To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 14:36:11 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: botox and the affluent
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Thu, 15 May 2003 09:06:34 -0400 Kit Mason <kit at hers.com> writes:

> However, judging someone according to his or her looks -- the book
> by > its cover -- or by apparent spending on appearance can easily be
> considered more immoral and shallow than the behavior of the person
> who > is maintaining his or her appearance.
>

Making that sort of judgement is a common gut reaction, but gut reactions
are not well thought out, and may or may not turn out to be consistent
with a well thought out judgement, or with the truth.

> How is using botox, or minor surgery, a different thing than buying
> a > new suit, working out at the gym or running?  All of these things
> affect > appearance, and those that don't require money require time,
which
> can > be equated to money and might easily take up a greater proportion
of
> a > person's income, effort and time.
>

A rich person can, and often does, spend money more carelessly than one
who is poor, and the money spent does represent effort and time, but that
is often seen as being the effort and time of those supplying the goods
and services, more so than the effort and time of the wealthy buyer.
Buying something (botox, surgery, a new suit) is seen as different from
working out at the gym, or running, in that working out requires the
personal effort and time of the subject, rather than just the spending of
money, money which may be little valued by one who is rich.  A hour
personally spent, is seen as having about the same value to a rich as to
a poor person.  I will usually stoop to pick up one cent from the
sidewalk, but I won't cross the street to pick up just one cent.  It has
been debated whether it would be worth Bill Gate's time and effort to
walk across the street to pick up a $100,000 bill, or even to bend over
and pick up one laying at his feet.

> Simply making the assumption that someone is vain or shallow on the
> > basis of anything such as this requires a level of vanity in itself,
> > since it means the person who is making the assumption thinks his or
> her >   opinion makes a difference in what is, essentially, a private
> matter. >   That willingness to judge someone on the basis of
superficiality
> reflects Puritanism, with an underlying level of Manichaean dualism
> that > assumes that the physical body is of no importance -- and could
just
> as > easily be used to condemn someone for buying a pretty hardback
> version > of a book rather than a less-decorative paperback, or,
indeed, for
> reading something as frivolous as science fiction at all.
>

Judging a botox user to be vain and shallow, without further information,
could be an unfair rush to judgment.  It would be more cautious to take
botox use as an indicator of the possibility of the user being vain.

Ron Kean

.

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