Friday, May 8, 2009

The "uglification industry"?

I ran across this article and I found it to be an interesting (and very true!) representation of how popular culture destorts our ideal of beauty.

Instead of counting imperfections (like advertisers want), count your blessings! Easier said than done...but we all need to hear this more often!

Age-obsessed beauty industry
thrives by telling people they’re ugly, scholar says


Margaret Morganroth Gullette, resident scholar of the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, says the beauty industry should instead be called the “uglification industry.”

Why? Because “it makes people feel ugly — inundates people with messages that they should be dissatisfied with how they look,” cited the
Chicago Tribune. People who use Botox to improve their appearance during job interviews do a disservice to society, said Gullette, who is the author of the book “Aged by Culture”: With job-related Botox, the danger may be that it deepens the pressure people feel to battle aging like it’s a terrible disease. …

“There’s a tremendous amount of resistance to the cult of youth,” Gullette said, [...] “We want people to defy an ageist culture, because an ageist culture is as ugly as a racist culture and a sexist culture.”

To read the full article click here.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Peter Kreeft

Here is a link to a site about Peter Kreeft, a (Catholic) "professor of philosophy at Boston College and King's College." I subscribe to his podcasts and they are great; he really knows his stuff! Whether you wish to solidify the views you already hold or learn more on topics you are curious about, I wholeheartedly suggest that you check them out. (Plus, they are entirely free!)

In particular, there are several lectures on the subject of beauty that may provide a broader understanding and appreciation for the subject of this blog. Take a listen!

P.S. You may also wish to explore the slew of books that he has written; I haven't read any of them but they sound excellent, and very interesting.

Hello!

Oh my goodness. Have you ever tried to come up with a name for a blog? It's not as easy. It seems every good name I could think of was already taken by someone else. But alas, God was good, and finally I got a URL that was usable, sort of catchy, and fit the purpose of this blog.
So what is the purpose? I'll cover that in the blog definition. But as for subject matter... I'll just 'talk' about anything I want to talk about. That's not very specific, so, I'll say that--as of now--I think I will cover things related to Catholicism, fashion/beauty, good clean fun, entertainment, and just random thoughts about trying to live a life of beauty inside and out. Beauty holds many definitions, but what I am talking about here is interior beauty, that is, a beautiful soul. After all, that is the most important type of beauty:

"Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised" (Prov.31:30).

Bible passage taken from http://www.usccb.org/ nab/bible_hold/proverbs/proverb31.htm


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