In my own personal living environment, I choose to surround myself with things that I perceive as beautiful. This is one not-so-petty reason why my husband and I do not live together. He chooses to surround himself with things that he finds beautiful, things that horrify my own personal aesthetic perception. Some might say that my husband needs to get his act together and get rid of the items that I find ugly because they bother me. The reality is that I need to work on my own perception of things. I surround myself with things that I find beautiful because it brings me comfort and a sense of peace. The bottom line is that I am a control freak. Surrounding myself with beautiful things does not make me morally better. Instead, it keeps me locked safely into my comfort zone. I am not a better, more cultured person because my apartment portrays a Zen-like appearance. I would probably be a better person if my apartment portrayed the ugly realities of life. Ugliness exposes us to harshness, whether it be reality or fantasy, which helps us to appreciate life. Just like without suffering there can be no joy and without heat there can be no cold, without ugliness there can be no beauty. These opposite sides of the same coins give us the perception of degree variance that we would not otherwise have. Ugliness creates a nurturing environment in which human morality is encouraged to grow.
Defining ugliness
One dictionary’s definition of ugly is multifaceted and reads as follows: “1: FRIGHTFUL, DIRE 2: offensive to the sight: HIDEOUS 3: offensive or unpleasing to any sense 4: morally objectionable: REPULSIVE 5: likely to cause inconvenience or discomfort 6: SURLY, QUARRELSOME.” (Merriam-Webster) This definition suggests that ugliness is not only a visual experience, but an experience that can affect all senses. It also suggests that ugliness is not used only to describe those things displeasing to the senses, but also those things displeasing to one’s values, and those things that one would not want to happen to them self.
The word “ugly” is typically used to describe something perceived visually. However, any sense organ can be used to identify ugliness. If this were not the case, it would be impossible to describe the meaning of ugliness to a blind person when using strictly the sensual definition of the word. Foul smells are considered ugly. Those that are displeasing are usually either chemicals to be avoided or body odors – especially those that indicate the looming presence of illness or death. Basically, ugly smells indicate things we should stay away from. Disharmonious music, sudden loud outbursts, and sounds of pain, suffering, or imminent death are considered ugly. Although ugly is not typically used to describe tastes, it is fathomable that certain tastes could be described as ugly insofar as that they are displeasing to the sense of taste. The same holds true for things that feel ugly. To some, a snake skin may feel ugly. Other things that may feel ugly include scabs, open wounds, slimy fish, and deformity.
Ugliness is not a purely sensual experience, it engages the mind as well. Perceiving ugliness has four levels: primitive instantaneous repulsion, fear of possible or impending unpleasantness, moral repulsion, and aesthetic appreciation. We are born with the most basic biological responses to ugliness. Feeling cold is ugly, bright light is ugly, loud noises are ugly, and bitter tastes are ugly when we are newborns. Research has shown that newborns process unpleasant smells such as disinfectants and detergent in a different part of the brain than the smells of colostrum and vanilla. (Bartocci, et al) This primitive instantaneous repulsion to certain stimuli is a character trait that humans are born with. Other basic responses to stimuli that constitute character traits can be found across the animal kingdom and include the response of herring gull chicks to wooden sticks with red dots on the end of them. In fact, the response of these chicks can be manipulated by exaggerating the false stimuli. (Lehrer) This shows that these primitive responses involve no critical thinking or judgment calls at all. As a child gets older and builds up life experience, he/she learns that certain stimuli produce negative effects. For example, in a movie theatre, people make verbal and gestural responses to things they see on the movie screen, such as monsters. A typical human response to monsters is fear. These responses are reinforced by the way the people acting in the movie respond to the same objects. Therefore, the child learns that monsters are scary and that he/she should fear them. In the future, when that same child sees a monster, he/she will have a fear of possible or impending unpleasantness. Thus, the child sees a monsters, uses the judgment they have gained through life experience, and classifies that monster as being ugly. As that same child grows older, he/she begins to learn values. Back in the movie theatre, the child sees another monster behaving in a way consistent with that child’s values. For example, the monster may help someone or something out of harm’s way. The child’s first reaction initially will be to make a judgment that the monster is ugly, but this judgment will now be overridden by the child’s critical thinking skills when assessing monsters. “Good” monsters will not necessarily be classified as being ugly anymore. Eventually the child may even make the distinction that although a certain monster is evil, it still possesses beauty – this is aesthetic appreciation. Thus we have the progression of human cognition through the four levels of perceiving ugliness.
Ugly cannot simply be defined as being an antonym to beautiful – “whereas all the synonyms for beautiful could be conceived as a reaction of disinterested appreciation, almost all of the synonyms for ugly contain a reaction of disgust, if not of violent repulsion, horror, or fear” (Eco 16) Ugliness is disproportion and disharmony. It is degeneration, sickness, and deformity. It is the feeling of “I wouldn’t want this for me.” Ugliness can be found in nature, spirituality, and art, amongst other places. (Eco 16) Umberto Eco has identified three types of ugliness – “ugliness in itself, formal ugliness, and the artistic portrayal of both”. (Eco 19) Our reaction to ugliness begins as a basic reflex when we are born, and continually changes as we journey along our path in life.
Metamorphosis and perception changes
Like everything else in life, beauty and ugliness are temporary. They are temporary not only in the form of the object itself, but also in the way that the form of the object is perceived. A human person is born. Depending on the observer’s point of view, the newborn baby, covered in birth by-products is either beautiful or repulsive. As humans age, their form continually changes. At any point they can be considered either more beautiful or uglier than at a previous point in time. Other factors besides physical appearance determine how humans perceive other humans. Love, infatuation, power, money, and hatred, among other things, influence whether someone perceives someone else as being beautiful or ugly. Simple things, such as a smile, can make someone appear beautiful whereas before they smiled they were perceived as being ugly. This is because smiling makes a person appear as if they are nice or friendly. A cracked pot may appear ugly to some because the cracks indicate imperfection, but others may appreciate its beauty of being cracked “just so”. (Bender) A person’s perception also changes when he/she comes to a new understanding of something. For example, the image of Jesus, bloody and battered, hanging from a cross may appear repulsive to those who don’t know the story of Jesus, but will invoke the sympathy of others who understand the symbolic meaning behind it. (Eco 10) All things are continually changing. A beautiful forest may be ravaged by fire, but soon new sprouts will start to grow and bring with them their own beauty. A human may become horrifically disfigured. The beauty of that situation comes about when someone who loves that person forces them self to see past the horrible disfigurement. (Bender) Perhaps modern science and medicine has changed our view on things that were considered ugly in the past. Limiting diseases are not so limiting anymore due to these advances, and so they are less ugly. (Bender) Some people, based on their experiences in life, find ugly things to be beautiful. My husband marvels at hideous posters of evil and death, and displays them all over the walls of his house. Tattoos are a similar phenomena. Many tattoos are of demons or other items considered traditionally ugly. There are whole lines of action figures, such as Spawn, that are ugly. For those rebelling against society’s norms, ugliness can be an ideal. There is also the artistic ideal of accurate imitation of form. In such a case, “the image of the devil becomes beautiful if it is a good portrayal of his ugliness” (Eco 20) Some “attribute the impression of ugliness to flaws in our perceptions, and hence some may find something ugly because of poor light, because it was too close or too far away, because they saw it from an oblique angle, or because of the misty air that deforms the contours of things”. (Eco 46) Another flaw in our perception could be our lot in life, or where we are in our progress along our path.
Culture and ugliness
Cultures possess character traits. A character trait is “a distinctive but not necessarily invariable feature exhibited by all individuals of a group and capable of being described or measured”. (Dictionary) Ugliness is a character trait in two meanings of the term. It is a biological character trait insofar as ugliness can run rampant in families due to a trait such as a hook nose or dwarfism, etc. It is also a moral character trait used to describe a person’s typical demeanor. Someone who is always mean to others can be described as being ugly. Entire cultures can possess either one of these two definitions of character trait depending on their genes and morals.
There is not a lot of history on ugliness as compared to beauty. When it comes to artwork from other cultures, “we have no theoretical texts to tell us if these were intended to cause aesthetic delight, holy fear, or hilarity” (Eco 10) What we do know is that different times and cultures perceive ugliness in different ways. When societies are starving, it is those people who have the most fat on their body that are considered to be the most attractive, because they look like they are thriving. In an affluent society such as America today, those that have the most fat on their body are generally considered the ugliest. Also in America, we tend to shield ourselves from ugliness. The mentally and physically ill and the elderly are shut away in institutions so that the “normal and healthy” population is not exposed to them. Proportion varies with different cultures, as different ethnic groups are shaped differently and collectively view things differently. In a society where homosexuality is considered offensive, the portrayal of sex acts between members of the same sex would be considered repulsive, whereas they would not be in a culture which embraced homosexuality. (Bender) “The Greek ideal of perfection was represented by the kalokagathia, a term deriving from the union of kalos (generically translated as “beautiful”) and agathos (which is usually translated as “good” but covers a whole series of positive values)….[i]n view of this ideal, Greek culture produced a vast literature on the relationship between physical ugliness and moral ugliness.” (Eco 23) Some Christians hold the view that “the entire universe is beautiful because it is a divine work and thanks to this total beauty even ugliness and evil are in some way redeemed”. (Eco 43)
As an affirmation of my own values, I recently decided to stop wearing makeup. This turned into a kind of social experiment. What I found was that most of the men I talked to felt that I looked better without makeup, while most of the women felt that I looked better with makeup. This is because women have been conditioned by society that wearing makeup is a social norm and that men will find them more attractive if they do wear makeup. However, from a biological standpoint, women with bare faces appear more attractive to men. These same types social norms are what have created eating disorders and self-esteem issues in our society. Watching television influences people’s opinions of ugliness. For example, on the television show “Britain’s got Talent”, they recently aired the audience’s reactions to Susan Boyle. When she first walked out on stage, the audience’s facial reactions told that they thought she was a joke because of the way she looked. ("Susan Boyle - Britains Got Talent 2009 Episode 1 - Saturday 11th April") The reaction after she sang was one of utter surprise that someone who looked like her could sing so well. (Synnott) (As a side note, when I typed “ugly sensation” into the Google search engine, trying to get information on the senses and ugliness, Susan Boyle came up in the search, and her name came up again when I typed in “children’s reaction to ugliness”.) Airing this type of thing on television teaches those who are watching it to react in the same manner, and when millions of people are watching the same thing, a social norm is established. That so many people had the same reaction to Susan Boyle is an indication that many people in affluent societies uphold a certain standard of beauty and chastise anything that doesn’t meet that standard.
When a young child is confronted with ugliness he/she will react with little thought to that ugliness. However, when people with a moderate amount of life experience are confronted with ugliness, they have a choice on how to react to that ugliness. They can choose to be repulsed by it and avoid any further introspection, or they can use that ugliness as a means to explore who they are as a person. This exploration is a cognitive process that involves asking oneself why something initially appears repulsive. Is it because it is something that looks painful or evil? If it is painful, should the initial reaction really be repulsion, or should it be sympathy? If it appears evil, is it really evil? Do humans know enough about the world to determine if something is evil? Is something repulsive because it doesn’t portray the socially accepted norms or because it portrays something that is in opposition to one’s beliefs? Is it ugly because it reminds one of the part of them self that they do not like? One can learn a great deal about them self through this line of introspective questioning, if they are indeed honest in their response. As with anything that causes someone to question, the results can only be a greater understanding of the world and a greater understanding of one’s inner self.
When surrounding oneself with beautiful things, it is easy to forget how harsh the world really is. Beauty is only temporary. What if one’s beautiful house were to burn down? Siddhartha did not achieve enlightenment until he was exposed to illness, old age, and death. “Out of sight, out of mind” is an adage that the people of affluent nations seem to live by. While we can choose to separate ourselves from the rest of the world and put blinders on, much like George W. Bush did when he said in response to the Kyoto treaty, “[w]e will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America”, the reality is that regardless of where we were born or currently live, we are all humans with the same capacity for suffering. (Sardar) We will not remain separate forever, especially in this new world of global integration and technology.
How will we ever learn to cope with ugliness, evil, suffering, and death if we do not expose ourselves to it? Perhaps we don’t want to cope. After all, if you’re lucky enough to live in America, mind-numbing drugs, false hope, and feel-good tactics can be found everywhere you turn. Some people have managed to escape all of that. Some people want to experience life fully with the full capacity of their mind. For those people, there is ugliness to give an opportunity for moral growth. Ugliness to help them realize that they are not alone in their ugliness. Ugliness to help them realize that it’s okay to with people and things that are ugly. Ugliness to give them a complete picture of reality. Ugliness to make them question their values. Ugliness to bring them happiness when they come to the realization that they do not have to be surrounded by beautiful things. Ugliness to bring a greater appreciation of the things that are beautiful. Ugliness to help them realize it’s okay to be who they are. Ugliness to foster greater compassion. Ugliness to show them how they do not want to be. Such are the moral benefits of ugliness.
Works Cited
Bartocci, Marco, et al. "Cerebral Hemodynamic Response to Unpleasant Odors in the Preterm Newborn Measured by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy." Pediatric Research 50.3 (2001): n. pag. Web. 16 Dec 2009.
Bender, Frederic L. Philosophy 370 Lectures. Colorado Springs: UCCS, 2009.
"Character Trait." Dictionary.com. Web. 16 Dec 2009.
Eco, Umberto. and McEwan, Alastair. On ugliness / edited by Umberto Eco ; translated by Alastair McEwan Rizzoli, New York : 2007
Lehrer, Jonah. "Unlocking the Mysteries of the Artistic Mind." Psychology Today 01 July 2009: n. pag. Web. 16 Dec 2009.
Sardar, Ziauddin. Why Do People Hate America?. 4th ed. Thriplow, Cambridge: Icon Books Ltd., 2004. Print.
"Susan Boyle - Britains Got Talent 2009 Episode 1 - Saturday 11th April." You Tube. Web. 16 Dec 2009.
Synnott, Anthoney. "Rethinking Men." Psychology Today 7 July 2009: n. pag. Web. 16 Dec 2009.
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