Comments on: Boston Globe tackles attractiveness discrimination

By: Links #166 | The Honest Courtesan

Links #166 | The Honest Courtesan — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 10:01:51 +0000

[…] Paging Harrison Bergeron! […]

By: writeby

writeby — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 19:04:33 +0000

If you can get “specism” into the lexicon, ”lookism” is a slam dunk.

Previews of coming attractions:

clothism–one who discriminates on the basis of the neatness & cleanliness of the clothing worn by a job applicant
hygenism–one who discriminates on the basis of the cleanliness of the hands, face, teeth, etc., & body odor of a job applicant

Got the bit now? Okay, add these in the same vein:
health-ism, competent-ism, knowledgeable-ism and reason-ism. Might as well throw in sane-ism, too.

Egalitarianism’s absolute faith in the dogma of absolute equality will result in a society “in which the largest number of persons … most nearly resembles a single person. The first and highest form of the State … is a condition in which the private and the individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise and blame and feel joy and sorrow on the same occasion, and whatever laws there are unite the city to the utmost …” (Plato’s _Republic_ & _Laws_ c. 370 BCE)

By: wfjag

wfjag — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:27:25 +0000

@Jim:
I think we do – the random factors include Beer
Goggles, turning off the lights and being a teenager.

By: PacRim Jim

PacRim Jim — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 23:23:31 +0000

How dare nature evolve lookism?
All species, especially Homo sapiens, should mate stochastically.

By: Ken in NH

Ken in NH — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 16:10:09 +0000

We already have affirmative action for ugly people, we call it politics.

By: bridget

bridget — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:09:38 +0000

Some research indicates that attractive women are stigmitised in their employment search, but only if they are in traditionally male-dominated fields (e.g. engineering, computer science). Attractiveness is seen as correlating with incompetence in those areas.

So, should feminists – who allegedly want to increase the percentage of women in those fields – side with Ruth Graham, knowing that only designating unattractive people as a protected class will not make it any easier for women to be programmers, statisticians, and engineers?

By: Capn Rusty

Capn Rusty — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:03:20 +0000

Harrison Bergeron.

By: Rick Caird

Rick Caird — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:38:57 +0000

I can’t wait for the first person to sue because he/she is not “attractive” enough. Then, we will get “unattractive quotas”. How would you like to be in that group?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:07:48 +0000

Hmmmm. But just as we have certain white people who claim Native-American ancestry to gain benefits, might we not have beautiful people who put on clunky glasses, ugly shirts and wear their hair in an unattractive fashion to try to gain the benefits of this protected “ugly” class?

Or they could just gain weight. Hmmmm… is this perhaps a plot by the fast-food industry to obliquely subsidize their sales?

By: Chris Walker

Chris Walker — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 12:47:10 +0000

Move to Lake Wobegon, where ‘all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average’.

@Richard

I was thinking of Harrison Bergeron myself and also checked to see if the publication date might be April 1st (it isn’t).