Seemingly harmless remarks across social media reveal an implicit bias latent in modern American culture: beauty equals moral goodness. Look up the phrases “problematic” and “ugly” and marvel at the overlap, at how users liken someone’s moral character to their appearance. If a person is “problematic” or morally corrupt, they will be considered ugly. Conversely, a person’s good health and beauty can be attributed to their internal goodness. These axioms have been uncritically accepted by social media users en masse.
Beauty holds cultural import beyond the squabbles of social media users. Conventional attractiveness, defined by societal standards and normative traits, gives beautiful people unfair advantages, allowing them to live easier lives. Attractive college students may receive better grades compared to their less conventionally attractive counterparts, according to a 2022 study by Lund University, Sweden. Additionally, a 2021 study from Wiley Periodicals found that beautiful job applicants are more likely to be hired and receive better salaries. Because of these benefits, pretty people generally lead easier lives with greater privileges. “Pretty privilege” is a tangible socio-political force that unfairly affects people’s lives and well-being.
The association of beauty with moral goodness dates back to the ancient Greeks, who believed external looks reflected internal virtue. Aristocrats commissioned artwork of themselves to fit an ideal of beauty, portraying men as athletic and youthful and women as demure, virginal ingénues. The “archaic smile” characteristic of early Greek sculpture famously demonstrated the propagandized pleasantness of the aristocracy, with a subtle tilt of the lips illustrating the eternal happiness of the eternally beautiful.
Aristocrats portrayed themselves as beautiful to assert their supremacy as a ruling class deserving of power, as their moral righteousness was so clearly indicated by superior aesthetics. This artwork sent, and continues to send, a political message.
This sparks a trend across history, in which thinness, youthfulness and other markers of attractiveness are used to elevate the reigning classes of society while humiliating those below them. The values of the elite stemming from ancient Greece rippled across Europe and across time. The Nazis used beauty to affirm the supremacy of the Aryan race through nostalgic references to ancient Greek ideals.
Being Aryan entails light skin, blonde hair, light eyes and physical fitness. Aryanism is constructed so that being beautiful is definitionally inextricable from being Aryan. “Olympia” (1938) documents the 1936 Nazi Olympics in Berlin, utilizing imagery reminiscent of Classical sculpture to assert the prowess and supremacy of the German competitors. The link between racial purity and aesthetics is clear, as the subtitle of “Olympia 2” is “Festival of Beauty.”
The rhetoric of genetic purity proclaimed that Aryans were not only the most intelligent and strong but also the most beautiful. Political propaganda also took shape in cartoons that portrayed Jewish and Black people as hideous, a shorthand to demonstrate their moral evil. Aesthetic motifs emerged: Jews were depicted as big-nosed, bizarrely-dressed, serpentine and vulture-like conspirators and Black people were characterized as ape-like, mentally inferior and sexually predatory oafs. The stereotypes of the oppressed ensured the German public would not empathize with these people. The portrayal of socially-unacceptable ugliness caused Jewish and Black people to be seen as unrelatable, unsightly and subsequently inhuman.
Christianity subverted the norms of elite-constructed morality by claiming blessed are the weak, the sick and the poor; nonetheless, they asserted the divine righteousness of beauty. Psalms 27:4 says: “One thing I ask from the Lord / this only do I seek… to gaze on the beauty of the Lord / and to seek him in his temple.” God is beautiful, and God is good; therefore, beauty is goodness mandated by God.
In modern America, this religiosity of beauty takes on a distinctly right-wing flavor, echoing the conservative idea of rejecting modernity and embracing tradition. The conservative Christian narrative tells of leftist blasphemers making irreverent, meaningless, ugly modern artwork, ensuring the moral responsibility of truth and beauty to the devout, pious Christians.
“Beauty is a pathway to God,” X user culture_critic posted, receiving 10,000 likes.
Of course, reactionary political thinkers vainly clinging to Christian conservative tradition in order to give their ideology a modicum of validity is reminiscent of Nazi nostalgia for Greek artwork. Justifying hateful ideas by pointing to a history of hate is cowardly, even pertaining to something considered frivolous, such as beauty.
The beauty-morality association began as the self-affirming values of the elite then took root as a religious idea in Christianity. In modern discourse, if beauty equates to moral and divine goodness, then what does that mean for those not considered beautiful?
“Eurocentric” beauty standards have varied moderately among region and time period, but the broad strokes of what is considered beautiful remains the same: thinness, strength, long hair, small noses and light skin. This ideal of beauty leaves out huge demographics of people, including, but not limited to, disabled people, non-white people, Jewish people and the poor. Black women, existing at the intersections of discriminated demographics, are especially vulnerable.
While some may say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, history reveals beauty is in the eyes of the white elite. The overlap between historically oppressed demographics and demographics considered unbeautiful is huge. The trend becomes clear: Beauty standards operate as a means of political oppression.
The ruling class secured their status by monopolizing beauty. Consequently, the definition of beauty necessarily excludes the oppressed underclasses so that their constructed aesthetic inferiority indicates their lacking value as human beings.
Ideals of beauty transcend mere aesthetics and personal taste. Beauty standards have long operated as an enforcement of hierarchy and the definition of morality. Modern ideals of “Eurocentric” beauty are entrenched in modes of oppression such as classism, racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and ableism. Beauty is a political tool used to enforce the agenda of white supremacy by affirming the value of the white, the elite and the Christian.
The only way to escape the failings of historically Eurocentric ideals is to disassociate morality with beauty. This huge cultural project would take generations to fully seep into the minds of the masses. However, the first step is awareness of the fact that aesthetics are not apolitical. Beauty is not and never has been an objective truth; rather, it is a political tool used to direct people’s sympathies and spin propagandized narratives. Who is and isn’t considered beautiful determines if certain people are seen as morally good, as righteous and as human.
Alexandra Kauffman (26C) is from Phoenix, Arizona.
