Vanity is not Good

A California woman has died as a result of silicone injections to her posterior. The stuff she allowed injected into her body were apparently industrial grade rather than the medical grade commonly used in capsule form. But it is fair to ask whether that actually makes a difference in terms of the outcome (a young woman died) or with regards to the question of whether we should seek such vulgar ways of altering our bodies for little more than vanity.

This is not to let societal judgments of what a good body is off the hook. We cannot doubt that the woman in question was seeking to make her body seem more like the ideal which reflects the opinion of much of our current society. But two things are at stake here: our own outlook on beauty, and the pressures of society to look good.

The correct answer to the second question is: damn society. In terms of natural physical appearance, you are what you are and there is only so much you can do about it. Exercise, eat better, and that's the best you can do. One should not even rule out invasive techniques such as surgery, we may suppose, but only as a matter of last resort. Some people are just built certain ways, such as having small butts.

Which leads to the first question. Don't ever let society tell you what is right unless it is in fact right by any objective opinion. No one of us has any say in how our DNA comes together. If it can and must be fixed such as with a cancer or other debilitating condition, then get it fixed. Otherwise, tell society to go suck eggs. There is no point to being bullied over something which is not your fault.

After a point, we are who we are. We are as responsible for accepting that as much as society is for letting us alone in the way God made us. The real shame here is that authorities are - properly enough, so far as it goes - treating the ones who injected the silicone as the only evil actors in this matter. Perhaps they are the only evil ones. Still, vanity has played her part. Unfortunately, we can only now pray for the soul of the girl who thought the world's opinion of her physical self more important than the person she actually is.

Was.