The concept of beauty - 1
I have always been mystified by the concept of beauty. Since it is necessarily a subjective concept, any objective definition of beauty must be ill-defined. Still, at any point of time, in a given society, opinions do tend to converge on what constitutes a beautiful person. I want to understand the factors which shape this convergence.
I am particularly intrigued by fairness/darkness debate. We Indians usually regard a fair face as prettier than a darker one. Innumerable times, I have heard girls lamenting their lack of fairness or being awed by a fairer girl. Even if they seem fair enough (by my judgement), they never seem to be satisfied by it. The western women on the other hand has the same fascination for tanned skin. Even if their skins screams for protection they endlessly torment themselves by sun-bathing. Lots of them have red freckles all over their bodies (and it does look unhealthy), which may not be caused by sun, but definitely gets aggravated by it. But I am getting astray ... let me stick to Indians for the moment.
I do not blame only the women for such a bias. In fact I firmly believe that the men are more to blame. In part at least, this bias has to do with our colonial legacy, but it may be older than that. It looks more like victor getting (hijacking ?) the right to impose their culture on the loser. But at a subconscious level, the loser also meekly accept the dominance of the victor. This happens in all the primates and there is no reason to believe we humans behave differently. Perhaps the subconscious argument goes like this : since they are the victor, they must be superior in all respects, their men must be stronger and more virile, their women must be more beautiful and more fertile. Ergo, the fair complexion they have must be the reason of their beauty and fertility. So the males tend to liken fairness with greater chances of having babies. This in turn has the predictable effect on the women, which we witness daily at all the conscious/subconscious levels.
On the other hand, we have never accepted blondness with the same enthusiasm. This might signal two things : one, the fairness/darkness dilemma is older than colonial past and hints at some other conquest by some other set of people, who were not blonde ; two, we associate some disability or oldness with white hairs and cannot whole-heartedly accept European idealness.
My personal conviction goes with the first one. Even in our ancient epics, fairness is given a lot of undue importance. I believe, this has to do with the Aryan occupation of Indian landmass, but I may be wrong on this one. One thing does seem beyond doubt - whatever it is, it indicates some conquest by fair-skinned people of darker previous inhabitants of the Indian land mass. Again I am going astray ... let me stick to beauty and not history ....
I will continue .... part 2
I am particularly intrigued by fairness/darkness debate. We Indians usually regard a fair face as prettier than a darker one. Innumerable times, I have heard girls lamenting their lack of fairness or being awed by a fairer girl. Even if they seem fair enough (by my judgement), they never seem to be satisfied by it. The western women on the other hand has the same fascination for tanned skin. Even if their skins screams for protection they endlessly torment themselves by sun-bathing. Lots of them have red freckles all over their bodies (and it does look unhealthy), which may not be caused by sun, but definitely gets aggravated by it. But I am getting astray ... let me stick to Indians for the moment.
I do not blame only the women for such a bias. In fact I firmly believe that the men are more to blame. In part at least, this bias has to do with our colonial legacy, but it may be older than that. It looks more like victor getting (hijacking ?) the right to impose their culture on the loser. But at a subconscious level, the loser also meekly accept the dominance of the victor. This happens in all the primates and there is no reason to believe we humans behave differently. Perhaps the subconscious argument goes like this : since they are the victor, they must be superior in all respects, their men must be stronger and more virile, their women must be more beautiful and more fertile. Ergo, the fair complexion they have must be the reason of their beauty and fertility. So the males tend to liken fairness with greater chances of having babies. This in turn has the predictable effect on the women, which we witness daily at all the conscious/subconscious levels.
On the other hand, we have never accepted blondness with the same enthusiasm. This might signal two things : one, the fairness/darkness dilemma is older than colonial past and hints at some other conquest by some other set of people, who were not blonde ; two, we associate some disability or oldness with white hairs and cannot whole-heartedly accept European idealness.
My personal conviction goes with the first one. Even in our ancient epics, fairness is given a lot of undue importance. I believe, this has to do with the Aryan occupation of Indian landmass, but I may be wrong on this one. One thing does seem beyond doubt - whatever it is, it indicates some conquest by fair-skinned people of darker previous inhabitants of the Indian land mass. Again I am going astray ... let me stick to beauty and not history ....
I will continue .... part 2
posted by Aghori at 11:19 pm
1 Comments:
Nice reading... Waiting for the sequel!
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