Beauty Quotient

Now that I’ve been thinking about beauty, it’s got me thinking (ahh…you think!?). My classification of beauty in my last post was pretty harsh and unrealistic. I was using beauty in the sense of looks and ‘supermodel’ looks. But beauty is much more than that. Sure most models are good looking, but in my book good looking isn’t beauty. A person’s beauty is made up of lots of things, their looks, their personality, their intelligence (shock! Horror!)…
Maybe as well as intelligence quotient (IQ), which is made up of logical intelligence, physical intelligence, visual intelligence, linguistic intelligence… and probably some others.
There should be a beauty quotient made up of all the things I’d mentioned previously and can’t be bothered mentioning again.
The most beautiful people I’ve met, they aren’t flawless, but instead their ‘visual flaws’ make them unique and it’s that which I associate with their beauty.

Beauty vs. Intelligence

It’s strange how the stereotype of a nerd, a geek or an intellectual is an ugly one. Or if not ugly then so absorbed as to not care about appearance. Is this because beautiful people aren’t smart? I don’t think so. I don’t think there is a scale which must be balanced, one side beauty the other intelligence. So why does this stereotype exist? The stereotype is of course not entirely true, but stereotypes have to come from somewhere…

Is it maybe that beauty attracts friends and so better looking people have more of a social life and hence don’t dedicate as much time to study? If this is true then it certainly doesn’t limit good looking people from being intelligent, which is how it is, and so this might have some truth.

This would then also imply that lack of looks or grooming, or even shyness, cause a more solitary personality that can dedicate time to study and intellectual improvement.

If the stereotype is true, and that beauty is a balance against intelligence then wouldn’t it be a loss to society? The beautiful would be the lowest educated and (if the beauty stereotype is also true) too shallow to marry anyone not good looking and this would cause two classes of people, the beautiful but low socioeconomic and the ugly but intelligent leaders and rulers. Then the beautiful would begin to die off, or be cut away.

Good thing stereotypes hardly ever work then.

And anyway, I’m doing a science degree. If that’s not where nerds dwell I don’t know where it is (okay so I’m ignoring com sci… :P). And so I know that beauty is incompatible with intelligence.