Admiration is the furthest thing from understanding
I have this feeling that I titled a previous entry similarly/similiarly? ... I've heard this twice. First, from that supervillain captain from Bleach anime, and the second time from my (potentially) deeply cynical, and heretical friend in camp.
ad·mi·ra·tion –noun
1.a feeling of wonder, pleasure, or approval.
2.the act of looking on or contemplating with pleasure: admiration of fine paintings.
3.an object of wonder, pleasure, or approval: The dancer was the admiration of everyone.
4.Archaic. wonder; astonishment.
It sounds like it could be quite true, doesn't it? Wouldn't you lose the sense of wonder you had towards a magic trick, once the magician decided to reveal the way it was done? After all, behind the illusion and the misdirection lies simple mathematical principles and sleight of hand... But then you might say that you admire the magician for practicing until he reached that level of skill with his hands.
However, in that same way, you might say that there is little to understand about a mother who takes care of four children, and yet you admire her for having the strength and perseverance to take care of all four of them. Hmm. I think I have to go and think about this some more.. But I guess that admiration carries a sort of underlying meaning, that it implies 'looking up' to a person with wonderment and a feeling that that person is perfect, an idol to be mimicked completely.
Note: Does the word 'respect' carry with it the suggestion that the respect-or is roughly equal to or of similiar standing to the respect-ee?
090108: Perhaps our sense of admiration towards a particular person's qualities is lost when we recognize what desires, needs, and environmental factors (things and situations present in all human lives) led the person to develop that particular talent or trait (anything from martial arts to good relational skills). It is lost, but is replaced with an approval for the person because he made a positive choice, as opposed to the negative choice in the situation that he found himself in.
I believe that determinists would say that he has made no choice at all... But that is something else altogether.
NOTE: The dynamics of the debate for 'This house would condone cosmetic surgery'? I saw a match between 3 women from a Korean University and a mixed team from Cairo University. It made me think about it again, haha. (Will update this post when I have time. For now I must write about my massage.)
Proposition:
-Everyone's choice to pursue both inner and outer beauty
-Cosmetic surgery has been used to help accident victims who have been disfigured, and its techniques extend to other fields of corrective medical procedures.
Prop. bonus point: The opposition is from Korea, but many Korean stars and even the president use cosmetic surgery. Haha. The Korean ladies were using make-up on the show, too. Haha. Big blooper there.
Opposition:
-People are too obsessed with outer beauty and should treasure their inner beauty more, especially for women, who are the traditionally the ones to alter their looks to please men.
-They do this in spite of the inherent risks of the surgery, which can have sizeable failure rates depending on the country
-The definition of outer beauty has always changed with the times (e.g. small feet in old China, long necks in Africa, fat women in some European states). It shows that beauty is only skin deep.
-Surgery to correct disfigurement from accidents is a given and should not be a part of the debate. Recovering something that was lost is fine. The debate at its core is about the excessive and obsessive pursuit of beauty through surgical procedures. You should treasure the looks that God gave you from birth.
Proposition:
-People have a natural and understandable love of aesthetics and outer beauty, as can be seen by our love of beautiful scenery or flowers. As long as people continue to treasure and foster their inner beauty, it is ok to pursue outer beauty if you have the means.
-Success rates differ with every country, and naturally if you go to a shady place for the procedure, you're bound to get a bad deal. That has to do with the poor decision making of people, not cosmetic surgery procedures as a whole. The process will only continue to progress and perfect itself, as time passes.
-If your newly-born baby had a birth defect that scarred the entire right side of his face, and you had the means to correct it with surgery, then would you do so, in spite of the fact that he was BORN with it? Would you honestly tell a person, whose natural looks make others shudder to look upon him, to forgo the surgery and spend the rest of his life convincing others of the superiority of his inner beauty? Perhaps you say that these are special cases, but as you also say beauty is subjective according to the times, who are you to say that people born this way Deserve the surgery, and others born slightly less ugly, do not deserve to take it? People should be given the right to change the way the look, as long as they continue to treasure their inner beauty. They should not have to be handicapped in societal relations just because of the way they were born.
Opposition:
-Cosmetic surgery is a branch of medicine available only to the affluent. By condoning it, you are giving the rich the opportunity to have-it-all: money, the best schools to foster good brains, and now the best surgery for good looks. Some of the poor are able to marry out of poverty with their good looks. Some day you will have a society cleaved into two parts: One part with people who have nothing, the other part with people who have everything.
Proposition:
-The rich will likely continue to marry pretty poor girls/guys. Some of those rich will hold opinions just like yours, that they don't have to change their outer appearance for the sake of others. Hell, they're rich, they don't need to! Things will remain roughly the same as they are now. All you are proving is that outer beauty DOES severely impact the quality of one's life.
Note: It is hard for the opposition to put across the idea that obsessive pursuit of outer beauty inevitably has an impact on one's inner life, or that this even carries weight when placed against the possibility that you will be less well-accepted in society because of the way you look. Perhaps it can be argued that many of the great thinkers and achievers of history reached the heights of their knowledge because they were not distracted by goals of societal acceptance, that if they'd been born prettier, they might have become too distracted to invent etc etc etc..
ad·mi·ra·tion –noun
1.a feeling of wonder, pleasure, or approval.
2.the act of looking on or contemplating with pleasure: admiration of fine paintings.
3.an object of wonder, pleasure, or approval: The dancer was the admiration of everyone.
4.Archaic. wonder; astonishment.
It sounds like it could be quite true, doesn't it? Wouldn't you lose the sense of wonder you had towards a magic trick, once the magician decided to reveal the way it was done? After all, behind the illusion and the misdirection lies simple mathematical principles and sleight of hand... But then you might say that you admire the magician for practicing until he reached that level of skill with his hands.
However, in that same way, you might say that there is little to understand about a mother who takes care of four children, and yet you admire her for having the strength and perseverance to take care of all four of them. Hmm. I think I have to go and think about this some more.. But I guess that admiration carries a sort of underlying meaning, that it implies 'looking up' to a person with wonderment and a feeling that that person is perfect, an idol to be mimicked completely.
Note: Does the word 'respect' carry with it the suggestion that the respect-or is roughly equal to or of similiar standing to the respect-ee?
090108: Perhaps our sense of admiration towards a particular person's qualities is lost when we recognize what desires, needs, and environmental factors (things and situations present in all human lives) led the person to develop that particular talent or trait (anything from martial arts to good relational skills). It is lost, but is replaced with an approval for the person because he made a positive choice, as opposed to the negative choice in the situation that he found himself in.
I believe that determinists would say that he has made no choice at all... But that is something else altogether.
NOTE: The dynamics of the debate for 'This house would condone cosmetic surgery'? I saw a match between 3 women from a Korean University and a mixed team from Cairo University. It made me think about it again, haha. (Will update this post when I have time. For now I must write about my massage.)
Proposition:
-Everyone's choice to pursue both inner and outer beauty
-Cosmetic surgery has been used to help accident victims who have been disfigured, and its techniques extend to other fields of corrective medical procedures.
Prop. bonus point: The opposition is from Korea, but many Korean stars and even the president use cosmetic surgery. Haha. The Korean ladies were using make-up on the show, too. Haha. Big blooper there.
Opposition:
-People are too obsessed with outer beauty and should treasure their inner beauty more, especially for women, who are the traditionally the ones to alter their looks to please men.
-They do this in spite of the inherent risks of the surgery, which can have sizeable failure rates depending on the country
-The definition of outer beauty has always changed with the times (e.g. small feet in old China, long necks in Africa, fat women in some European states). It shows that beauty is only skin deep.
-Surgery to correct disfigurement from accidents is a given and should not be a part of the debate. Recovering something that was lost is fine. The debate at its core is about the excessive and obsessive pursuit of beauty through surgical procedures. You should treasure the looks that God gave you from birth.
Proposition:
-People have a natural and understandable love of aesthetics and outer beauty, as can be seen by our love of beautiful scenery or flowers. As long as people continue to treasure and foster their inner beauty, it is ok to pursue outer beauty if you have the means.
-Success rates differ with every country, and naturally if you go to a shady place for the procedure, you're bound to get a bad deal. That has to do with the poor decision making of people, not cosmetic surgery procedures as a whole. The process will only continue to progress and perfect itself, as time passes.
-If your newly-born baby had a birth defect that scarred the entire right side of his face, and you had the means to correct it with surgery, then would you do so, in spite of the fact that he was BORN with it? Would you honestly tell a person, whose natural looks make others shudder to look upon him, to forgo the surgery and spend the rest of his life convincing others of the superiority of his inner beauty? Perhaps you say that these are special cases, but as you also say beauty is subjective according to the times, who are you to say that people born this way Deserve the surgery, and others born slightly less ugly, do not deserve to take it? People should be given the right to change the way the look, as long as they continue to treasure their inner beauty. They should not have to be handicapped in societal relations just because of the way they were born.
Opposition:
-Cosmetic surgery is a branch of medicine available only to the affluent. By condoning it, you are giving the rich the opportunity to have-it-all: money, the best schools to foster good brains, and now the best surgery for good looks. Some of the poor are able to marry out of poverty with their good looks. Some day you will have a society cleaved into two parts: One part with people who have nothing, the other part with people who have everything.
Proposition:
-The rich will likely continue to marry pretty poor girls/guys. Some of those rich will hold opinions just like yours, that they don't have to change their outer appearance for the sake of others. Hell, they're rich, they don't need to! Things will remain roughly the same as they are now. All you are proving is that outer beauty DOES severely impact the quality of one's life.
Note: It is hard for the opposition to put across the idea that obsessive pursuit of outer beauty inevitably has an impact on one's inner life, or that this even carries weight when placed against the possibility that you will be less well-accepted in society because of the way you look. Perhaps it can be argued that many of the great thinkers and achievers of history reached the heights of their knowledge because they were not distracted by goals of societal acceptance, that if they'd been born prettier, they might have become too distracted to invent etc etc etc..
posted by moet at 8:33 AM
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