Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Home › Week 9--reimagining disability ›

Reply to comment

Anne Dalke's picture

what is the value of beauty?

Submitted by Anne Dalke on Sat, 11/10/2007 - 8:08am.
During our discussion, on Thursday, about "beauty as the last restrictive institution," I mentioned a relevant short story, and promised you the cite. It's Ted Chiang's "Liking What You See: A Documentary," in his collection, Stories of Your Life and Others:

"Evolution gave us a circuit that responds to good looks – call it the pleasure receptor for our visual cortex...in our natural environment, it was useful to have."

The question the story plays with is whether it's wise to abolish the discriminative category of beauty: what value does it have, as a mechanism for survival, proliferation, pleasure??

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
4 + 7 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities

Scanning electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2

Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.

Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)

What's New? Subscribe to Serendip Studio