Filed under: English I, Reflection | Tags: Anton Checkhov, Article, Bernard Shaw, Books, Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, Clementi, E. M. Forster, English, Henry James, Love, Oscar Wilde, Poverty, Reflection, Selfishness, Selflessness, The Happy Prince, The Importance of Being Ernest
When Selfless Turns Selfish: Or Does Selfless Even Exist?
About two days ago, I was listlessly sitting at the piano in my living room, banging at the keys occasionally to make it sound like I wasn’t doing precisely what I was, and staring at the bookshelf to my left. I must have stared at those same thirty or so books for half an hour before I actually got around to reading their titles and then finally, their authors. Brushing past various tomes of Henry James, Charles Dickens, Bernard Shaw, Anton Checkhov, E. M. Forster, and even Charles Kingsley (who are all great men in their way, but did not write the kind of thing you just randomly decide to open in order to entertain yourself while supposedly practicing Clementi), I lighted on a name which ever since fifth grade and my first encounter with The Importance Of Being Ernest has been synonymous with a sharp wit and a good laugh: Oscar Wilde.
All too often have I professed myself to be a great fan of Wilde, but really in all fairness, I was a fan of The Importance of Being Ernest, not of Wilde for I had not read enough of his work (having only read the aforementioned play and Lady Windermere’s Fan). With this in mind (as well as the promise of a laugh that would free me from the constraints of a long-dead composer’s legacy which I had been forced to stare at on and off since the ripe old age of seven) I pulled The Happy Prince and Other Tales down from the shelf.
The moment I read ‘High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince” (Wilde, 1), I remembered a conversation with my mum about this very story in which she had told me that every time she read it, she cried. “Wonderful,” I thought sarcastically, “and just when I was looking for a laugh.” But for some reason, I can’t say what, I decided to read it anyway.
For those who don’t know, Oscar Wilde was not only a playwright, but also a writer of fairytales (and even one novel). The Happy Prince (a sadly ironic title) was one of his fairytales, as was made quite clear by the language and style it was written in. However, half a page in I started to notice that Wilde’s use of Anderson-esque speech was not in all seriousness, but rather a parody of the traditional method. This became more and more apparent as I continued and the story conveyed fewer and fewer traditional fairytale themes in that flowery but simple language and more and more of Wilde’s political, social, and in general world views.
In a daze I completed the mere fifteen pages of intense love and sadness and then turned back to page one and began again. I read it three times before I stopped and really gave my brain a chance to catch up with everything I had just read. A funny thing about the ‘aftermath’ of having read Wilde’s short story was that I couldn’t marshal my thoughts. Not that I normally am able to file them away in neatly color-coded files marked by subject and then arranged perfectly in file-cabinets or drawers—no, that I leave for people like my English teacher—but normally I could give a person the basic idea of what I thought. Not that I thought. For really after reading that story all that I knew was that it made me think. About what? I couldn’t say.
Now I’m sitting at this computer, staring at what I’ve written, and realizing that I still haven’t made any type of point about this story that so deeply affected me. And again I ask myself why it affected me. But it’s not enough to just answer “It did”. I could turn the entire thing around and tell you, my dear readers whoever you are, that sometimes things just affect you very deeply and you can’t say or know why, and pretend that was my point all along. But I won’t because I still have some faith in my ability to sort through the heaps of thought rattling around in my brain.
The Happy Prince deals with a statue of a prince who sits high atop a column and must stare out across his city day after day, witnessing the miseries of its people, but having no power to alter any of it. A swallow, late in migrating to Egypt, alights one day on his shoulder and speaks to the prince who tells the little bird of the sufferings of the people. The swallow then agrees to delay his journey to Egypt and help the impoverished seamstress mother of a sick child by taking the ruby from the prince’s sword hilt and delivering it to her. Once this is done, the prince convinces the swallow to stay longer and complete two more such missions, using the sapphires that are the Prince’s eyes. After this, the swallow stays with the prince out of love and loyalty, performing one more task to help the people of his city before the harsh winter kills him. As his little friend breathes his last breath, the prince’s leaden heart cracks and the next day he is taken away and melted for he is no longer beautiful having given his jewels and gold leaf to the poor.
Perhaps the most obvious point Wilde makes in this story is that about the deplorable position of the impoverished in the world at his time, and indeed the point holds true into this year, 2010, a little over 120 years later. However, I think such a point should be canvassed in quite a different way than I have begun here, when I have not already exceeded the suggested number of words by 800 (or so), and have not already written a preamble about nothing much.
Therefore I will examine the selflessness portrayed in the story by both the prince and the swallow. The prince sees the suffering of others and does not hesitate to give what he has to aid them in their plight, even at risk of his own ‘life’. The swallow remained in the cold, bitter winter to at first aid the prince and thereby the people and later out of his love for the prince. This seems about as selfless as it gets, right? That’s what I thought too, and even, I guess, still think on some level. but when I really began to examine the motives of both the prince and the swallow, I began to question (as it is my nature to question anything and everything) whether either of them were really ll that selfless.
According to Merriam-Webster, selfless is and adjective meaning a person ”concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than with [their] own”. Okay, sounds about right. But is that truly what either the swallow or the prince were? First I shall attack the poor little swallow’s supposed ‘selflessness’. The swallow at first refused to aid the prince in his—what shall I call it?—charity work, in the first case aiding a poor mother care for her sick son. The swallow tells the prince that he will not aid him, saying “I don’t think I like boys” (Wilde, 7). This is obviously very selfish; he is not by any definition putting other’s wishes before his own. Now one might argue that “Oh, he had a change of heart, he saw what good he could do in the world.” I don’t think so. He actually only ever agrees to aid the prince because he sees that he has made the prince sad. He goes out of his way to help someone he claims not even to like for the prince. Later on, we see that indeed the little bird loves the prince, that being his motivation for staying in the first place. And is not love an entirely selfish emotion? The swallow, it seems, had no real thought for the people, but only for the prince. If he had really cared about ending the sufferings of the poor, he would not have protested at the prince’s decision to give his eyes and skin to the cause. But he did. So doesn’t it seem fair to argue that the noble little bird was in fact guilty of the most selfish crime of love?
Now I can see people reading this and picturing me as the meanest, coldest, most uncaring misanthrope there ever was. And if you know me, I hope you realize that I didn’t get brainwashed this weekend. I merely am questioning the swallow’s motives, not his acts. His acts are as noble and unquestionably true as they could possibly be and I appreciate him and love him for it. Nor am I suggesting that love is a bad thing. Not in the slightest! Love makes the world go round, after all (and I really do like my seasons!). I really just want to question whether love is, by nature, selfish and whether, indeed, then such a thing as selflessness truly exists. For aren’t we humans a self-obsessed lot by nature as well?
The whole thing is most complicated and deserves more thought and discussion than I can give it here. But I hope, what small confusion I have given voice to here can express part of the turmoil I felt during the reading of The Happy Prince.
A/N: I know that this is long and rambling and I probably should have just deleted paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 6, and perhaps 8 upon their completion, but I felt that they were an important part of the process I went through to figure out what on earth I felt about The Happy Prince and should therefore be spared.
Filed under: English I, Genesis, Reflection, The Bible | Tags: Animal Rights, Article, Bible, English, Genesis, innovation, Vegetarianism
Who Are You to Play God?: God’s Power to Dole out Rights
Vegetarianism is a trend that most think of as being relatively recent, and as such is often frowned upon for being ‘new’ and ‘innovative’.* Whenever I heard this in the past, I would scoff at such narrow-mindedness (for really these people are just clutching at straws if this is their reason for eating meat) and deliver a long lecture about innovation, change, and inevitably, animal rights.
Yesterday, after completing my assigned reading from Genesis, I felt some slight triumph in the fact that I had yet another argument to add to my list: God decreed vegetarianism on Day six, along with the creation of humankind. And if that didn’t constitute ancient, I wasn’t sure what did. However my elation was short lived, for just a day later I had completed reading Genesis chapters eight and nine with a sense of nothing short of outrage.
For those who aren’t familiar with this section of Genesis, it describes the great flood and Noah’s (and the rest of mankind’s, though they are ignored beyond the fact that they were ‘wiped out’) tribulations. After Noah and his family have exited their ark safely, God speaks to them saying “. . . you shall not eat flesh with it’s life. . . For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life” (Gen. 9.4-5).
Now honestly, I had to read this about six times in order to discern any meaning, but once I thought I had figured it out, I felt like yelling “Hypocrite!” to the heavens. One quick check with the Oxford experts confirmed my ideas as correct. God’s character really is revoking His earlier command of vegetarianism, allowing people to take the lives of animals in order to get a little of their aggression and violence out and as some kind of payment for allowing humankind to survive. How sadistic is that?
Being vegetarian and someone who thinks all beings are created equal, I’m completely biased in this matter, but really I think that what God does in this situation is like the president of the United States suddenly deciding he had the power to say that it was acceptable to hunt Californians for food. Oh, and actually he wants you to kill them in order to pay him for allowing your state to survive. So go kill some Californians. Alright, so maybe that analogy was a little extreme, but I think I got my point across.
Of course God created the animals, but this means He was the one who gave them hearts and minds and feelings. For Him to just decide that they are inferior to humans and therefore should suffer for the transgressions and mistakes of the human race is insane. If they were beings enough to be exempt from killing before, what now has changed besides God’s whim? Nothing. The animals are still the same, but God’s special creation has disappointed Him, so someone must suffer. But mankind? No. They shall suffer for a mere paragraph in the history of the world, for they were created in God’s image. However animals (who look nothing like God—or so we are told) shall bear the burden of the human’s crime for the rest of eternity.
If I were talking about anyone else, I would be asking the question: “Who are you to play God?” Of course, in my situation this makes absolutely no sense, so instead I’ll go a step further. Who gave God the power to say who got what rights? Why is God allowed to hand some their basics rights and look at the others and say “Sorry, there weren’t enough to go around”? Why is it different for God than for anyone else? Isn’t what God did in this situation similar to what Hitler said about the Jews? So why is it different?
And to everyone who just read that and thought “They’re just dumb animals,” I say: “So what? You’re just a dumb human. Can I kill you now?”
*However absurd this may sound, I know it to be true as I am a vegetarian myself and have encountered many such geniuses.
A/N: I have absolutely nothing against California.
Filed under: English I, Genesis, Reflection, The Bible | Tags: Article, Bible, English, Genesis, God, Megalomania, Reflection
Divine Megalomania: God’s Self-Obsession
God is generous. God is forgiving. God is loving. And God should be worshipped unequivocally. Every two-year-old knows it. But what if every two-year-old knew the definition of megalomania? If every Christian two-year-old in the world knew that a megalomaniac is someone obsessed with their own power, might they not question whether God wasn’t one of these egoists? I do, and I’m not two years old. Just the fact alone that God “created humankind in His image” (Gen. 1.27) proves that He enjoys self-glorification. The idea that mankind is modeled after God is even stressed in the Bible—appearing four times in just two verses in most translations—underlining God’s tendency toward self-exaltation.
And this is not the only example. Throughout the Bible, there is talk of the glory of God, various people glorifying God, and essentially how wonderful God thinks He is. A prime example of this is the hymn “Gloria In Excelsis Deo” (Latin for “Glory to God in the Highest”) from the lines “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (Luke 2.14). Again, we are asked to glorify Him, to lift Him up (as if He needs to be any higher!), and to revere Him—along with no one else. It is unquestionable that God has power; in fact He has quite a lot of it. But such obligatory adoration is quite unnecessary and only serves to make God look power-obsessed.
The way in which Creation is presented in Genesis suggests that God created the universe in order that He might be worshipped completely by His creations. This is particularly prominent in the Genesis Chapter 3 during which Eve explains that God has told her that “you shall no eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die” (Gen. 3.3). To this the serpent replies, “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3.4-5). Of course the Bible presents this in such a way that it seems that the serpent is twisting God’s words only to trick Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, but it cannot be denied that the end result is precisely what the serpent predicted. Adam and Eve gain the ‘divine knowledge’ of good and evil and God subsequently drives them out of Eden.
Why, though, would God see the need to throw His own creations out? I see three possibilities. First, that He intended to anyway, and was merely playing with Adam and Eve. Second, that it was merely because they flouted his decree regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And third, that He really was afraid that they would become His equals (or that they already were). All three of these evidence God’s sublime megalomania. In the first case, God demonstrates that He enjoys having power over others (or really everything). In the second, that He is so obsessed with his power that He cannot stand to have anyone cross Him in any way. And in the third, that because of His love for His own power, God fears the idea of another becoming his equal as Adam and Eve might’ve done if they had been allowed to remain in Eden. Based off of the serpent’s comment that Adam and Eve would “be like God” if they ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree, the last seems the most likely to me, though any really could be possible.
Really, throughout the Bible, God doesn’t give people a choice. There isn’t a “worship God, or don’t worship God” message, instead it proclaims: “worship God or burn in Hell”. And though there may be an ‘or’ in there, I really don’t consider that much of a choice. If God weren’t self-obsessed and afraid of losing His power, then He wouldn’t feel the need to require people to worship Him. But as He does, I feel justified in dubbing Him a megalomaniac. But then, what god isn’t?
Filed under: English I, Harry Potter, Quick Response, The Golden Compass | Tags: Article, English, Harry Potter, Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
Old Versus New: Ignorance is Progress
During a discussion regarding Lyra’s future and well-being, the Librarian of Jordan College makes an interesting observation of human nature to the Master. He says, with regard to Lyra’s apparent disinterest in any serious matter, “That’s the duty of the old. . . to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old” (Pullman 32).
The Librarian makes this observation in response to the Master’s comment that giving Lyra more information would ease his anxiety for her. In responding thus, the Librarian expresses his feeling that no matter what steps they take to ensure Lyra’s safety, they will still worry for her, and she will still scorn their worry, brushing it aside as unnecessary. There is a parallel between this relationship of the young and old that the Librarian describes and that of Harry Potter and Dumbledore. Throughout the series, Dumbledore worries on Harry’s behalf while Harry either dismisses the worry, feeling that it is unproductive or unneeded, or resents it. Many a time in the books does Harry end up shouting at Dumbledore for just such a reason.
However, the disregard of the young for the worries of the old is perfectly natural. The old are the wise for a reason as they have had much more time to see the world than the young have. Their age gives them perspective and allows them to recognize the folly of youth. Of course, with all this in mind, it is perfectly natural for the old to worry about the young who are so often ignorant of the ways of the world. In the eyes of the old, the young are naïve, open to change (for better or for worse), and therefore in need of guidance—for if they will not worry themselves, someone must do it for them. Nonetheless, the young continue to be open-minded in their naïveté, and, really, it is better for the human race that they are. Without the continuous cycle between the anxiety of the old and amenability of the young, their would be no progress. The old have seen too much of the world to be open to new ideas and therefore the concept of change scares them. Without the daring and reckless youth of the young, few revolutionary ideas would be tested or used and the world would have no chance at advancement.
Proposition: Without the inherent conflict between the old and the young, there would be no progress in the world.
Filed under: English I, Open Prompt | Tags: Apocalypse, Article, Douglas Adams, English, Global Warming
Turning a Blind Eye: Is Ignorance Ever Bliss?
In a speech entitled Is There an Artificial God? held at Magdelene College in Cambridge, Douglas Adams asked his audience to “… imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for” (Adams). In this part of his speech, Adams was addressing the tendency of the world’s population to ignore their surroundings and to go on with life without a worry for the future.
Speech: Douglas Adams’ Is There an Artificial God?, held at Magdelene College, Cambridge, 1998.
Biography: Concise biography of Douglas Adams.
I think that Adams’ metaphor of the puddle is extremely relevant in our world today as we, like the puddle, are paying no attention to many things that threaten us and our existence, in the hope that they will just go away. What I am mostly alluding to is global warming, which—though we have scientific evidence proving it exists and that it is doing damage to our planet—people continue to insist on ignoring. Adams addresses the idea in his speech that instead of facing the unstoppable and merely adjusting their perspectives, people have an inclination toward completely avoiding the topic. This is perfectly understandable and is part of human nature, but it is an attitude that too many in our world—in our country—have adopted and live their lives by.
Living this way does not allow for necessary measures to be taken against an impending disaster (or whatever the case may be) or even—in the case of something inevitable—just the changing of one’s mentality in preparation for the event. To those who may argue that this philosophy of embracing the inevitable (or maybe trying to do something about it) is—in the long run—useless as a person would spend life worrying and not living, I shake my head because really opening one’s eyes to reality not only broadens one’s perspective on life but allows one to enjoy it more fully, no matter what it entails.
Proposition: When faced with the unpreventable, people often have a tendency to turn a blind eye and hope fate will leave them alone.
A/N: Mrs. Holmgren—I’m not sure if there was ever a maximum placed on the OP quotes (there isn’t one on the Reflective Learning Site), so I’m sorry that this one is rather long; I just really, really wanted to write on it.
Filed under: English I, Quick Response | Tags: Article, Freedom of Speech, Haroun, Salman Rushdie
Restrictions of the Unrestricted: Every Rule has an Exception
Haroun Kalifa, as he watches the Guppee soldiers debate, critique, and question their orders, comments that any soldier caught behaving in such a way on earth would be court-martialled. Butt, the hoopoe, is surprised at this and asks, “But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedom of Speech if you then say they must not utilize same?” (Rushdie 119)
Gup, Butt’s home, is a much more peaceable country than any on earth, but this quote demonstrates the fact that it is also a place of simplicity. ‘Freedom of Speech’ is taken to mean just that and the possibility of exceptions is not considered. But is this a bad thing? The United States’ Bill of Rights promises no law restricting religion, speech, the press, the right to assembly, or to petition the government for the redress of grievances, but down on earth the simplest things are complex and every rule has an exception. As Haroun mentions, in the army, mutinous talk is punishable, creating an exception to the law. When looked at it from such an angle, the logic behind such laws seems flawed. The creation of such a blanket statement without any mention of an exception is almost a lie in my view, leading me to believe that a mechanical bird from earth’s second moon has a point about how earth should be run—absurd as that seems.
In making that statement, Rushdie uses Butt to question the ways of earthly governments and to show that sometimes laws and rules we’ve just accepted long ago aren’t quite what they seem. The promise of unrestricted license has a restriction somewhere, complicating a matter that at first seemed straight forward and simple.
Proposition: In matters of earth’s politics, every rule has an exception, and nothing can ever be taken strictly literally.
The Power of Rumplesnitz: Confidence in One’s Abilities
Knight-in-training Gawaine le Couer-Hardy lacks confidence until his headmaster gives him a magic word—‘Rumplesnitz’—that will protect him from all harm. Gawaine successfully kills forty-nine dragons using the magic word, but upon meeting the fiftieth, he is paralyzed with fear and forgets the word, but still defeats the dragon! Gawaine’s headmaster then reveals the truth about the magic word to Gawaine, shocking him considerably: “It wasn’t magic in a literal sense . . . but it was much more wonderful than that. The word gave you confidence. It took away your fears” (Broun 6).
This literary version of the Placebo effect is present in many stories, from Pixar’s “Kung Fu Panda” (though this is hardly literature) to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In the sixth installment of the Potter series, Ron joins the Gryffindor Quidditch team as Keeper and, though he possesses the skill necessary to succeed, he lacks confidence. Harry, knowing that Ron won’t be able to conquer his fears on his own, leads Ron to believe that he has drunk a goblet of pumpkin juice Harry had spiked with his lucky potion, or Felix Felicis, given to him by Professor Slughorn. Because Ron thinks he has been given a magical source of luck, he believes he will succeed and does not miss a single save during the match. After he is confronted by Hermione, Harry shows them the still sealed vial of potion and reveals to Ron that he actually succeeded through his own talent—much to Ron’s amazement. Up to this point the stories of Gawaine le Coeur-hardy and Ron Weasley are similar, but after the realization they take different courses. Upon the discovery that he performed brilliantly all by himself, Ron is thrilled and continues to perform well. However when Gawaine finds out the truth, he has a mental break down which leaves him gibbering about his near escape from death and so confused and scared he is immediately devoured by the next dragon he meets.
In giving Gawaine the magic word ‘Rumplesnitz’, the headmaster sought to help him overcome his fears and build his confidence. It was clear that Gawaine had it in him to do so, but only lacked confidence in himself. ‘Rumplesnitz’ was supposed to aid Gawaine in discovering his own ability, but really the plan backfired as when he learned the truth, he lost all his newly found confidence and was killed soon after.
Proposition: It is not one’s abilities that matter, but rather one’s own confidence in one’s abilities.
Picture source: http://www.doctorpopcorn.com/2009/07/harry-potter-and-half-blood-prince.html
Plagiarism: An NPR broadcast (and transcript) regarding a relatively recent accusation of plagiarism in Hollywood
Singin’ in the Rain: A brief overview of the musical, with a mention of its plagiarism
It is true that Hollywood has a history of cases of accused plagiarism, in fact it has been said that you haven’t really ‘arrived’ in Hollywood until you’ve been accused of plagiarism, but I had never really thought about it beyond: “Oh, this movie was really similar to that other one about World War II.” One quick Google search later and I had thousands of articles regarding the subject of plagiarism in movies. But the results I had only raised more questions for me. ‘What is plagiarism, really?’ was the foremost of them, as it seemed to me that what many of the articles referred to seemed less plagiarizing and more—for lack of a better term—’recycling’. Plagiarism, according to Merriam-Webster Online, is the act of stealing and passing off another’s ideas or words as your own. This really clarified some things for me as it included the word ‘idea’, whereas I had had the impression that plagiarism was word-for-word copying without crediting the source. This understanding of the true definition cleared up my misinterpretation of many of those articles, but a question still remained: ‘Then what do you call situations like that of the Singin’ in the Rain song, Make ‘em Laugh?’ Make ‘em Laugh was largely plagiarized off of a song called Be a Clown in the musical The Pirate. Be a Clown was written by Cole Porter in 1948, but when Singin’ in the Rain was released in 1952, Porter made no complaint. So what was that? Plagiarism or the recycling of an idea that fell flat the first time round, but with a few tweaks looked like a good idea? Strict definitions won’t tell me that.
Proposition: A word’s definition is not always applicable in every situation.
Filed under: History, Open Prompt, Uncategorized | Tags: Article, Beauty, English, Venus of Willendorf
Not too long ago in my Visual Art: History and Application class, we looked at the Venus of Willendorf, a paleolithic limestone statuette. When presented with the slide, many in my class expressed disgust, confusion, or amusement at the figure that Paleolithic man had worshipped. Our teacher laughed a bit at our antics and then began to talk about beauty and it’s different connotations throughout history. Though we only stayed on the topic for a minute or so, one thing thing that was said struck me: “Beauty is subjective—it all depends on the perspective” (class discussion).
Definition: The definition of beauty from Merriam Webster Online.
Venus of Willendorf: A basic overview of the Venus of Willendorf.
The Venus of Willendorf
It is true that the Venus of Willendorf does not much resemble the idea that our present culture embraces as the ideal female figure, however to those that created her, she was beautiful. But how could one concept encompass two such seemingly unrelated ideas? Maybe it could if it truly were the ideas that were important and not the forms—what is often called ‘inner beauty’. Inner beauty focuses on what something means or what qualities it has on the inside, rather than the actual physical appearance of a person. Perhaps, across the ages, the word ‘beauty’ only refers to what is inside while another word—something more like attractiveness—could be used to describe what is on the outside. I see beauty and attractiveness as two very different things, though they have come to be used interchangeably. Attractiveness is merely superficial, while beauty is an idea that can stretch across twenty-five millennia.
Ironically, the Venus of Willendorf shares the name of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. Aphrodite’s version of ‘beauty’ is a much more modern one than that of this Paleolithic goddess, as she is usually depicted as slender, tall, and well-proportioned (by today’s standards). Aphrodite means to us, what this fertility figure must have meant to Paleolithic man, though if switched, neither would last long in the other’s world.
Proposition: Beauty is subjective, it is merely a concept defined by perspective.
Picture Source: http://www.physorg.com/news137336974.html
