March 18, 2022

15:03

Paula Littaiff – Cenarium Agency

MANAUS (AM) – In the month that celebrates Women’s Day, the CENARIUM MAGAZINE debates the “models” of beauty created by society since the Ancient Age (4,000 BC to 476 AD) that imprison and suffocate women, but which began to be questioned from the idea that the concept of “beautiful” is confronted with variants and may involve hidden factors.

A thesis raised by the professor at the Federal University of Ouro Preto (Ufop) Verônica Pacheco Azeredo, in her study about the identity of the human body – based on the work “Genealogy of Morals” (1886), by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) -, defends that behind a discourse in favor of beauty there are economic and political interests, and the desire to reach an unreachable standard.

Verônica Azeredo’s analysis is among many researches of contemporary scholars that deconstruct the duality of “ugly and beautiful”, and put into debate social conventions that were created and fed since Plato (428 to 347 B.C.), with the famous “Theory of Beauty” and the ideals of “good” and “evil”.

Verônica Azeredo points out that, according to Nietzsche’s interpretation, dualistic evaluations had religious and moral interests, besides contributing to the negation of the body. For the philosopher, there was also no division between body and soul, they are inseparable, and the feeding of an unseen being could generate abstract principles.

“The concept of body in contemporary times was analyzed in order to demonstrate that, although there is an appeal to beauty, this body is treated as a thing, as merchandise. In the cult of the body, political, economic, and ethical ideologies are revealed”, explains the philosophy professor.

In Verônica’s research, the scholar concludes that aesthetics and ethics are not unrelated to society and, in each period of time, culture educates the bodies, adapting them for different jobs, even hurting human principles. “We infer that the body of the contemporary man receives an ambiguous treatment, because it is valued and shown, but ends up being exploited, violated, and trivialized”, points Verônica, in her thesis.

Billionaire industry

Despite the challenges faced by the pandemic, the Brazilian esthetics industry exported R$ 1.7 billion in the year to June 2021, corresponding to a 16% increase in relation to the same period of the previous year.

The information is from the Brazilian Association of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Industry (Abihpec). The same institution divulged that the companies that perform aesthetic procedures, including plastic surgeries, grow, in average, 5% each year, and the segment’s invoicing exceeds R$ 160 billion, annually.

Maintaining a good relationship with the mirror is what motivates Brazilians to seek aesthetic resources, but what is sought in this projection is an ideal created by those who want to make money, at any cost, using the vulnerability of those who seek an abstract beauty.

Going back to Friedrich Nietzsche, in the philosopher’s view, the search for beauty is yet another desire of the human being to meet an intangible social standard, a kind of distressing escape. “It is the escape from a pain,” as pointed out by Professor Veronica Azeredo in her studies.

Even though controversial in his thoughts about women – as well as most men of his time, Nietzsche’s questions related to the body are important for society, especially the female audience, to put in check the dualistic models created by the industry and start to understand that beauty is to be unique.