I am told we are wired up in our brains to be attracted to a particular kind of look which we will find ‘beautiful’. They have done a lot of work with symmetry and facial features to try to pin down what all the elements of beauty actually are but basically sex is facilitated by beauty.
And what, I have to ask myself, is the purpose of that? Does beauty outrun the predator faster, enable people to get more food to feed their family, have a higher survival rate than any other physical features? It is absurd to suppose that a beautiful person’s instincts and abilities by virtue of beauty lead to greater survival except when you consider that the human brain is made to discern patterns, and the way it works is what determines what it considers beautiful and in history the attraction of a beautiful person for a powerful human being has indeed been, though a two-edged sword, nonetheless an advantage.
Beauty is one of those by-products of our minds and yet you would think it fundamental to our survival the way we enslave ourselves to it. I am beginning to realise that habit has far more to do with how society works than common-sense or intellect.