Beauty

I just saw American Beauty, a film renowned for its messages that people who are beautiful on the outside are inferior and worth less than those who possess an inner beauty, messages with which I do not agree. As many people have already said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and nothing can change that. There's the minority, who prefer inner beauty, and the majority, those who prefer their beauty on the outside. Movies like American Beauty give off the impression that the former of these beliefs is the one that shows moral superiority, that inner beauty is much deeper and beautiful than outer beauty, when in fact, no one can make a statement like this and be so sure of themselves. Preference of beauty is something implanted in the mind, not a choice one consciously makes. Humans themselves can't deny their urges and the majority cannot fully and truly love someone they are not attracted to. It is primal nature of man to love what is beautiful and it isn't fair to call it 'deep' or 'shallow' or insult him because of it. To quote Rachel Carson "Man is a part of nature, and his war on nature is inevitably a war on himself." To defy and deny what man is is sacrilege and injustice. People cannot preach messages like the one in American Beauty simply to 'stand up for the little guy'. They have to mean it. You can't just say stuff to sound intellectual and politically correct. You have to know what you're talking about.

Stimulation

The mind of the average citizen of the world is a jumble of ragged half-thoughts and memories of the immediate past. There's some ridiculous statistic that I lack the conviction to coerce out of the depths of my mind at this moment that somehow conveys the message that we are shown countless images per day. While most of the pretentious false preacher hipsters that control the media of America try to force down our throats the idea that this very overstimulation will be the death of us all, I come to you with a separate perspective. The industrial revolutions brought about not only staggering leaps and bounds in the technology of the western world, but also the constant exposure to media we are subjected to today. Who is to say that these two occurences are not related? I draw comparisons the Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'. The inhabitants of this idealistic society have their every thought controlled indirectly by the government through a form of subliminal messaging called hypnopedia. Though this society can be thought of by many as 'dystopic', one must admit that the society does have many idealistic aspects. In my opinion, our constant exposure to the media is a less controlled form of hypnopedia. It gives truly strong-willed people the opportunity to think for themselves and the weak-minded a place in conformist culture. This process weeds out the weak and has the strongest of people in the strongest, most powerful positions. Our so called 'overexposure' to media may seem at first an attempt by the 'higher-ups' to brainwash us and make us think what they do, when actually what they are doing is weeding out the sheep and letting the independent thinkers have their talent shine. Criticisms of this system are everywhere, but honestly, everyone's happy with it like this. The current ruler of the free world is a very popular man and was chosen by a mix of conformists and independent thinkers enjoying a semi-symbiotic relationship called democracy. Everything has turned out all right using our system, so criticisms are kind of invalid. Mankind is evolving, and the people against exposure are detrimental to evolution itself. This may be America, and we may all have the right to freedom of expression, but everyone should have a TV and a Computer. These are marvels of man, created by man, and testiments to our evolution and genious. Anyone that preaches against technology is holding our evolution back and honestly,
should just shut up.