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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3982 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 27, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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The unadorned body is already quite beautiful. No tattoo can match the elegant simplicity of unadorned skin. Changing the windows default is all well and good, but how about graffiti-ing a burbling brook versus leaving it alone in its natural splendor? There is perhaps some work humans can do to improve upon nature, but it generally has more to do with accentuating features already present rather than adding your own touch. Like clearing away the underbrush around the brook, which would be more analogous to a good haircut than a tattoo.

People can create artificial beauty. I find skyscrapers beautiful. But they're their own thing, not a modification of natural beauty. Considered in a vaccuum there's plenty of quite beautiful tattoo art, but paste it onto somebody's skin or onto a rock by a waterfall and it mars the natural beauty more than it adds to it, no matter its quality.

Of course, it's all pretty subjective at the end of the day.

No offence, but that just sounds like received aesthetic indoctrination. Western culture has been historically low on tattoos, probably since Leviticus, which itself likely spawned from local hygienic concerns, like not eating pork. Overall we see that people have been using their body as a canvas since time immemorial. It can look trashy and it can look good (and even, shockingly, better than the unmodded version).

No offence, but that just sounds like received aesthetic indoctrination.

My preference against tattoos arises from deeper preferences. I appreciate elegance, simplicity, and the beauty of fully functioning complex systems. There is something spectacularly beautiful about semiconductors, well-crafted clocks, and ant colonies.

Art is less beautiful when it lacks focus. I don't find the Mona Lisa (or really any portrait) very beautiful, but I certainly wouldn't choose to add some random design to her face, no matter how beautiful the design was, simply because then there would be two competing objects of attention. I wouldn't give a beetle a tattoo, paint a design onto a statue, etch a shape into a nice watch, or arrange ants into geometric patterns, because all of those things are already quite beautiful and don't need to be changed.

You could argue that this broader preference not to tattoo beetles etc. is also culturally engrained, but at that point I think it's both a reach and also pretty irrelevant.

Western culture has been historically low on tattoos, probably since Leviticus, which itself likely spawned from local hygienic concerns, like not eating pork.

All of the most tattooed countries are Western. We are the most accepting cultures towards tattoos in the world. You're inventing a just-so story that isn't just inaccurate, it's the exact opposite of the truth. That's not to say Westerners have always been accepting of tattoos--I have no idea what our history has to say--but rather that we are currently the very most accepting of tattoos.

I don't think tattoos always look bad, but they usually do, and the ones that look good IMO detract from the simple beauty of the human form much more than they enhance it.

but how about graffiti-ing a burbling brook versus leaving it alone in its natural splendor

Would work if we weren't talking about a literal blank canvas. It's nothing special, everyone has one. They are all mostly the same. Probably the most unremarkable thing on the planet. A gallery full of blank cavases would be a boring sight indeed.

Even if our bodies were blank, they are not canvasses. Shape alone is its own art form. I've never seen a statue with tattoos, and those are universally less interesting than actual human bodies. Do you consider all statues, sculptures, etc. unremarkable and boring? I find even simple statues and sculptures more aesthetically interesting than almost any 2d art.

Statues and sculptures are remarkable because they're creations of human talent. Everyone has a body. I can walk outside and see hundreds of them just wandering around my town. They are all broadly the same. Some are nicer than others, like some rocks have a more pleasing shape than others. But a statue is on a level above, and requires that rock to be shaped by human intervention. Meaningful art requires human intervention. Trying to put a stock human body on the level of someone who has turned their body into art is like bringing a nice rock you found as an entry to a sculpture contest.

Meaningful art requires human intervention.

Meaningful beauty does not require human intervention. I agree that the skill required to create statues is very cool, and adds to the beauty, but also the amazingly complex systems which create other things (such as human bodies) are cool too, probably even cooler imo.

Statues and sculptures are remarkable because they're creations of human talent. Everyone has a body. I can walk outside and see hundreds of them just wandering around my town. They are all broadly the same. Some are nicer than others, like some rocks have a more pleasing shape than others. But a statue is on a level above

That's interesting. I generally find statues much less interesting and beautiful than actual people.

Trying to put a stock human body on the level of someone who has turned their body into art is like bringing a nice rock you found as an entry to a sculpture contest.

I'd compare a stock human body to a natural stream. Some streams are more beautiful than others, but nearly all are quite beautiful and nearly all fulfill their purpose in a very aesthetically pleasing way.

Some bodies being much more beautiful than others says nothing about how non-artistic bodies compare to non-bodies.

but also the amazingly complex systems which create other things (such as human bodies) are cool too, probably even cooler imo.

Something which everyone possesses by default has almost no value. If everyone's super, nobody is.

I generally find statues much less interesting and beautiful than actual people.

I find most people to be profoundly boring and lacking in substance, soul and imagination.

Being scared to alter your body in any way immediately marks you to me as being boring, lacking in substance, soul and imagination. You are store-brand Cornflakes in a plain white box.

Something which everyone possesses by default has almost no value. If everyone's super, nobody is.

OK, but we're talking about beauty, not value. Snowflakes are virtually worthless, and incredibly common, but are very pretty.

I find most people to be profoundly boring and lacking in substance, soul and imagination.

Again, this has little to do with physical beauty.

scared

Using this word is so disingenuous that I consider it lying. Who said anything about fear? Disliking something is not being afraid of it.

OK, but we're talking about beauty, not value. Snowflakes are virtually worthless, and incredibly common, but are very pretty.

To be beautiful is to have value. Perhaps not monetary value, but conceptual value. Snow also probably stops being as remarkably pretty if you live in, say, Canada, in the same way as stock human bodies become boring when you're surrounded by them constantly, too. We see so many generically attractive people in media that I for one have become completely inured to it. Just that fails to interest me anymore.

Again, this has little to do with physical beauty.

It is everything to do with physical beauty. Beauty is, above all, rare. Cover your bedroom walls in Mona Lisas and you'll soon stop finding it magical. Unique things are far more beautiful than generic things.

Using this word is so disingenuous that I consider it lying. Who said anything about fear? Disliking something is not being afraid of it.

Just personal experience that this is what it usually comes down to. Fear of the process, or fear of "growing out" of whatever you decide to get. Nebulous fears about how it'll look when you're old (nobody actually gives a flying shite how you look when you're old). Things like that are what I hear most commonly against them.

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