Beauty

Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Beauty

RESPONDENT: What does human beauty mean in the actual world?

RICHARD: Nothing whatsoever … there is no ‘human beauty’ here in this actual world: beauty is the affective substitute for the purity of the perfection of the actual … just as love is the affective surrogate for actual intimacy.

[..]

RICHARD: There is more to it than the above brief résumé: ugliness, for example, has as much to do with repulsion/ repugnance/ revulsion (disgust) as anything else and thus plays its part in determining what is considered beautiful (alluring/ enticing/ desirable) … and taste/ distaste has its origins in the biological imperative (attraction/ aversion).

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  • Security

    PETER: Even if a woman had a man, this offered no security, so she had to continuously hone and test her seductive powers on other men in case they were needed at any time. She knew that when these powers failed, when beauty faded, when old age set in, she was useless, on the scrap heap. This behaviour is all too evident in current times: women’s magazines bear testimony to this, with their endless beauty and seductive tips. The threat of failure or loss of male protection meant that the support of the other women around the campfire was all she could ultimately fall back on; hence the woman’s loyalty to the ‘sisterhood’ is much stronger than her loyalty to her man.