ya, temp[e]st still here lolz. gonna take da big LSD 1day zoon go watch prehistoric jew, african big dik, n' homeboiz from injia run train on garden of even. lolz. alzo, u remember PiNK n' Testie dat bitch turn into fine azz zlut xho'. i fk'in dat bitch daily.
ya here my essay on how pink turn into puzzy lol
Jeff Haynes
Final Draft
Dr. Gwin
English Composition II
24 February 2006
1,463
Plastic surgery, leg extensions, face transplants, liposuction, tanning beds, and the list goes on; today, there are a plethora of methods to change one’s appearance and a whole slue of ethical questions that accompany those changes. Before any possibility of ethical analysis arises, however, it’s necessary to develop a solid understanding of why these body alterations are attractive to begin with. In other words, body image is obviously important because people go to great lengths to improve it, but exactly why is it important?
The method for evaluating this question that comes most naturally to me is to question why a trait exists. By applying the theory of natural selection, it becomes easy at least to speculate on the origin of a trait and on forms of that trait would be advantageous (and thus be more likely to persist in future generations). A common example is the peppered moth; this species of moth, the Biston betularia, became prominently black during Britain’s industrial revolution due to increased melanin production. This brief change from off-white to a darker hue was in response to the dark soot permeating industrial Britain – the blackness improved the moth’s ability to camouflage itself and thereby improved the moth’s chances of survival.
Likewise, once we understand the function of a human trait, we can hypothesize how altering that trait would influence an individual’s ability to survive. The major assumption that this point of view requires is that a good body is one which improves an individual’s ability to survive and cope with his environment. A second important assumption is that because of the body’s influence on survival, humans are interested in their own appearances and will often go to a great deal of trouble to improve on their bodies. In summary, people recognize (albeit vaguely) the value of certain traits and features and then look at themselves in the mirror and try to size themselves up. Good traits are those that help a person survive and cope with the environment, and bad traits are those that are less effective or not adaptive. One addendum worth noting is that some curious traits, such as teeth without gaps, are trivial to the question of survival, but are still recognized as preferential and attractive; this is evidence that body image is subject to human interpretation and caprice.
What might be somewhat surprising, if one agrees with the idea that survival is the chief determiner for whether or not a feature is attractive in others and desirable in oneself, is that there is no static definition of a good body. Over the course of history, ideas of what constitutes a good body have changed quite a bit. In Chaucer’s prologue to “Canterbury Tales,” he satirically describes a prioress, “But certainly she had a fair forehead; It was almost a full span broad, I own, For, truth to tell, she was not undergrown.” At the time, Chaucer’s pleasantly plump prioress was considered very attractive, but today’s models of the cultural ideal are unprecedented in their slenderness. Upon further evaluation, this does make some degree of sense. It is safe to assume that in the prioress’s time, when food was scarce, an impressive girth was appealing because it indicated successful adaptation and a knack for survival. Currently, in America, where food is plentiful but healthy food and leisure time for exercise are scarce, appearing slim suggests the same ability to adapt that obesity demonstrated in the 1300’s. Thus, the appeal of traits is subject to the nature of a given period, but remains consistent with positive survivability.
Evaluation becomes even trickier when one realizes that the way someone looks is as much an abstract concept as it is an empirical, tangible fact. Why, for instance, do people develop eating disorders? If studies of body mass tell us anything, it’s that being much too thin or much too fat is very unhealthy, so it logically follows that anyone concerned with his body would not strive to be either. Interestingly, the most body-conscious members of society are the ones most prone to anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Another curiosity is the medieval preference for gapped teeth. Chaucer’s wife of Bath, “Gap-toothed was she, it is no lie to say,” sported pearly whites that would not be popular today, but that were oddly attractive in the fourteenth century. Unlike the prioress’s weight, diastemas are unlikely to have changed much in terms of survival value between then and now, so why did our preference for gapped teeth disappear? In point of fact, we must acknowledge that not only is body image shifting in response to a changing environment, but sometimes those shifts are the unhealthy products of a confused mind. Still other changes may be entirely arbitrary, subject only to a whim. Nonetheless, these examples do work to establish a definite connection between a body image, which is conceptual, and the physical body.
In light of this, it would surprise very few if I were to assert that our own eyes and mirrors cannot work together to tell us exactly what we look like; this problem was addressed by Charles Horton Cooley. His work in sociology outlined the concept of the looking-glass self that suggests we develop our self-image based on the way others treat us (because we assume the way others treat us is a good indicator of how they see us). This idea extends beyond physical reality into the realm of mental self-image. Essentially, if society treats a person as attractive and intelligent, that person will believe himself to be attractive and intelligent and act accordingly; the opposite case is also true. In a recent study, a social context was applied to the subject of body image, and the results were as one might expect: a poor body image correlated with poor social relations for young people of both genders (Davison 12). Some basis for the problem of eating disorders can also be hypothesized here: if society tells a person that he is too fat, the person will opt to lose weight. If the person in question continues to believe that society thinks he is too fat, then he will continue to lose weight, and if the person never believes that society judges him as respectable, then dysfunction develops because he continues to lose weight even after it is no longer healthy to do so. Conforming to the opinions of society is often homologous with adapting to the demands of survival because society typically recognizes (or dictates) what existence requires, so conformity is often an advantageous trait.
On an individual level, certain body features have often been thought to correspond with certain mental traits. In Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmund Dantes is evaluated by Villefort,
Rapid as had been Villefort's glance, it had served to give him an idea of the man he was about to interrogate. He had recognized intelligence in the high forehead, courage in the dark eye and bent brow, and frankness in the thick lips that showed a set of pearly teeth. Villefort's first impression was favorable; but he had been so often warned to mistrust first impulses, that he applied the maxim to the impression, forgetting the difference between the two words. (76)
This passage describes a connection that Villefort makes between Dantes’s physical appearance and his mental abilities. If such a connection existed, then the presence of a ‘high forehead’ would be more than aesthetically valuable, it would also indicate mental prowess. Unfortunately, connections such as the one Villefort’s between a high forehead and intelligence are common mistakes. Francis Gall, a German physician who focused his study on the human brain and made many important breakthroughs, fell into a similar trap by promoting phrenology, the idea that the skull’s shape reflects the size of the brain parts beneath it (Barker 16). More recent science has proven phrenology to be false. The importance of this example is not that it suggests that people can be wrong about the implications of certain features (it is widely recognized that to err is human), but that even though a trait may be wrongly judged, that trait may become advantageous simply because it is believed to be. Thus, by self-fulfilling prophecy, a person with a forehead may be esteemed as though he were clever even if he is only of average intelligence; this establishes a curious link between body image and natural selection, at least in humans.
This essay has perhaps raised more questions than it has solved. It is easily established that a healthy body is crucial to survival and reproduction, but there are many misconceptions in the human understanding of what is useful and what is not when it comes to body image and survival. A few traits that are attractive are not inherently adaptive, while other appealing traits seem to be whimsically selected (although such traits are of lesser import). In addition, through self-fulfilling prophecy, even these “errors” are effectively incorporated into the idea of body image, and may become advantageous simply because society treats them as though they are. In spite of these complications, a single certainty does arise from the standpoint of natural selection as it applies to body image: appearances may deceive, but nonetheless, they are extremely important to our lives.
Works Cited
Barker, Lewis. Psychology. 2nd ed. Boston: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2004. 16.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. 9 Mar. 2006
<http://pd.sparknotes.com/lit/canterbury/section1.html>.
Davison, Tanya E., and Marita P. McCabe. "Adolescent Body Image and." Journal of Social
Psychology 1 (2006): 15-30. Academic Search premier. EBSCO. Auburn University, Auburn. 25 Feb. 2006. Keyword: body image.
Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo. New York: Random House, Inc., 2002. 76.
Thio, Alex. Sociology, A Brief Introduction. 6th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005. 77.
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