At least you didn't have kids...

Since I am on a kick about cliche' sayings that I really hate, I might as well cover this one, too.

So some of you know I got divorced last year. One of the most common questions I got from people who didn't know me was "Did you guys have any kids?" (We didn't) and they and people who do know me tended to say "At least you didn't have kids..."

Now, first of all, I once again understand why people think they say this. They think they say it because it will make me or any other non-parent divorcee feel better about things. But I have to tell you from my perspective that it is one of my least favorite things to hear.

I'll tell you why I think people really say this in a little bit, but first let me say why I think it is a stupid thing to say, once you think about it.

First of all, imagine that a couple divorced partly because of one partner's inability to have children. (This is not my case.) Imagine what it would feel like if you had a marriage fail partly because you could not have children, and then someone says to you as consolation: "At least you didn't have kids." I would choke them.

Imagine a second case (closer to my own) where a couple considers having children at some point, but divorces before that happens. The would be consoler's "at least you didn't have kids" now serves as a painful reminder that the marriage didn't make it long enough to get there.

My case is best captured by this analogy: Imagine a guy whose parachute doesn't open, and who hits the ground hard enough to break a bunch of bones, but lives through the fall. Now imagine the would be consoler in the hospital, who says "At least your kid wasn't with you" and the parachuter replies "but I don't have any kids" and the would be consoler says "Yeah, but imagine how bad it would have been if you did."

I think the parachuter should say something like: "I'm laying here with all my freaking bones broken, and you want me to consider some hypothetical?!?"

I get the point. People who have kids tend to prioritize them in such a way that they imagine a divorce mainly in parental terms. It is not hard to imagine also that some people avoid divorce precisely because of a concern for their kids. But those of us without kids are not there, and we get very little satisfaction (and if my hypothetical cases above are sometimes real, then we may get a lot of pain) from considering how lucky we are not to have any kids.

So, the next time some non-parent tells you about their divorce, just ask them how they are doing, and leave their imaginary kids out of it.

EHFAR

I couldn't even type it out. I had to use an acronym.

My apologies up front to the person who reminded me how much I hate the phrase--she had no idea, and was just saying the kinds of things people say. This is not about her. It is about the following:

"Everything happens for a reason."

Ugh.

So just to clear up why I hate it, it can really only mean one of two things, and neither explains anything.

First, it could just mean that everything that happens had some reason, or some cause, for it to happen. So, when water boils, we might say that the reason it boiled was because it hit around 100 degrees celsius. The boiling happened for a reason, just like every other event. This is true enough, of course, but it doesn't really mean much. For every effect there is a cause. Okay, got it. And sometimes this is helpful to know, like when you want to make macaroni. There are mechanical laws in the universe, and things tend to behave according to them.

Of course, this isn't what people usually mean when they say that everything happens for a reason. They usually have in mind the second meaning, which is that everything happens because it was supposed to happen that way. Who supposed it? Well, generally it is thought to be God, although I have also heard it used in ways that suggest maybe Karma, or The Force, or some other Power has meant whatever happened to happen. And usually the basic idea is that, although whatever happened seemed really unfortunate, really whatever happened was for the best.

But this doesn't explain anything either. Referring to some Grand Plan of which we could have no knowledge to explain why something bad happened is replacing something that is potentially difficult to understand with something impossible to understand. It is also just showing a pretense to knowledge. If you don't really know that God or Karma or whoever or whatever planned that particular event to happen that way (and how could you?) then you can't say for sure that anything happens for a reason in that sense. So just don't say it, okay? (And especially not with that knowing tone.)

I realize that, in hindsight, many events are such that they would not have happened were it not for dozens or hundreds or even millions of sequential events happening just so. But, for me, the very improbability of any individual event taking place is magnificent enough, without imparting some divine or cosmic purpose behind it.

Put differently, if we took enough time to appreciate the richness of the first possible meaning of "everything happens for a reason," we would never need to intend the second. And I would like that very much.

On Blues Music and American Philosophy

Link to a paper I presented on John Dewey and Albert Murray, and about the nature of art.

http://www.american-philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2001/Discussion%20papers/nathan_hill.htm

(Note: the email listed for me there is dead)

Beautiful People

(Just came across this essay I wrote a few years ago. I like it.)

Beautiful People

If there were a calendar that highlighted the most important annual events in our celebrity culture, one of the most revered dates would surely be the release of People Magazine’s “Fifty Most Beautiful People” issue. The 2002 issue featured a list of thirty women and twenty men who the editors felt best exemplified beauty in contemporary pop culture. Atop the list sat Nicole Kidman. In the brief editorial column in the magazine, managing editor Martha Nelson wrote of Kidman’s selection:

The choice to top our 13th annual 50 Most Beautiful list with Nicole Kidman was a natural one. Rebounding from a very public divorce with grace, poise and dignity--as well as her first Oscar nomination, for Moulin Rouge--she has proved to be magnificently resilient, committed to forging ahead on her own terms. (8)

In further comments, Kidman was characterized as “quite giggly,” “charmingly self-deprecating,” “inviting and warm” (8). Later, in the introduction to the list, the editors wrote:

Beneath the moisturizers and mascara this year’s chosen 50 are brimming with joy. “I always wake up in a good mood,” says our cover girl Nicole Kidman. Reese Witherspoon focuses “on the things that make me happy--my marriage, my child, and my work.” And Cameron Diaz says, “It’s all about being comfortable with who you are.” That exuberance shows up in the glowing faces on the coming pages. Behold 2002’s beauties. (75)

Forget that this blip really had little to say to the beautiful men pictured (“moisturizers and mascara”?). Forget that the messages of resilience, self-confidence, and dignity seem to be lost in a sea of smashing good looks. Forget this problematic stuff, and note that People magazine at least said that beauty has something to do with something beneath or beyond mere physical appearance. This message was built into every one of the fifty pieces in the issue.

Consider, for example, comments on someone who was undoubtedly one of the most unexpected recipients, Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney: “[C]hildhood pal Tom McCaffrey insists that while Romney’s ‘family looks like a Gap ad, which makes us all a bit cynical,’ he is a man of ‘immense credibility and character--which shows in his face’” (156). This quote reveals a tension underlying Romney’s good looks. Being handsome or pretty often evokes an air of superficiality or even vanity. Thus, McCaffrey initially assures us that Romney’s good character exists despite his good looks. Of course, he follows this by saying that Romney’s good character “shows in his face,” in keeping with a long tradition relating goodness and beauty. Nevertheless, the central point here seems to be that real beauty, like real character, lies on the inside, even if occasionally spilling out on the surface.

Supermodel Tyra Banks, in her book Tyra’s Beauty: Inside and Out, puts forth the same basic claim in this way: “Without the inner beauty that comes from a strong sense of self, all we’ve got is a nicely wrapped package with nothing filling it”(168). Later in the book, Banks clarifies this “sense of self” as a kind of self-love:

[S]elf-love is the real approval and appreciation of who we are deep down inside. I’m not talking about that ‘I’m so cute. I’m so fine. I’m all that and a bag of chips’ kind of self-love. We are all we’ve got, so we better get to lovin’ not only who we see in that mirror but what we feel about ourselves when we look in that mirror. (192)

Some fifteen years earlier, a similar characterization of inner beauty was extolled by Sophia Loren, in the introduction to her book, Women & Beauty. “My approach to beauty begins not with the face or figure but with the mind. If you can learn to use your mind as well as you use a powderpuff, you will become more truly beautiful”(12). For Loren, in order to be beautiful a woman must first believe herself to be beautiful. Only after she has convinced herself and discovered her own beauty will she “radiate the pleasure of [her] discovery”outward to others (17). Loren is quick to note, however, that simply believing oneself beautiful will not be adequate in a culture with specific requirements for beauty. This also requires that a woman commit herself to the practices of a rather specific “beauty routine,” which is worth it in the end for the self-confidence and pleasure it brings (19).

Now, there is certainly much to worry about in terms of the contradictions inherent in these texts. Both Banks and Loren offer a shot of inner beauty, followed by a long chaser of hair and skin care, makeup, fashion, diet, exercise, and other advice, all dedicated to the enhancement of external appearance. But, both seem to believe that external beauty, even if culturally prioritized, is in the end only a vehicle (or an obstacle) to, or an effect of, a kind of inner beauty that comes from loving oneself as one is. Real beauty, again, is on the inside. In this sense, Banks and Loren have tapped into a prominent theme in the Western philosophical tradition.

In the Symposium we find Socrates recounting the speech of Diotima, in which she says that “personal beauty is a trifle” (51). Of course, it is not that personal beauty is wholly unimportant, but only that it has its place. Specifically, personal beauty is but one species of beauty, and is ultimately important insofar as it leads one to recognize the beauty of all beautiful forms. Moreover, “the beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward form,” presumably because the mind or soul is capable of more constancy and is more lasting than the external body (51). This general movement toward higher and more lasting forms continues in Diotima’s speech, ultimately resting in the “science of beauty everywhere” or the form or essence of beauty (51). Thus, in terms of the progression towards absolute beauty, the inner beauty of a person is higher and more lasting than their external beauty.

In fact, as the case of Socrates shows, one need not even be beautiful on the outside in order to be understood as truly beautiful. As Alcibiades reports, Socrates has a face like a satyr (56). But, in a rather famous passage, Alcibiades notes that Socrates is like one of the figures in the statuaries’ shops, that when opened, reveals images of gods inside (52). He continues:

But when I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded--they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw them. (58)

While there is much more going on here than a distinction of inner and outer beauty, at least part of Alcibiades’ speech and indeed, the Symposium on the whole, is dedicated to just this point.

Joseph Sen argues that Plotinus’ conception of personal beauty hinged on a similar turn toward interiority, and the recognition of a priority of inner over outer dimensions. Sen cites the following passage from Plotinus:

But perhaps it is not really possible for anything to be beautiful outwardly but ugly inwardly; for if the outside of anything is wholly beautiful it is so by the domination of what is within. Those who are called beautiful and are ugly within have an outward beauty, too, which is not genuine. But if anyone is going to say that he has seen people who are really beautiful but are ugly within, I think that he has not really seen them, but thinks that beautiful people are other than who they are. (24)

Thus, for Plotinus, outer beauty, if genuine, is merely the effect of inner beauty. On the other hand, someone who appears ugly may, in due time, become beautiful to us, as we see deeper into his or her soul. Thus, as Sen puts it, external beauty is something that may simply be “spotted” at any time, but inner beauty is only “won through acquaintance” (25). Discovering the inner beauty in ourselves and others requires time and effort, but such beauty is there, waiting to be realized, analogous to the sculpture waiting in the stone.

But this analogy is somewhat misleading. The notion that beauty is there, in the stone, suggests that it could eventually be “spotted.” In other words, beauty is still understood here in terms of visual perception. Granted, it may take some time and effort to be able to see it, but the payoff comes in the form of a physical form. Put slightly differently, the real force of Plotinus’ position is that real beauty requires a different kind of seeing, a kind that takes time. In fact, beauty isn’t really something that one sees in the first place, but rather, it is something with which one becomes acquainted. Here again, the example of Aclibiades and Socrates helps make the point, since it is not so much that Alcibiades sees a different Socrates than most, but that he has come to know one.

Of course, we are getting into some tricky territory here, especially since the act of seeing and the act of knowing have been so closely intertwined in Western philosophy and literature. Our ordinary language reminds of this constantly: do you see what I mean? But the point from Plotinus and Plato seems to be that real beauty depends upon tendencies over time, which cannot simply be seen but must be known. Sophia Loren seems to agree when she asks her readers to imagine a couple of beautiful women and then says,

[I]f you stop and examine these “beautiful” women you will almost surely see that something more than hair, eyes, skin and figure made them spring to mind. In fact, they may have some defects like a big nose or small eyes or a less-than-perfect complexion. Yet somehow they have convinced you, and probably most of the people in their lives, that they are beautiful. (14)

As already suggested, these women have been able to convince others of their beauty largely because they exhibit what Loren describes as a “healthy vanity,” which includes “charm, self-confidence, and style” (18). Beauty is once again described in terms of a way of being that one might experience, rather than something that could be simply seen.

Returning to Plotinus, we find this theme developed in even more detail. Beautiful objects do not possess a property called beauty, but rather, serve as a trace of the Idea, Beauty. In order to see through, as it were, the superficial into the Idea, Plotinus recommends that we “Shut [our] eyes, and change to and wake another way of seeing, which everyone has but few use.” As for Plato, the search for beauty with Plotinus is an inward one. It is a movement from sensible beauty through the soul to the more lasting and transcendent Beauty, which is intimately related to the Good. This journey toward Beauty is thus anything but superficial, and is in fact imbued with a deeply ethical character.

Being beautiful is therefore related to being good. We have already seen that Plotinus thinks it impossible that one could be outwardly beautiful but inwardly ugly. But, we must be careful here, since for Plotinus there really isn’t something that can be termed outward beauty. Outward beauty is not something that resides, say, in a face, but is rather an effect of the radiance of inner beauty. Put slightly differently, Plotinus is not saying that pretty people are necessarily good, but that beautiful people are. And to say that beautiful people are good is almost a tautology.

For the most part, and most likely without conscious intent, Hollywood culture has preserved this link between goodness and beauty. But, Hollywood tends to take the further step and make all the beautiful people pretty as well. Not only do good guys and gals always wear white, but they also typically wear it well and to great effect. But there is a common counter tendency here as well, as made clear in the Farrelly Brothers film Shallow Hal. In this film, all characters who are good and beautiful on the inside are outwardly ugly. Those who are pretty on the outside prove to be ugly within. (The film uses two actors for each character to really drive home the idea that our inner and outer selves are different.) The point here is the one made earlier about how external beauty can be understood as representative of a certain level of vanity or superficiality, which in turn makes for a less inwardly beautiful person. Shallow Hal’s problem is our problem: namely, that we don’t know how to see through misleading appearances to the inner person.

While the film fails in too many ways to mention here to offer a convincing remedy for this lack of vision, it, like People, at least claims to be promoting the search for a kind of real, inner beauty. The movie is disappointing. At the same time, I am drawn to it because I find the original intent to be somewhat compelling, perhaps because of the philosophical legacies already discussed. In a culture such as ours, what self-respecting critic wouldn’t be supportive of a project aimed at getting beyond the superficialities of mere external beauty? The idea of finding some kind of lasting identity behind all the glitz is appealing. Seeing people for their real beauty--I’m down with that.

But I'm not entirely sure I know what this means. Confident that real beauty is not mere appearance, I am also skeptical of any major transcendental turn here. Plotinus' advice that in order to see real beauty we must shut our eyes just seems to miss too much of what we mean when we talk about beauty. We need a better alternative, and one way of thinking this through is to consider beauty's worldly counterpart, fashion.

Karen Hanson, in an extremely perceptive essay titled “Dressing Down Dressing Up: The Philosophic Fear of Fashion,” writes, “the search for lasting truths and enduring values is a noble activity, but it has sometimes engendered a flight from ordinary, common experience, the experience of growth and decay, coming-to-be and passing away”(231). Among these common and passing experiences is that of fashion and dress. Styles change; clothes wear out. Fashion inevitably leads back to another source of precariousness: my bodily existence. In fact, I need clothes of some kind or another, and as a philosopher, this need may “stand as irritating proof of some fatal failures” (235). Much to the dismay of Plotinus, I cannot see through the superficialities of my embodiment to the Idea when I am especially chilled, or hot, or otherwise uncomfortable. Given these facts, perhaps I respond with spite to fashion, which constantly reminds me of my limitations and my mortality, and which continuously spurns my philosophical thirst for constancy. And like so many before me, I take a stand: I will wear clothes, sure, but I absolutely refuse to be constantly in style.

But there is undoubtedly a middle road between simply submitting to every fad and refusing to (or attempting to refuse) participate in a world mired in appearance. Hanson quotes Thoreau here:

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit?...Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged and dirty the old, until we have so conducted, or enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. (232)

Thoreau wants a change of character with each change of clothes, and though the former is clearly the most important, the latter is not superficial. The recognition is that though clothes may not make the man, they can certainly fit him. Moreover, Thoreau advocates here a way of thinking about clothes that is hand in hand with thinking about oneself, a concept that has no shortage of supporters in the philosophical tradition. As Hanson puts it, “[s]elf-consciousness, it must be remembered, is generally an epistemological advance. One would need a special argument to show that the self-consciousness connected with an awareness of and interest in one’s appearance is inherently retrograde”(239). Of course, she is quick to point out that the kind of self-consciousness implied here is a bit different than traditionally formulated, especially since it requires seeing oneself as an object as well as a subject. Philosophers are supposed to be knowers, not the known; seers, not the seen (239-40). Yet a willingness to be seen, and to see oneself as seen, might help create an atmosphere where philosophy and fashion complement one another.

Philosophers need to take more seriously the ways in which who we are is intimately connected with how we look. We already do in many contexts, as for example when we consider what our attire will say to potential employers. But this is usually a negative consideration; that is, we are typically worried that our dress will suggest something about ourselves that we do not intend. This also seems to be what is going on when we claim to be “self-conscious” about our appearance; namely, that the self we see is not really our self. In such cases, the clothes just don’t fit.

We have been asking some of the right questions in this regard, but in the wrong contexts and for the wrong reasons. We have all frustratingly asked, “How do I look?” but have not desired or usually received an answer that appreciates the possible complexities of the question. Of course, we will need to learn to understand the heavy implications of the question before being able to cope with the answers. Thoreau is right to call such moments “crises” in our lives. Nevertheless, a positive consideration of the suitability of our fashion to our character could be philosophically instructive. It might also open up a space wherein we can think of external beauty as a (different) kind of fitness, instead of mere superficiality or an emanation of inner radiance. What might happen if we resisted our next haircut, or the purchase of a new scarf, until we were confident they suited the demands of our character?

Works Cited

Banks, Tyra, with Vanessa Thomas Bush. Tyra’s Beauty: Inside and Out. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.

Hanson, Karen. “Dressing Down Dressing Up: The Philosophic Fear of Fashion,” in Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective, eds. Hilde Hein and Carolyn Korsmeyer, 229-241. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.

Loren, Sophia. Women and Beauty. New York: W. Morrow, 1984.

Plato. Symposium. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1980.

Sen, Joseph. “Personal Beauty in the Thought of Plotinus,” in Neoplatonism and Western Aesthetics, ed. Aphrodite Alexandrakis and Nicholas J. Moutafakis, Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.