To what extent is beauty quantifiable? Does a supposedly scientific definition merely reflect the ideal of the moment, built from the images of pop culture and the news media?
“How can they prove it?” said Lois W. Banner, a historian who has studied changing beauty standards, referring to scientific efforts to define attractiveness. “They are never going to locate it on a gene. They are never going to get away from the cultural influence.”
...Instead, he said, it was to tackle the challenge of altering a face according to agreed-upon standards of attractiveness,...
Quotes taken from NYTimes article: The Sum of Your Facial Parts
The dilemma of postmodernism is found even when it comes to the issue of beauty. Looking to sociology and the shifting nature of society for not only a standard but also the basis for the concept (of beauty) not only leaves man in a constant search and struggle to attain what constantly will be changing and fleeting (not to mention that it will not be real when he does achieve it but just what we call it) but in the end will be ultimately meaningless anyway (not only as reality cannot be known and holds no meaning or significance, but...) as concepts and life have no ultimate meaning and do not last or prevail.
This is what happens when thinking precedes being and when realities are defined by the temporal and mortal rather than having their origin and nature fixed in the eternal and immortal.
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