Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
In the prejudiced eye of the beholder
How much do you think physical beauty affects your chances in life? What should individuals do to combat their own prejudices against "ugly" people? What should we do as a society? Do such people deserve special legal protections like other disadvantaged groups or is this too impractical?
When I first read the first sentence of this article, I could not help but laugh to myself as I realized that it is quite true. “Being good-looking is useful in so many ways.” Although it sounds a bit cliché and superficial, the truth is that every day, whether it is when we sitting in the bus on the way to school or standing in line for movie tickets with our friends, we are constantly judging people according to their actions, clothes and looks. However, what this article talks about is taking this statement to a whole new level.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, even if this matter may be true for some aspects of life, it is certainly not true for all. If we take various occupations as an example, it is possible to see that although media, business and politics might take the level of attractiveness into consideration, in areas dealing with science, sports and math the important thing are the results. Furthermore, if we wanted to argue even further, it could be said that the movie business needs even unattractive, talented actors and actresses for some roles.
However, the article does take such an observation into consideration and even begins to compare the lives of the handicapped to those of people whose looks are below average. These are two completely diverse “conditions”. Are people ever diagnosed with being ugly? Most mentally handicapped people have such a hard time fitting into society that they cannot even attend normal schools. The same thing goes for physically handicapped individuals. On the other hand, people that are not attractive have normally functioning brains and bodies that are in no way different from human beings with average looks.
In my opinion, if the government were to implement special legal protections for unattractive people it would be utterly discriminating against the individuals that were not classified into such a category. Such an action would completely contradict the purpose why such protections are made, which is to try to make everyone more equal. Moreover, the same kind of injustice that was described in this article can be found in the lives of attractive people, who are more than often considered to be unintelligent, irresponsible or self-absorbed.
Ultimately, I believe that looks do not matter as much as what is inside each person, since it is the personality that is the fuel for all long-term relationships.
COMMENT PART 1:
ReplyDeleteI must admit that this article’s main idea that good-looking people have certain advantages over people with not so good looks is true. And even though I have known about this before I read this article I never would have imagined the magnitude of these advantages. 230 000 $ (the different of the lifetimes earnings of a good looking person and a person with not so good looks), is actually how much an average person in Slovakia makes in 18 years working for an average salary.
However, I would suggest a completely different approach to this problem. What people try to do, is accept that this form of discrimination already exists on the world and try to give people affected by it means of solving their problem through for example the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. If we imagine the problem as one thing, and the commission as another new thing, we can see that people created the second thing to balance out the effects caused by the first thing. What people do not think about is looking into this problem, coming to the source and eliminating it from the society completely. I am not saying that this can be done quickly or at all, but I think this option should be given an attempt before we go into the creation of commissions.
The problem is simple. There is a certain fraction of employers that assign salaries also according to the looks of people. This fraction is not given in the article, so we have to accept two possibilities. The first one is that the amount of discriminating employers is the minority, while the second one is that it is the majority.
COMMENT PART 2:
ReplyDeleteBut before we can use this, we have to take a look at the assignment of the salary. In a standard job, before a person is hired, there is an interview with the employer and the employer can decide on the maximum salary. Therefore the actual process of the looks affecting the salary has to logically take place during this time. Proof of this is that if the salary was to be decided according to the looks, the employee’s physical presence on the interview would not be required. A photograph would do. And yet there are interviews. Also the salary is not usually changed after the interview. So the looks cannot change the mind of the employer afterwards. Therefore whatever is the cause of this form of discrimination, it takes effect on the interview.
Now as for the minority or majority, the problem is simple.
Assuming that only a minority of employers assign salaries according to the physical appearance of employees, we can assume that most of the employers on the world have their priorities set and know what they are looking for in an employee. Which raises the question, how did people that judge employees by their appearance actually get to the post from which their tendency to do so can influence other peoples’ lives? Only a person that does not know that he should not assign a person like this to such a task, would assign a person like this to such a task. And this person was once again chosen to be given the power to assign tasks to people by a person that did not see this quality within him. So I think that this effectively proves that this form of discrimination developed over time with and because of the incompetency of the employer’s predecessors to foresee the bad qualities within their employees. This problem could be solved by replacing these unfair employers with fair ones. (But then again their replacement cannot be chosen by someone that would be as incompetent to find a good replacement as their predecessors, because this would create an infinite loop of pointless attempts to solve a problem that is creating itself with every attempt to solve it).
COMMENT PART 3:
ReplyDeleteThen again, if a majority of employers discriminates ugly people like this, it is more likely to be hidden in the psychology of the employers. (Unless it is a majority of employees that were given their task by incompetent predecessors in which case the problem would be of an even greater magnitude) In that case, these employers should be made aware of this effect and instructed to watch out for it. A psychological reaction cannot be always noticed by someone that is not looking for it, but if employers were made aware of it, they might be more careful. Also people could attend certain lecture on watching out for this psychological effect before they are placed into the position of an employer.
I do realize that this would be difficult to do, but I disagree with living side by side with existing problems and trying to balance them out with new solutions. But that is up to you to decide. What is better? A world full of law enforcement or a world with no crime at all?
This article is in some ways a bit unrespectful to the „ugly people“because in my opinion it is quite harsh to say, „being good-looking is useful in so many ways“ and then list all possible branches where beauty could help. However, in some cases the statement could be true since there is still a lot of people who care more about the „outside“ of a person than about their „inside“.
ReplyDeleteThe issues of making a better solution between the contrasts of nice and ugly people by applying legal protections to the ugly are not fully over thought. People differ from each other that is our significance, so each of us has a different opinion about who is and who isn’t nice by which I support their expression that „the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.“ Logically, it is not possible to define exactly which people would belong to the ugly group, to whom the government should offer the legal protections. People shouldn’t do these differences. I understand that for example actors, actresses, movie stars, or singers have a better chance to be popular if they look good because everyone sees them, so it has a greater impact on the environment if they bring a new style of fashion afterwards, and there the media and business part starts. They get more Money because majority of the world likes them. However, this is already another level of considering whether beauty is important. For normal people, who live a normal life without cameras, without being seen it seems not to matter if the legal protections would or would not be done. If the government would implement such a solution it could be also considered as a type of discrimination. Who would be considered as which type? Ugly, Nice? So, the differentiation is here again.
To be honest, the fact that such protection already exists makes me a bit unsure about my arguments against it, that’s why my opinions might sometimes sound a bit unclear. I wonder if this radical solution really helped them and changed something in their lives. More or less, I don’t want to repeat myself again but I would be against these legal protections because to me “inside” of a person matters more.
This article deals with a fragile topic since assuming someone’s looks cannot ever be objective. It is stated that most people come to very similar assessments of ugliness. Nevertheless, it is up to each one how they treat others according to their looks. The approach of others in the everyday contact is a leading aspect causing people to think about their looks. However, there are a few more factors affecting each one's self-assessment. One of these factors are commercials promoting unhealthy beauty as well as typical role-models hugely presented in the media such as films and TV programs. These factors certainly affect human rational thinking about attractiveness. In addition, along with promoting beauty there are a lot of myths associating ugly people with unpleasant experiences. This is also the root of prejudices against them. Life would be much more peaceful if people stopped treating others based on their looks. But how can prejudice be eliminated when having so deep roots?
ReplyDeleteThere certainly is a difference between "the ugly" and handicapped or else-how disadvantaged, as Jana already said. I think that the main factor affecting the chances in life is the way people present themselves, the problem is not simply being ugly or not. The clue lies in between being ugly and feeling so in the way it affects one’s behaviour. This is a matter that can be solved as soon as the person gains more self-confidence. Here I would point out that applying any legal actions to make advantages to the ”ugly” would force people to make their mind about assuming themselves as such. This would be much more attractive option since they would receive help by this way. To sum up, governmental protections for those less attractive would make people feel proud of being classified as ugly, which certainly ruins the concept of natural confidence and appropriate self-assessment.
I fully agree with Šimon’s suggestion that any discrimination of this kind should be rather eliminated from its source than solved by governmental commisions. The idea of putting people into more levels of ugliness is very hard to follow. There would always be a thin line between those receiving some help and those who don’t. Any division of this kind is impractical and unfair, therefore irrational. In my opinion, the appropriate way to treat those less attractive is not giving them protections, e.g. money, but help them fight their self-underestimation via psychological sessions. In conclusion, such act would also save the legitimate disadvantage groups from being shortened on their deals due to accepting another disadvantaged group.