Beauty And How Do We Know It Analysis

The idea of beauty has had many social impacts throughout various cultures and its importance in these various societies shows a general fascination with the idea. However, beauty often limits our understanding of the world if beauty is established as the ultimate goal for people through deliberate means. When beauty becomes an artificial social construct, problems in our perception and understanding can arise. In the essay What is Beauty and How do We Know It?, by Nancy Etcoff, the idea of beauty being a personal attraction is presented. Etcoff describes how when beauty trends are designed to be attractive for a general audience, they are “no more real than the canned laughter chortling from our television screens.” This demonstrates how the business model of making an image be widely portrayed as “beautiful”, is in fact lacking of part of the spontaneous emotional experience that is associated with beauty. The design of

Jean Godfrey-June examines the development of beauty trends in Why I Wear Purple Lipstick. In this essay, Godfrey-June explains that beauty originates from the desire to be unique, similar to new, unconventional clothing styles. This disconnects the relationship between trends and being “beautiful”, as “Beauty trends are rarely about being beautiful.” With this constant urge to be seen as different and innovate in society, the focus is shifted away from the emotional connections that make beauty so personal to us as individuals, blinding us from living our lives to fulfillment. Constant desire to be seen as “beautiful” also has resulted in actions that lend us to see the world from a narcissistic perspective, robbing us of the acknowledging of diversity that exists. We begin to work towards a standard that is set by media outlets, and convince ourselves that these expectations are very important to the quality of our