[LMB] OT: Beauty

[Elizabeth Holden]

--- "Tora K. Smulders-Srinivasan"
<tora.smulders at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd just hate to have my son think that
> he is better than everyone else because of the way
> he looks.  Or that his only value as a person is 
> the way he looks.  

No, you wouldn't want him to be shallow.  And my
comments weren't entirely based on what you said, but
on my own reactions to a society which I find very
conflicted in the matter of beauty, often acting as if
beauty was something to be ashamed of, though the
beautiful are simultaneously idolized on the cover of
just about every magazine you look at. People will
admit to being intelligent (sometimes) but not to
being beautiful, and the one thing is as much an
accident of genetics as another.  

> I don't
> want him to become a spoiled brat either.

I don't think you'll need to worry about that. The
people who would spoil a child are usually the ones
who would do so whatever he or she looked like.

I like the way this is highlighted in the Vorkosigan
novels - see how i can  twist this back around to
being on topic? - in that Miles believes himself to
not be beautiful, and believes Ivan to be beautiful,
and it leads to a lot of misjudgement - especially
since Ivan, for any number or reasons, plays up his
airhead image, and Miles overcompensates.

namaste,
Elizabeth