The Importance of being Beautiful by Sidney Katz has been able to look at various elements on what is considered beautiful in the world today. In addition to that, the author has been able to establish his own personal bias over people who are beautiful by stating that they are able to propel to higher success than those who are not. The author has been able to introduce this element by clearly taking a particular side of the argument which people may have different opinions.
The aim of the author can therefore be labeled as that which tries to state categorically that beautiful people have better chances and usually advance more as compared to those who are not. This argument however failed and has no better references since it has been generalized and it happens very rarely in the human life context. In this paper I aim at taking a critical look at how the author has used the both the language and content in the presentation of his arguments.
The views carried on by the author have been largely generalized in most of the case. Stating that beautiful people usually have an easy time in socializing as well as engaging in job hunting may not be necessarily true. However, the author has been able to convincing ideas in terms of how he has used language, illustrations and examples in the text. For instance it may be true for an employer to hire a beautiful person who in the end may make the company have an inviting look and thereby increase the sales (Smith, 1989).
In using several theories that explains why being beautiful has many advantages, the author has been able to persuade the readers to look at the concept of beauty from his angle. The fact that being beautiful has high chances of making an individual land an employment position with ease as brought out by the author can be argued to be true especially in the modern business world.
For instance looking at the American culture, beautiful people are often treated right and also exposed to more opportunities unlike those who are not considered as beautiful. This is however unfair to others since they are looked down upon on the basis of their physical appearances (Smith, 1989).
On other areas, I agree with the author’s opinion that the success of some people is highly affected right from their birth and thus the halo and horns effect comes into play. Those who are lucky and are beautiful usually end up with nice attributes towards them like trustworthy, sensitive, interesting and easy to get along with. However, this has been made on assumptions drawn from their physical appearances. Indeed, just by looking at a beautiful person one cannot be able to be fully convinced that they hold these characteristics.
Throughout the text the author has used examples to ensure that his arguments are well correlated with the modern day lives. Nevertheless, these perceptions are believable up to a certain extent based on my personal experiences which I have witnessed in life. It is unfortunate and this truth can be highly disputed as other less attractive people have been known to be more competent as compared to the beautiful ones.
Therefore the argument does not hold water and has collapsed at the end as the author comes to the realization that indeed all people are equal and the beauty aspect does not necessarily go with everything good (Smith, 1989).
The author has employed the use of a medium yet realistic tone that indeed has some persuasive power on the general elements about being beautiful. However with all the evidence presented, there is still a lot of insufficiencies in this text since the author is more subjective than objective. With an opposing view on this matter one can be able to build a strong argument against the presented views.
References
Smith, B. D. (1989). Bridging the gap: College reading. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.