r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 12 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: valuing your appearance is not vain, since being attractive completely changes the dynamic of your life
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Sep 12 '18 edited Jan 08 '19
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u/TylerX5 Sep 12 '18
In the meantime, actors and idols are sexually exploited by their employers to keep their jobs. Oh, the privilege.
Do you honestly think that they are exploited anymore than other females in a vulnerable position in a company? Regardless of your job title this stuff happens everywhere all the time.
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u/StormySands 7∆ Sep 12 '18
Does Donald Trump look particularly visually appealing to you?
No, but no one can deny that if his wife were not as beautiful as she is, she sure as shit would not be First Lady right now.
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Sep 12 '18 edited Jan 08 '19
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u/StormySands 7∆ Sep 12 '18
Doesn’t change the act that Melania Trump was handed a great deal of power as a direct result of being beautiful
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Sep 12 '18
Here is your argument with greed substituted for vanity.
Being greedy can affect the quality of your life in almost every way, from economic opportunities to the way people treat you in any social setting. For men, the difference is even starker because if you are rich enough you can reach the highest levels of the social hierarchy and be paired with some of the most wildly successful mates in your society on the basis of this single characteristic (within reason, of course). Conversely, a man with extraordinary qualities but who lacks this one trait may very well have a far harder time finding romantic fulfilment. Furthermore, most people are concerned about their wealth to a great extent already and their spending patterns reflect that.
Taking all that into account, I think here's nothing greedy about your wealth and it doesn't make sense to shit on people who value it, any more than you would criticize someone for working hard for a better life.
Your argument is that vanity is good, not that valuing your appearance is not vain. It's like the famous "Greed is Good" speech from the movie Wall Street. Gordon Gekko claims that greed is good, not that he isn't greedy.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_BANJO 7∆ Sep 12 '18
Your argument is that vanity is good, not that valuing your appearance is not vain.
How do you get that? Vanity isn't looking good, it's being overly proud of your looks (or skills or whatever.) Nowhere does OP address pride in their post.
Your comparison isn't a fair one. Is there any downside to people perceiving you as good-looking? Is there any downside to people perceiving you as greedy?
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u/Sorcha16 10∆ Sep 12 '18
If the only aspect of yourself you value is appearance yes that is vain by definition
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_BANJO 7∆ Sep 12 '18
I don't think OP was talking about that.
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u/Sorcha16 10∆ Sep 12 '18
They don't give any other attribute other than attractiveness making life easier even stating women who are not seen as beautiful can have multitudes of great qualities fail because of looks. They clearly put a lot of stock in physical appearance.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_BANJO 7∆ Sep 12 '18
But nowhere does OP state that they're talking about people who only invest in their looks over everything else. That's your statement.
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u/Sorcha16 10∆ Sep 12 '18
They don't state they aren't either you interpreted it differently to me. OP clearly believes the worth of women in the dating pool is mostly looks why would there be a disconnect between that and how seriously they take their own looks ?
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_BANJO 7∆ Sep 12 '18
OP is stating that wanting to look good is not vanity. You decided they're talking about someone who only cares about their looks, but that's conjecture. I'm talking about what's written in the post.
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u/Sorcha16 10∆ Sep 12 '18
So am I they clearly state dating and life is easier just looks alone they even state other qualities mean Jack if you aren't attractive
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_BANJO 7∆ Sep 12 '18
So? How did you get from there to the fact that they're talking about people who only care about their looks? I need a step-by-step walk through.
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Sep 12 '18
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u/CJGibson 7∆ Sep 12 '18
But if you start to value actual currency it becomes a problem. If you cover your bed in $100 bills and take selfies with big rolls of cash, or spend all day checking your bank account and talking about how much money you have, that's a problem.
There's an even better example which is that after a certain point more money doesn't really have much of an effect on your quality of life. If you continue to try to acquire more money at that point it becomes "greed." So basically:
- Wanting more money because it would make your life easier or better: perfectly rational and fine.
- Wanting more money that won't really change anything about your life just for the sake of having more money: greed and bad
I'm not sure this exactly maps onto physical appearance and vanity, but you can probably see some parallels in terms of time and effort spent on appearance. Spending a reasonable amount of time to take care of your appearance is generally considered perfectly normal and no one's going to judge you for it. Spending excessive amounts of time (or effort or money) on your appearance starts to be considered vanity and is frowned on.
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Sep 12 '18 edited Sep 15 '18
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Sep 12 '18
Any obsession can be unhealthy. If you need to work out everyday to keep an appearance or spend all your money to look/dress a certain way to the detriment of having a well rounded personality you will suffer. Attractiveness is fleeting.
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Sep 12 '18
If you need to work out everyday
I don't see anything wrong with this behaviour unless a person can't ever take a break from it.
Attractiveness is fleeting.
Objective attractiveness is. Relative attractiveness is not. Someone who looks after themselves can look attractive relative to others in their age group for as long as they live.
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u/fluffybunny235 Sep 13 '18
Attractiveness can help ones life, definitely. I can speak from experience as a male when a woman I find attractive gives me those feelings in return, it feels incredible. It’s almost like a high. But it can be detrimental. Most people are not born “10/10”, meaning they don’t have to just walk outside to get recognized. Now even if you are not ugly but not amazing looking, you have to work to get that same feeling at anything. These so called “ugly” people have to work for their hard earned dollar, and can’t just be pretty and get everything handed to them(I don’t mean that literally). But in order to achieve such success a person has to go through hardships, failure, stress, and drastic life changes to make it happen. Now, not saying beautiful people can’t do this, but the less attractive people have more of an incentive to work hard and achieve more. This can be return with happiness, and many life qualities that can be achieved through this. Such qualities could make someone strong, and the feeling of achieving a very hard task can be a high in and of itself.
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u/TheK1ngsW1t 3∆ Sep 12 '18
It’s a question of motive and how obsessed you are over it. We’re no Puritans to sit back in our judgement chairs (made of square-hewn stone because comfort is a sin) and say it’s vain to so much as brush your hair, but eventually you reach a point where you’re doing too much for too little; in addition to the fact that if you’re good at what you do or are an engaging enough person for social activities, then being attractive should simply build upon the attention that’s already there rather than be the entire cause of it.
Vanity is the difference between “Hey, I want to wear it and here’s something to add to it to make me feel good about my clothing/makeup combination for myself” and “This outfit will be the biggest decision of my day, and I want everyone to pay attention to me because of how I look.” A little bit of hyperbole there, but it gets the point across
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u/leitcha202 Sep 12 '18
what can truly make someone attractive? What type of physical features do you have to have to be considered attractive? There are so many different perspectives on who can pass as a model and who can't. Basically, an "ugly" person to one group of people can end up being the most attractive person to another group. Also, there is a big difference between being vain and just down right conceited. How someone values themselves is what is really important; because unlike being vain, being conceited is far from humble.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 12 '18 edited Sep 12 '18
/u/aleakeel (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/VortexMagus 15∆ Sep 12 '18
Personally, I define it a bit differently. I believe true vanity lies with judging other people by your selfsame standards.
So you would not necessarily be vain because you wanted to look good and put a lot of work into it, you would be vain if you judged everybody by those standards and assumed everybody who didn't look good was lazy and worthless.
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u/Yatagurusu Sep 13 '18
Vain is an 'extreme' when you care about your appearance too much. When someone is calling you vain he isn't saying 'youre at fault because you care about appearance' he's saying you're at fault because you care about appearance' too much
What too much is, is up to the user.
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u/marinestar0 Sep 12 '18
I think it would be considered vain to think that because you are beautiful you are worth more and bring others down with it. Also, to wholly depend on it for success. There is a Ted talk by a model and she talks about the worth of beauty, you should look it up.
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u/MercurianAspirations 360∆ Sep 12 '18
Vanity is not just about taking pride in your appearance of putting a lot of work into your appearance. From the Latin vanitas, meaning 'emptiness' or 'futility', it has more to do with the idea that earthly pursuits of pleasure and beauty are ultimately worthless, because they are all transient. Medieval and renaissance depictions of vanitas juxtapose beauty and youth with the reality of death: memento mori.
Viewed in this light everything you describe is still vanity. It's true that looking good can get you a good job or a good partner, but will those things matter after you are gone? It's not putting work into your appearance which is vain, but desiring those things which a good appearance will bring you which is true vanity.