This article addresses the issue of judging people by their appearance and discusses how the normalization of cosmetic surgery can reduce appearance discrimination and create a fairer society. It offers an alternative perspective, arguing that closing the appearance gap through cosmetic surgery could reduce social inequality and discrimination and make humanity happier.
Is it really fair to judge people based on their appearance? Of course, it’s not without some academic basis, as it’s a type of study designed to find commonalities in human groups and generalize them. And if we consider the fact that people with what we call “good faces” have empirically been found to have gentler personalities, then from a utilitarian perspective, we might be able to justify judging someone based on their appearance to some extent. However, even if there is some causality between a person’s impression and their personality, it’s still counterproductive to judge people based on their appearance, because it’s their DNA that determines most of their appearance. If an individual’s life trajectory determines their appearance, why would we be able to draw a montage of a person based on their DNA alone? In other words, while our lives may reflect our appearance to some extent, our genetics determine our appearance for the most part. Unless there are acquired interventions such as plastic surgery, our appearance is an area that is heavily dependent on our inheritance.
When we observe this, we realize that the value of appearance is differentiated compared to other internal values. In general, people tend to favor those who succeed through acquired effort over those who succeed through natural talent alone. For example, people love Mozart’s music, but they feel more empathetic and attached to Salieri’s life because it gives them hope that anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard enough. On the other hand, people who have acquired beauty through surgery are often looked down upon. The public doesn”t favor people who have similar faces due to plastic surgery, and they often refer to them as ‘plastic freaks’. This means that there is a value inversion phenomenon in the field of appearance, where ‘individual talent’ is valued more than ‘acquired effort’. The cause of this value inversion can be traced back to anthropologist Yuval Noah Harari’s book Homo sapiens.
In his book, Harari argues that advances in biotechnology will lead to the end of Homo sapiens. As biotechnology develops, humans will be able to alter their bodies and eventually cease to be the species Homo sapiens. However, these changes are bound to cause people to reject them. Plastic surgery can be seen as a transitional stage that heralds this change. Plastic surgery does not change the internal organs, but it does change the external appearance through surgical procedures, thus breaking out of the “natural” mold. From this perspective, the heterogeneous view of plastic surgeons is somewhat understandable, and I can empathize with them.
Nevertheless, in this blog post, I’m going to advocate for acquired effort, and look at the freedom of surgical body modification in a positive light. Ultimately, I would argue that we should all strive to raise the standard of appearance for each individual human being and reduce the appearance gap by normalizing plastic surgery. This would have a number of positive effects.
First, the normalization of cosmetic surgery can create a fairer society. Not just by preventing sexual selection from an evolutionary perspective, but by reducing everyday discrimination based on appearance. The influence of appearance in modern society is much greater than we realize. For example, for male workers in their 30s in Korea, an increase of one centimeter in height is associated with a 1.5% higher average hourly wage, and when defendants of the same crime were put in a mock courtroom with people of different physical appearances, the better-looking person received a lower sentence. When evaluating GPAs at universities, better-looking students had higher predicted GPAs when their photos were included versus not. And when people were asked to choose a candidate for a random constituency based on appearance alone, the correlation to actual election was 75%. In short, looks don’t just matter in personal evaluations; they matter in the courtroom, in society, and even in schools. If we can reduce the differences in appearance between people, we can significantly reduce the injustices that occur due to appearance.
Second, humanity would be happier. This is not simply a quantitative increase in the aesthetic value of a community, but a reduction in the inequality that individuals feel. People evaluate their happiness in terms of relative disparity, not absolute value, so if they have something to compare themselves to, they will inevitably feel unhappy. History proves this truth. Countries with high inequality are less happy than countries with low inequality, and regions with high inequality have higher crime and obesity rates and lower life expectancy. Appearance is particularly vulnerable to comparison than other values. Appearance is easy to compare at a glance. If you don’t have plastic surgery, you can beat yourself up all you want. But if we become a society that doesn’t mind plastic surgery, we can free ourselves from the comparisons that come with it. Because the gap in appearance will be reduced, it will not make a big difference, and even if you are compared, you can solve it through plastic surgery.
Third, it can reduce the resistance to the introduction of bio-implantable devices on the human body, following wearable devices such as smartwatches. Technology is advancing rapidly, and it’s not practical for the average person to keep up with it all. In fact, bio-implantable RFID chips have been rumored to be the mark of the devil, and in one case, an underground particle accelerator in Switzerland sparked an anti-construction movement. However, as tolerance for cosmetic surgery becomes more widespread, resistance to surgical attachment of electronics will likely diminish. This would also reduce resistance to bio-implantable devices, which would have a positive impact on research and legislation. If body-mounted machines become more commonplace, humanity will lead healthier and happier lives.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably sympathetic to the many harms caused by a society that judges people on their appearance. At the same time, however, many people will balk at the extremes of this article. They may argue for honoring the inherent beauty of each individual rather than encouraging plastic surgery, or they may suggest institutionalizing blind interviews to address the problems that appearance brings. But these solutions are short-sighted band-aids.
While the argument for celebrating individual beauty may seem plausible on the surface, it is really just an argument for accepting superficiality and ignoring inequality. Of course, we can be attractive if we enhance our individual appearance through makeup and styling. But we can’t have the face we want. If I have gaping eyes, I’m bound to come across as cold, regardless of my intentions. There are physical limitations, and trying to improve your appearance is a huge waste. In the end, it’s an irresponsible statement that maintains a tilted playing field and leaves it up to the individual to fix it.
Paradoxically, if plastic surgery becomes more commonplace, it could actually lead to a society that respects individual beauty. In modern society, beauty standards are fairly universalized. Despite this, many people choose to look a certain way because it’s still the preferred way to look. However, if plastic surgery becomes universalized and everyone’s appearance converges to a certain look, the law of supply and demand, an economic principle, will make individualized faces more valuable. This will lead to a society where plastic surgery is no longer necessary.
Solutions such as blind interviews are not the answer either. Appearance affects society as a whole, so trying to prevent injustice based on appearance is no different than trying to reduce communication between people. If we don’t address the problem at its root, it will continue.
Beauty is only truly meaningful if it is subjective. Yet, the first moment we meet someone, we evaluate their beauty based on their physical appearance. It’s a tragedy that this is how relationships begin, and it undermines their potential. With the democratization of plastic surgery, we may be able to see the other person for who they really are.
