What quote do you want to share today?
How is it connected to your novel question, insight, or connection?
Some people, in the eyes of their fellow Americans, look better than others. The less attractive people may be less fortunate, but society can’t be blamed for their misfortune.
Yet racist standards seem different. One important difference between racist standards and ordinary standards of beauty is the content of the standards. (Elliott 2003, “Better than well”, p. 194)
Too bad for the short guys, but that is the way the cards fall. The same goes for beauty.
Is it the fact that American society has a standard that prefers large breasts to small ones that is the problem, or is it the fact that any standard is made so important. (Elliott 2003, “Better than well”, p. 194-5)
let me suggest that one is complicitous when one endorses, promotes, or unduly benefits from norms and practices that are morally suspect. (Little 1998, p. 170)
There is a limit to the suffering we require victims of the norm to bear before taking measures to escape that suffering, and health care professionals are sometimes the only ones who can alleviate that distress…. there are two relations a physician must properly juggle—her relation to the individual patient, and her relation to the system of norms. (Little 1998, p. 176)
The key word here is accident. The distinction between misfortune and injustice draws on a perceived distinction between accident and conscious human intention. It is unfortunate if you lose your house and a hurricane; it is unjustified if I taken from you
the problem with blaming society is that idiosyncratic aesthetic preference can almost always be easily described as oppressive ideology. (Elliott 2003, “Better than well”, p. 195-6)
Without self-respect, you cannot be truly fulfilled. If you’re not fulfilled, you’re not living a truly meaningful life. This is the cruel logic of our particular moral system. (Elliott 2003, “Better than well”, p. 205)
The deeper problem is that our sense of self is so fragile and dependent upon the opinions of others (Elliott 2003, “Better than well”, p. 207)