Ghost of a flea: Against beauty

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December 06, 2007

Against beauty

Two Ace of Spades HQ posts suggest to me the virtual dictatorship of the stupid instigated by Frankfurt School Marxism is only properly confronted by ancient celebrations of beauty and accomplishment, in this case defended by an actual Communist dictatorship. Dave in Texas points to Zi Lin Zhang*, Miss World 2007 and a representative of the People's Republic of China and the principle of the silver lining. Gabriel Malor considers the anti-meritocratic implications of protests against the forthcoming Beijing Olympics. Not that our moral guardians are concerned about, for example, the occupation and colonization of Tibet, the brutal suppression of religious minorities or the cloud of war hanging over the Republic of China, the vibrant democracy in Taiwan.

No. We are instead meant to be concerned about the discrimination attendant to hiring only young, tall, slim and attractive women to present medals.

First, are there really people out there who are "professionally qualified" to present medals at award ceremonies? Is that a good gig, and where can I sign up? I'm tall.

Second, doesn't Human Rights Watch have better priorities in China than protecting ugly, fat professional medal presenters?

Expect this issue to be raised, and organizers to fold, at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010; the Chinese have some remaining vestige of ethical and aesthetic conviction we lack. But do not expect this to end with the medal presenters. If we cannot make aesthetic distinctions for something as banal as hanging a medal around someone's neck we can hardly expect Olympic judges to make the same distinctions for non-quantitative events such as figure skating or synchronized swimming. No reason to stop there either. Who are we to judge that lifting heavier weights, jumping longer distances or running fastest down the track is to be rewarded? Why no reward to weak and the slow?** It is aesthetics or ascetics and increasingly our civilization is taking the wrong side.

* Scroll down a bit.
** In Canada, these rewards are called "government".

Posted by Ghost of a flea at December 6, 2007 06:47 AM

Comments

David Brooks had an excellent column a few days ago on China’s transformation from a Marxist dictatorship into something closer to a Confucian meritocracy. Ironically, the “Marxist” Chinese seem to place a high value on things like competition and achievement. Self esteem, not so much.

Posted by: utron at December 6, 2007 10:42 AM

I love the term "corpocracy".

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at December 6, 2007 10:46 AM

I am a terrible person. I actually prefer seeing medals hung around the necks of boring athletes in boring international competitions to be tall thin and hot. I'm sorry fat ugly short people of the world, call me shallow, but I don't wish to look at you if I am doing so as part of my daily entertainment regime. I also often have been known to choose a longer lineup at the grocery store so I can be served by an aesthetically pleasing young female human as opposed to a sweaty old ugly one, because I am male and I like to be around nice looking girls, if only for a fleeting moment of thank yous and see you soons. Finally, what a terrible horrid person I am, but I usually dated women I was physically attracted to. I will now pop off and flagellate myself as penance.

Posted by: Gorthos at December 6, 2007 02:09 PM

Quite right too. But take care not to enjoy it!

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at December 6, 2007 02:12 PM