Lookism is...

Post Reply New Topic

Because popularity isn't a function of one's own actions. It's a function of how one's actions are perceived and evaluated by others.

There is a limited extent to which said evaluations and perceptions of others can be altered by changing one's own actions. If and when experience demonstrates that no change in one's actions is sufficient to result in an acceptable increase in popularity, it becomes an irrational waste of time to attempt further change of one's own actions. At such a cusp, criticism of the criteria by which one's actions are perceived and evaluated is appropriate, as it yields a greater return (in information usable by the actor) than further attempts to alter their actions.

Of course, that only makes sense if you view everyone as doing the best they can with the resources, knowledge, and experience available to them. If instead you're the sort who looks to criticize and find fault, that's what will happen.

In my experience, those who make unqualified absolute statements about others are usually either projecting, or else just ignorant of logical quantification, or both.

See, this is a much more complex issue than simply health and mating.

I wouldn't classify myself as ugly (and this is another issue as very few people would do that). However, I know that the way I look has a huge impact on how I am perceived by others.

As a kid/teen I was always big/athletic but a bit pudgy and because of my relatively flat aspie affect, I was judged to be dumb and thuggish/mean.

As a young adult, I became interested in bodybuilding and I lost my pudginess. I developed broad shoulders, thick chest, narrow waist, etc.

After this transformation, most people judged me in a much more positive light. I was generally thought to be smart, nice, etc. Even people that I already knew treated me differently and judged me in a much more positive way.

In my 30s as I stopped working out so much and my body shape reverted to something a bit less like a comic book hero. Things changed again. I still looked physically powerful, but it was interpreted in a less positive way--I was seen as intimidating, mean, thuggish, dumb, etc. once again.

So, there's definitely something to lookism in my experience and it goes beyond mere biology and mating--although, I did get a lot more sex when I was bodybuilding too.

Bodybuilding made me more attractive as a mate, but it did not make me smarter or a nicer person even though I was perceived as such.

Over all, I think I'd tend to go with option C in poll. Attractive people definitely benefit from the 'beautiful is good' stereotype. This in turn has an effect on their development as a person and certainly gives those people advantages in specific areas of life and in certain types of work such as sales, public relations, etc.

Still, there is an unfair bias there that seems akin to racism too. I'm not really sure what to do about it. Since most people will never self identify as 'ugly,' it seems like the people who engage in this sort of discrimination are apt to get away with it.

I did not defined beauty in a good way. Averageness is the true beauty as there was a reason why averageness was chosen. However, we still have evolutionary baggage to correlate beauty with health and we usually slaves to our biology. Thus, "lookism" is spouted from this baggage we have.

To your other point, I do not disagree with racism with proof behind it. If there is factual evidence supporting a certain stereotype, then I would agree with it as the evidence support the claim as I try to be as rational as humanly possible.