good, whilst ugly is associated with evil.

Cinderella was beautiful and her ugly sisters speak for themselves. In the end Cinderella marries a handsome prince, and her ugly sisters remain nasty and mean, and yes ugly. Is it because they are ugly that they are mean? Sure their ugliness may have turned them this way abut we as the reader are never informed. All we know is that ugly is mean.

My personal favourite is The Ugly Duckling – The Ugly Duckling is ostracised by its flock because of its unfortunate appearance. One day it turns into a beautiful swan and then everyone wants to be its friend and success in life seems assured for this late bloomer. The moral for children is that if you’re ugly, you’re different, but if you turn beautiful then everything will be alright – what a horrible lesson. It would be a much better allegory if the duckling remained ugly yet became successful through the use of its brain or wit!

As I read on with Harry Potter, I’m left wondering is ugly to often used as a metaphor for bad or unpleasant? And if so what message is this implying? No wonder our society is so superficial; no wonder our lives are bombarded with the benefits of beauty – when we have spent our whole lives learning that the beautiful are good whilst the ugly are bad.

The Art of Becoming a Successful Artist

There are two ways to become a successful artist – The Hard Road and the Bypass. Now I’m going to take you through them and leave it to you to decide which route you’re going to take.

Lets concentrate on writing, as that is my area of interest. Let’s just say that I have wandered along the hard road for a few years and I’m now considering the bypass. Anyway, a successful writer is a writer that’s had a number of books published by a reputable publisher, or one book published that has sold well. There are two ways to achieve this end:

The Hard Road – This involves writing lots. Churning out new manuscripts every two years, sending them off to publishers, and being rejected by the same publishers over and over again.  The writer must continue to develop their craft by developing their style and improving with every book. This can be achieved by natural progression, reading, seeking advice and studying. One day everything falls into place – A publisher reads one of your manuscripts, and wants to publish. Suddenly, all the hours spent behind the computer, all the hours thinking and tinkering, editing and envisaging, seem worth it. Then your book is published and put on the shelves, and if your ideas meet with interest in the public arena, then maybe, just maybe, the book will sell wildly and you will be a successful writer.

The Bypass – This simply involves by-passing all of the above. In a world where fame and celebrity is at a premium and anyone with such qualities is a highly sort commodity; in a world where such fame and celebrity can be achieved without talent, then it is possible to become a successful writer simply by becoming famous. Gone are the days where one had to be a successful artist before one became famous. Now one can become famous and a then a successful art career will almost certainly follow.

There are a few ways to become famous and so launch your artistic career. Get yourself on Big brother and tell your housemates and the public that you are a writer – keep telling the world that you have a manuscript waiting to be published – surely, once you have been voted out of the house, there will be a mad-capped race for a book deal from all the big publishers. I don’t even think that they would read what you have written before they sign you to a deal.

In the same fashion, you could become a you-tube sensation, or my personal favourite – do something outlandish, illegal or a combination of both which lands you on the front page and into a life of celebrity. Once there – just mention your penchant for writing and your new book awaiting a publishing deal, and again everyone will be racing for your signature. The success of your book is assured, as your notoriety will lead to sales, and thus you will have achieved your aims of becoming a successful writer.

NB: This same formula can be extrapolated to all of the arts, and creativity in the method of becoming famous can only add to your mystique, charm and thus commerciality.

A New Tax

With the Government looking to cut expenditure and save money I thought it was time to suggest an increase in tax – not an increase in tax in the traditional sense, just a new higher tax bracket with a higher tax rate for those that fall into this bracket. It is simple – tax all earnings over £500,000 at a rate of 100%, well at least 90%. Surely no one can argue that half a million Pounds, Euros or almost any currency bar the Zimbabwe dollar is not enough to live on. Not when there are people in the UK living on less than £20,000 a year – thus anyone earning more than 25 times this amount is already living a life of luxury. One would struggle to spend this sort of money if one ate out at the cities top restaurants three times a day and travelled first class to far off places every weekend. In fact one could hire a personal chef, chauffeur and car, a live-in servant and a gardener and still have enough to buy a new suit each week.

People that are fortunate enough to earn this kind of money, have a great debt to the society that has allowed them to get there; A society that has given these people access to education, health and a free market economy; A society that has provided them with the means to produce and the freedom and safety to do so; A society that has allowed, even encouraged them, to reach this position of wealth – should be repaid handsomely. 

The main conjecture to this idea is a general fear that introducing this high tax bracket would discourage people from wanting to earn more. The rich would suddenly be skiving of work, failing to do their business duties, and ultimately bringing the whole economy to crushing standstill. This argument is based on the premise that people earning grand sums and bonuses (often in the business and banking world) do their jobs purely for monetary gain, and without huge incentives and bonuses they would walk off the job, stop caring, stop doing their best, and stop working with skill or desire. How sad! Doctors and fireman earn a salary. They cure the infirm and fight fires for their respective salaries. Generally, a bonus scheme has not been put in place to encourage them to treat more people or put fires out quicker. We assume they will work to the best of their abilities for their respective wages. Why then can the business elite not work hard for the betterment of their companies? And do so, simply for the more-than-adequate salaries that they receive.

All earnings up to half a million pounds will continue to be taxed at the standard rate and thus any people effected by this new tax will still be earning huge wages to do their jobs. They will work hard for their extensive wages and do their jobs well, unless they are greedy, and then who wants them working in the corporate sector when we strive for a more morally culpable and ethically sounds corporate sphere (especially after the traumas of recent years).

There is no way anyone can say that half a million pounds is not enough remuneration for any work being performed across the world. Surely then it is time that the society that gave this opportunity of wealth was repaid with a greater contribution of tax. I would say every dollar over half a million, but I don’t want to sound too pushy and we know the business types need incentives to do any work at all so best keep it at 90%, and then maybe we can cut the deficit and start working on building a society that everyone wants to be part of; a utopia where Government services are of the highest level, and everyone has access to the best education and health available.