1 min readMar 31, 2020
I can see that this is a very serious problem. Fixating on the cultural capital of physical appearance cannot be a good thing.
Multiple researchers, however, have shown how good looking people tend to get less jail time, and yelled at less when they’re doing something wrong. Evolutionarily speaking, we are all wired to prefer people who have “beautiful” features — even babies crawl toward more beautiful person.
So, how do we reconcile these?
- People should not fixate on look since it’s purely a matter of luck. We’re all buying a genetic lottery before we’re born. Someone wins and someone loses. So, for those who did not win, why shouldn’t have a chance to collect money in order to purchase the look?;
- That said, we are hardwired (by the power of the will to reproduce, perhaps) to be attracted to people whose physical features entail health, confidence and charisma. How can we tell people to focus on the heart, and not the look, when the very mechanic that makes us humans relies heavily on the ability to tell the healthy from the nots by ways of look?