Lookism has come into prominence on many online communities during these past couple of years. Young people may be led to believe that the "culture of looks" is a revolutionary undertaking and that this is a new regimented way of life. Despite this, lookism as a concept has existed for far longer than the forum bearing the same name or the Internet as a whole.
Physiognomy, literally translating to the rules of judging one's nature (physis is nature, gnomon is judge, and the suffix -nomy refers to the knowledge about a particular subject) is a practice that can be traced back to several ancient civilizations. As the name suggests, the practice was most commonly documented in Ancient Greece. Aristotle, among other philosophers, wrote about the relationship between facial characteristics and character, or physis.
We take it for granted that people should not be judged merely by how they look. As the saying goes, "don't judge a book by its cover." However, this is a relatively modern philosophy and throughout most of human history, it was widely believed that looks had a relationship with that person's character. The basis of judging an individual's character rested largely on their facial appearance up until the Late Middle Ages, when a new generation of philosophers dictated that an individual's character originates from within and should not be determined by their facial appearance.
There are many other words for this philosophy: fisnamy, anthroposcopy, visnomy, and the list goes on. One of the accusations made against Nazi philosophy is the focus on eugenics, and the numerous expeditions made by German scientists to foreign lands such as Tibet in order to further understand the connections between various haplogroups, and the origin of "Aryan" peoples. This is not to say that there is no truth to the genetic sciences proposed by the Germans; there is an incontrovertible correlation between various peoples around the world as to their migratory patterns and potential origin as a race of human.
In conclusion, there is nothing fundamentally new about Lookism other than the manner in which it is presented; that is, to say, using the Internet. There is no scientific basis for judging a person's character on the basis of their facial appearance.
Interesting observations, very interesting indeed.
lookism was always stupid. people who fall for that shit and devote their entire lives to it are gullible
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