Aesthetics and Dermatology

A little in the way of background:

As a poor graduate student, I get my hair cut at a local beauty school where I can pay $8 to be a live homework assignment for a student. It really isn't too bad- I have low standards and my haircut is pretty straightforward. Most of the students are vapid bleach-blonds or REALLY gay guys, but they make conversation and try to feign interest in your answers. Their responses to my being an organist are almost universally amusing.

At any rate, I was in there the other day for my semi-annual haircut and I ended up asking the girl cutting my hair if she had any plans after she completes her current program. She replied that she is going to continue on at the school in their "esthetics" program (strangely antiquated spelling). Intrigued, I asked what the program entailed and she responded that she would be focusing on skin care, specifically microdermabrasion. This struck me as a somewhat sad commentary on our society. Perhaps naively, I had expected her to respond that the program dealt with the nature and perception of beauty, and that she would be studying the great works of Kant and Hegel. In retrospect, this was probably not a realistic expectation of a program that aims to attract people without a college education. It seems sad to me that we have collectively reduced the study and understanding of beauty to mere skin care, yet, upon further reflection, I realized that appreciation of non-sexual beauty is nearly extinct in our mainstream culture. Notions of beauty only seem enter the public discourse in reference to the latest celebrity breast augmentation or most recent pop-music starlet.

Additionally, beauty seems to have become almost completely feminized- only women are referred to as "beautiful" (when not referred to as "hot" or "sexy"). Men are not beautiful, nor are they expected to have any appreciation of beauty, with the exception of the aforementioned hyper-sexualized variety. Even this appreciation must remain appropriately shallow, lest ones sexuality be called into question. Men who attempt to understand or participate even in even superficial beauty are immediately ridiculed as gay. Men are allowed to gawk at supermodels, but must not seem too interested in exactly how those women make themselves "beautiful."

Occasionally, a cultural phenomenon like the film American Beauty will attempt to widen the discourse but, despite initial positive reaction, never seems to achieve lasting success. Notions of beauty in the arts rarely if ever achieve public exposure or acceptance. Music is a commodity, art is a commodity. Film, fashion, architecture, are all commodities. As commodities, they are no more beautiful than a gallon of milk or a personal computer. They are meant for consumption, not appreciation; temporary enjoyment, not study. Art that is not a popular commodity (classical music, modernist art) is "elitist" and culturally insignificant. Artists themselves must bear part of the blame for this. The modernist artistic philosophy leaves little room for considerations of beauty. Because lack of beauty is/was a frequently leveled criticism against modern art and music, the modernist reaction has been to view beauty as a false romantic construction, not likely to crop up in contemporary academic discourse. On the other hand, the post-modern conception of beauty is completely subjective- anything can be and is beautiful. The oft-cited criticism of this notion is that since everything is beautiful, nothing is beautiful, since the very concept of beauty implies distinction from that which is not beautiful. To be sure, art and music from the 19th century and before is still regarded as beautiful by those who appreciate it and would be likely to use such a term. But appreciation of cultural artifacts is necessarily reified and backward looking. Where can we find beauty in today's world? Apparently, skin care.