It's self-evident. A person is not born with his ideas. They're learned. They're taught. They're the result of observation of the world around you and how the world interacts with you, using your own natural inclinations (to whatever degree those exist) and potential as a template upon which to build.
That's what Locke and similar people argued a priori, but here's the thing, you can't argue on empirically testable topics just from a priori premises.
Yes, ideas are learned. But people are meat computers, not disembodied intellects which start entirely blank and are then created by input from society. They start full of hardwired machinery which adjusts itself based on inputs that it processes itself. The difference is incredibly vast and important. But that's another topic
Did you miss the parts where I pointed out differences between eras and cultures, or where I agreed that people do have some inherent potential that they're born with, and aren't completely blank slates?
Obviously. But if you take that to the point of blaming everyone else for what someone does, then it just gets ridiculous. Somebody was talking in another thread about how the underwear bomber was this really lonely guy in a strange country where he didn't fit in as a foreigner, etc etc, and then fundamentalist Muslims came along and recruited him and gave him a place to feel at home, etc etc, but who are you going to blame for him trying to blow up a plane? The fundies who recruited him? The people at his university who made him feel socially isolated? Or him, as a functional and responsible person capable of making his own decisions?
All of them are to blame. If you incite someone to do illegal things, you are to blame. If you do terrible things to a person which in turn cause them to do terrible things, then you are partly to blame because of the terrible things you did to them.
So yes, encouraging people to do bad things is bad in itself. I didn't think this was controversial. You can't blame someone directly for all of the results because the person can't necessarily
predict all of the results of his actions.
You're missing the point. Obviously the times and circumstances had everything to do with Hitler coming to power. So does that mean Hitler's no responsible for what he did? After all, if it weren't for the times and circumstances he never could have done it.
I didn't say that. I already gave you reasoning for why and how you should hold people responsible for what they do. My point was that the times and circumstances had a lot to do with
what Hitler was. He wasn't the only person like that at the time, and there's damn good reason for that.
Ok. And if women are shown pictures of extremely hot other women, and their psychology crumbles from it, they are obviously inadequately prepared to deal with the possibility of any woman existing hotter than themselves or people they know. it's not a poor comparison at all.
You didn't even read the rest of that part of my post, did you? If you did, and understood it, you'd know that a lot of my point relied on the fact that they
weren't "pictures of extremely hot other women"; they were falsified. Photoshopped, airbrushed, whatever you want to call it, they weren't even entirely photographs of real people anymore.
And the issue isn't simply "other hot women", it's encouraging certain standards of beauty to begin with to the exclusion of others. American culture is not very accepting of people with differing body shapes/types, and it plays havoc with the emotional stability of girls long before they even can be expected to think about such things for themselves.
You can't blame people for what effects their expressions have on other people
Yes I can, if it's known to be socially harmful and they do it willingly and only to make profit for themselves.
Wait, I thought ALL ideas were not your own. Don't they all come from outside? Get your psychology straight here...
You know what I meant by "their own"; the ones that they currently hold. You're seriously stretching there, presumably to avoid actually addressing the point I made, which you ignored.
This is the most absurd thing you've said. It's constructive for me to share my philosophical worldviews, sure. But "naturally beautiful?" Isn't beauty subjective and in the eye of the beholder? So how are you making judgments about how "naturally beautiful" is better than "not natural?"
Read my post again so that you might actually understand it instead of engaging in kneejerk reactions against what you
think I said.
Artificial beauty is fine. Natural beauty is fine. Expressing either one is fine. Expressing artificial beauty while CALLING it natural beauty is
not fine; it's deceptive.
Also, what is "naturally beautiful?" Makeup, hair coloring, clothing, and all manner of other tactics people use to make themselves look better are not "naturally beautiful." Why do you get to draw the line that defines what's natural, and why do you get to decide that natural equals good?
I never said that "natural is good". See above.
And yes, there are things like makeup and other aspects of personal care/beauty-adjustment to consider. However, the other things you mention are
actually possible for people to do. If a model has her hair colored and makeup on her face, not only is it usually obvious, but that's something that real people can do, in real life. You can put blush or eyeshadow or hair color on in real life, or wear certain styles of clothing. You can't photoshop your waist thinner or your legs longer, and a lot of that photomanipulation crap is done such that most people won't even notice that it's fake.
So yeah, there are artificial aspects to the ways people normally try to make themselves beautiful, but at least those are things people can do in real life, and at least you know it's being done.
Define for me how that is worse or is different from the promotion of any other worldview
Because it's purely selfish on part of the media. It's designed to sell product. In other words, it's bad because it's designed to use and abuse people for the sake of an industry's profit. Any worldview like this is bad, especially when it's mostly just the haphazard result of free-market economic forces.
Also explain to me why we should not have some standard of responsibility for people accepting or rejecting messages from their culture. In this case, it seems you're arguing that women have no ability to judge cultural messages, and therefore automatically absorb all standards of beauty that are broadcast to them. So are people not capable of making their own decisions about what to accept as valid?
You're ignoring several of my points yet again.
For one thing, I mentioned more than once (and am continuing to, since you don't seem to be reading it) that these standards are pushed upon people
long before the point in their lives where they can be expected to think clearly and critically about them. If we were born as adults, you'd have more of a point, but as children, middle/high school kids, etc., your faculties for critically thinking about these things aren't exactly up to speed yet, and pressure to fit in/belong/etc. will tend to override it anyway.
And let's say you ARE a middle school kid who rejects those standards which you find irrational or stifling. What then? Yeah, great for you, you're ahead of the curve when it comes to critical thinking, but you're still different from other people, and your peers will still judge you both for those ideas you hold and for whatever aspects of your person don't mesh well with
their ideas, so it'll affect you anyway, and in a big way.
And if so, then why are you blaming the fashion industry for giving women unattainable images of beauty? I'd blame the women for accepting them, since if they're as ridiculous and unnatural as you say, shouldn't any reasonable women laugh them off?See above. It occurs early in life as well, affecting even your ABILITY to learn to judge them (especially if you're
not actually taught to think critically about them in the first place; this is big), other people will still judge you harshly based on them if they subscribe to them themselves, and things like photomanipulation aren't always expected or obvious.
It's unhealthy to listen to made up shit without questioning it
here's the essence of what I'm saying, everyone is presented with all kinds of opinions, images and messages on a daily basis, and people are able to make intelligent decisions about how to evaluate each one.
Here's the catch: Not only (insert every single point I've made above; go read them again if you need to), but the very tendency to question things and even the ability to do so is something that
is affected by socialization itself. If you're never taught to question things very much to begin with, what you're saying becomes a hell of a lot harder.
Also, even if people are relatively good at making their own decisions and thinking rationally for themselves, it's very easy for them to be affected on at least an emotional level by things that are extremely pervasive in society; people care about what society expects of them; even when they don't necessarily agree with it, it can still be a source of stress, especially if it's something that was influencing you long before you could
make the choice to disagree.
There are certain markers for beauty that carry over across time and space (such as "does this person appear healthy and child-bearing"), but the particulars vary remarkably across culture, especially since people wind up associating different things with, say, health.
That doesn't contradict what I said at all
Er, yes it does. Society teaching you which things in particular to find "attractive" does seem to contradict what you said; you seemed to be implying that what we find attractive is ingrained and unlearned.
There are still limits on variation as well as universals that are common to all societies (in all aspects of human life, not just judgments of sexual attractiveness). For example, young women are considered more sexually attractive by men in every society on earth (just as evolutionary theory predicts). And weight of the ideal attractive women may vary, but it never veers into seeing stick-thing or morbidly obese women as attractive.
Yes, I'm aware that there are commonalities; I agreed to that.
Also, when it comes to things like weight, unhealthy tendencies CAN be seen as attractive, for a couple of reasons I can think of:
- I think I already said this (notice a theme, here?), but: Hypercorrective tendencies. When people are overweight extremely often, to the point where thinness itself gets linked to attractiveness, and being underweight isn't a prominent or often-considered health issue, then underweight women may still wind up being seen as attractive; people may overlook the fact that their weight is unhealthy, because they're focused more on "thin is good".
- People have different body shapes. Believing that a certain weight is healthy leads to trouble when people just naturally have different body structures and healthy weights themselves. There are plenty of women that are fairly stocky, but associating thinness with health/beauty sort of leaves them out of the picture and trains them to associate health/beauty with something that isn't even healthy for them in the first place, necessarily.
Also, despite what you are going to say about how unhealthily skinny some models and movie stars are, plenty of research has found that men aren't actually attracted to emaciated women.
I'm not sure about that, but even if that's true, it's not just about men. It's about the women who look up to them as well.
And regardless of whether or not men "like emaciated women", things are very much skewed towards that end of the spectrum. I've seen
countless examples of women being called "chubby" despite being perfectly normal or healthy weight. Even if emaciation isn't considered good by men, thinness is still
expected in order for someone to be attractive.
Do you find stick-thin models hotter than women that have a healthy amount of fat on them? I don't, and if you don't either, then you're living proof that people don't automatically internalize standards of beauty from their culture.
I never said it was automatic, or always worked, or that everyone is subject to the same influences. There are a lot of factors at work.
Also, I was largely talking about women and how their expectations of
themselves are affected.
Point is, more is up to environmental influence than you think. If what you said were true, then cultural standards for beauty simply wouldn't vary very much, unless you somehow think that's genetic too, and I basically already ruled that out as a possibility.
Wait, you ruled out the possibility that people's idea of attractiveness is genetic? You'd better get that published in a scientific journal ASAP, since it would overturn pretty much all the empirical findings of the past couple decades
Not what I said.
Anyway, my view does NOT predict that standards of beauty cannot vary. It DOES predict that their are outside limits on that variation. Find me a society where the men would prefer a morbidly obese woman to a healthy one, or a severely anorexic woman to a healthy one, or a postmenopausal woman to one in her twenties, and then you'll have somewhat of a leg to stand on in arguing against my view.
I
never argued that there weren't trends or commonalities across cultures. Seriously. For the last time.And like I said, the point is also that certain body types might be favored to the exclusion of others, resulting in some people who simply can't live up to what society views as healthy or beautiful, even though they might be perfectly healthy or look attractive from a more objective, outside perspective (although you can't really get one very easily; the best you'd have to do is establish trends across cultures).
Anyway, to get back on topic, my basic point is that it's dumb to hold magazines or the fashion industry accountable for people buying into the ideas they put out. If you must blame someone, blame the people that buy in, otherwise all notions of personal responsibility go out the window.
I think I've responded to this enough already, as has at least one other person here.
Oh sure, but I never hear anybody assign any responsibility to anyone but "the media."
Yes they do. Parents, schools/teachers, etc. are getting blamed for stuff too. And regardless of who DOES get "assigned responsibility", we're arguing about who SHOULD.
Anyway, if you're going to argue that messages that define beauty as unattainable are bad, then you're going to have to lump a lot of art in there as well, and plus, the argument extends to any form of media that ever portrays an impossibly high-quality form of some human trait. It gets pretty ridiculous when you start insisting that all media, which includes art and journalism and scientific publications, should promote "natural" portrayals of various things. And as I said, it also leads to the quagmire of defining what's natural and insisting that natural is good.
Like I said above: Presenting unnatural ideas is fine,
as long as you're not trying to pass them off as natural. A lot of the stuff we're talking about (modeling, photomanipulation crap) intentionally confuses the two.