What is beauty? Many people have sought the answer to this question over the period of time we have to come know as the human existence. Is anyone really qualified to answer this question? When perception is such an abstract thing, each individual’s tastes and opinions so different from the next, how is it possible to compile a concrete description on what it is so many people wish to achieve? There are many different ideas as to how people can interpret the concept of beauty.
Beauty occurs in different places. For instance, beauty can occur in trends, though, according to Jean Godfrey-June, author of the essay Why I Wear Purple Lipstick, “[b]euty trends are rarely about being beautiful.” In saying this, she makes a point about how what people see as beautiful is often what they’re told is beautiful. If being different, making your own style, to trying to rise above others, is beautiful, people will see it as so.
Beauty can also be a negative thing. When beauty is forced upon a society, especially that of a particular form of beauty, it can stress the society into a negative outlook. For example, in today’s modern society, being thin is being beautiful. Being blonde is being beautiful. For women, having a large bust size and a small waist is beautiful. For men, muscles and height are beautiful. But how many people can actually live up to these standards? Alex Kuczynski, her book Beauty Junkies, quotes Dr. Peter B. Fodor, who believes that, “[t]he look is cookie-cutter beauty.” Nearly every person in modern day society strives to be a member of this cookie-cutter world.
Beauty, like art, is an objective thing. Every person has a different perspective on the world. With so many different people in the world, there has been so many different interpretations of what the word beauty means. Nancy Etcoff states that, “[l]ooking to the object of beauty, we confront centuries of struggle to capture beauty’s essence.” By trying to pinpoint one particular definition of beauty, people have forced themselves into a struggle to find the answer to an unanswerable question.
I believe that beauty should be, as one wants it to be. Uninfluenced, and untainted by society, beauty should be however one feels when they come across something they truly love. I suppose the question will never be answered, exactly what beauty is, but people will always continue to form their opinions and strive to be whatever it is that beauty may be.
