How many times have you heard a young child abruptly say "s/he's ugly!"?
As the oldest sister of three, i have hear these types of comments very often, but what really determines how attractive a person is? Why is it that we generally associate black with bad and white with good? How did we come to believe that thin proportionate women are "pretty" while one with a few extra pounds may be considered unattractive?
The way we think is something that we usually do not do on our own, our ideas are influenced by what we have seen, heard or experienced in the past. Young children who fear the dark most likely do so because they have been told that there is a monster in the dark, or they have seen something similar in movies or shows. Is it possible for us to invert the effects of fear in future generations? Perhaps it would be a difficult task for us to erase what we have known for our whole lives from our memories and learn the truth as it is, but it would not be as complicated for us to prevent younger generations from having the fears we were raised with.
What would happen if people stopped telling their children that there is a monster out there that will get them if they don't respect them? would they grow up to be fearless people with no respect for authority? What if we began to react positively towards something we wouldn't normally do so? Say we began to tell kids that "fat" people are "pretty" or attractive, would they feel so bad if they were overweight in the future?
I think this is why some people from other cultures may consider certain thoughts or actions appaling when it seems perfectly normal to us.
Do we really think the way we think we do? or is it all a figment of our imagination and a copy of collected thoughts we have observed in the past?
If we all decided that dollar bills are worthless, that they are nothing more than printed pieces of paper, then that's all they would be! If everyone agreed that rocks are precious and diamonds are not because they're strange, then we would be paying to buy normal rocks instead of diamonds.
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That was really interesting. I have to agree with you, however, I believe that the way we think is in part due to past experiences, but is also a result of our own perception of the world around us.
-Amanda-
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I think that what makes a person unattractive or ugly....I hate that word...is how they see things...if someone is negative about life or things around them then I generally see them as less attractive...but if someone has a beautiful mind and personality then that defines attractiveness for me
that's true, but how did we begin associating certian personalities as "beautiful" and others as not?
I honestly don't know...I would guess that it has something to do with negativity...people don't want to be around the "downers" all the time so that gradual became unattractive...but I can't really say