Ep. 95 - The Problem with the ‘Body Positivity’ Movement
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Summary
A morbidly obese model named Tess Holliday is on the cover of Cosmo Magazine, and we're told that this is a historic moment, a great moment for the world, because it promotes body acceptance and body positivity. Well, in the meantime, I want to talk about Body Positivity and unrealistic beauty standards.
Transcript
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So I was just reading a really moving and inspirational story, and I think with all
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the bad news out there, it's great to have a little bit of hope and to focus on the good
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So I just wanted to start right off the bat by telling you about this.
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It says, gravitational waves could collide, sucking Earth into a black hole.
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I mean, there's a potential solution to our problems, and I don't know.
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I just wanted to let you know so you could go about your day today with a little bit of
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Unfortunately, the chances are slim of the Earth getting sucked into a black hole, but
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Now, in the meantime, I want to talk about body positivity.
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I get that, but it's hard to segue into anything once you've started with the Earth being annihilated
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A body acceptance model named Tess Holliday is on the cover of Cosmo magazine.
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And we're told that this is a historic moment, a great moment for the world, for mankind,
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because it promotes body acceptance and body positivity and so on.
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And fat acceptance, you know, is I think the phrase people use now.
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Now, I don't want to spend any time dissecting the particulars of this magazine cover because
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It doesn't matter what they put on, on the cover of, of their magazine.
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You can't, it's not even legal to buy a Cosmo magazine if your IQ is over 45.
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I don't know if you knew that, but it's, you're only allowed to buy it if your IQ is under 45.
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If you have an IQ over that of say a cucumber, um, you're not allowed to buy a Cosmo magazine
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because of the, the, uh, the terrible effect that would have on your mental health.
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Uh, but you know, if your IQ is under 45, then you really don't have much of a mind.
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And as for Tess Holliday herself, uh, I wish her nothing but good things.
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All I know is that she's a morbidly obese model whose whole mission in life apparently
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is self-acceptance and self-love and self-esteem and every other word with self in front of
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What I would like to talk about though, um, what I would like to do is talk about just
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the whole idea of body positivity, this obsession, this, this, this thing we do now in society
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where we insist that everyone love their body just as, as it is.
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We insist that everyone find themselves attractive and beautiful.
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We insist that everyone accept and love everything about themselves.
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We insist that all body types are wonderful no matter what and on and on and on and on.
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Um, I want to talk about that because I think it's, I think it's harmful and counterproductive.
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But before we get into that, I should stipulate that I agree, um, that there has been for
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a long time, unrealistic beauty standards imposed primarily on women.
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Uh, it's something that women, women mostly deal with men have their own version of it a
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little bit, but it's, it certainly has a greater effect on women.
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The pressure to be beautiful is not something that I myself have really experienced.
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And thank God for that, because obviously I missed the beauty train and it ain't coming
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So it's good that it doesn't, it doesn't matter for me.
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I mean, people in the comments will make, uh, I'll see sometimes I'll make, they'll make
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very insulting remarks about my physical appearance.
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Anytime I read those, the only thing I think I just smile and I think, well, it's a good thing
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I mean, it's really doesn't, it doesn't make a difference.
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Um, I just feel bad for my wife, honestly, but you know, jokes on her, I guess.
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Um, and I, you know, if I was a woman, maybe a little bit, be a little bit more difficult
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for me to have that attitude because there's just a general, there's greater societal pressure
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Um, and it's good to, to the extent that we have reacted against that, that's good because
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it's ridiculous that women should feel pressured to be a size negative seven and to have no
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Um, it's good that we've gotten away from this idea that a woman must be anorexic to be beautiful.
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And I don't say that as any kind of a joke or anything about anorexia, by the way.
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I mean, I just mean it literally this, this was the message that we were giving to girls.
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And that's where a lot of the eating disorders and anorexia where it came from, because we
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were basically telling them implicitly that, you know, you've got to have an eating disorder
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That obviously is, is, uh, deranged and crazy and harmful getting away from that is wonderful.
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However, we seem to have gone way to the other end of the spectrum, like way to the extreme
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other end of the spectrum, going from anorexic models to morbidly obese models, going from
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only this type of body is good to any body type, any weight is good.
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I think the whole body positivity thing is wrong.
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Number one, not everything about your body is necessarily positive.
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Not all of it should be accepted or loved or embraced.
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Morbid obesity, for instance, is an objectively negative thing because it's unhealthy.
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Uh, and it will cause all kinds of other health problems as well.
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Your, your body is not meant to carry around hundreds of pounds of extra fat.
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It has, it has, you know, it has a terrible effect on pretty much every aspect of your body
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Um, from your internal organs to your bones, just everything.
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So there's no, that's not something we should embrace because it's unhealthy.
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And it's also something that very often develops through an unhealthy and inactive lifestyle.
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So when you're embracing the morbid obesity, you're also embracing the lifestyle, which caused
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I talk every, anytime we talk about this issue of obesity, being overweight and so on,
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you're, you're always going to have the people who say, well, yeah, but what about, you know,
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it's possible for someone to become morbidly obese.
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Um, you know, even if they're trying to eat healthy, I mean, someone, someone wrote to me
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I, I, I mentioned this issue briefly yesterday on Facebook.
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And they said, um, they said, well, you know, there are people who are obese now because
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Um, obesity is one of the symptoms of, of, uh, of brain tumors, which I don't know if
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And that's obviously an exception, but we have to ask ourselves when we look at the overall
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problem of obesity in America, do we imagine that most of that is because of brain tumors?
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And if so, why is there so much more morbid obesity in America than there is in Ethiopia?
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Obviously it's clearly it has, it's primarily not solely, but primarily driven by lifestyle
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We also on average spend five hours a day sitting on the couch watching TV.
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So that is, that has a lot to do with the obesity problem.
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Clearly I'm acknowledging that there are exceptions, but the overall problem is primarily driven
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And that's all, and, and not something that we should accept.
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Um, when you talk about obesity or being overweight, you know, the issue with that is that those
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terms have becomes, have broadened so much and become kind of ambiguous.
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Like if you look at a chart of what is considered obese for your heart, for your height, according
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to the medical community, you'll see that it's like everyone, you know, uh, I was looking
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at one of these charts right before I started rolling here.
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I was looking at one of the charts just out of curiosity and I, it said that I'm, I think
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it said that I'm obese or no, no, it said I'm overweight.
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Um, and it gives you the height and then it gives you what the, what the weight range
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is for normal overweight, obese, and extremely obese.
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Um, and it says that norm, the normal weight range is one 40 to one 77, 140 pounds for a
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I haven't been 140 pounds since like eighth grade, 140 pounds for a six foot man.
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That to me seems drastically underweight and then overweight, um, for my weight range,
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you know, full disclosure here, I'm being, I'm being, uh, transparent.
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They're saying that you're overweight as a six foot man, when you reach 185 pounds.
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I'm like, I'm pushing the scales towards obesity folks.
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Um, I, I do think that overweight and obese have become categories that are, you know,
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have maybe been widened too much, no pun intended.
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But when you get into extreme obesity, when we talk about someone who is, you know, five
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foot seven and weighs 275 pounds, well, then it's obvious that it's a problem.
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In fact, now, if you are morbidly obese or on the other end, let's say you're someone
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Um, if you're massively overweight, massively underweight, you shouldn't try to accept it.
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You shouldn't try to fool yourself into believing that it's a positive thing.
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People shouldn't make fun of you for it or mock you, obviously, but you should take it
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as a, as a challenge to overcome a change to make.
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We really need to get past this idea that we as individuals should celebrate and love
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everything about ourselves simply because it is ourselves.
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The problem is that that philosophy leaves no room for improvement.
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It will prevent you from becoming a better, healthier person because any positive personal
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change has to always begin by looking at yourself and saying, this aspect of myself isn't ideal.
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We all have those negative facets of ourselves.
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The only difference is that only certain negative personal features have their own lobbying groups
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and are the subject of marketing campaigns telling us to accept and celebrate it.
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Um, for instance, one of my many personal flaws is that I have a bad temper.
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Uh, so I'm telling you a lot about, I mean, I'm obese.
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Uh, you know, so, but, but as someone with a bad temper, and I know it shocks you to learn
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that about me, I know that I need to change that.
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And nobody in society would tell me otherwise though.
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There isn't any bad temper acceptance movement.
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They're not going to put me on the cover of a magazine screaming with a, with a, with a headline
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That's not going to happen because everyone recognizes that a bad temper is not beautiful.
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But overeating, um, gluttony, sedentary lifestyles, and the morbid obesity that often comes from it.
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And with that, there are people telling us to accept it and love it.
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And, uh, that's why it's necessary to speak up and offer a corrective to that flawed and
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Number two, I go back to something I said when we talked about the idea of self-love.
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Rather than being constantly obsessed with body positivity and with developing a positive
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image of your own body, maybe the better course is to, is to stop looking in the mirror for
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Stop obsessing over how you look one way or another because it's vanity either way.
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To obsess over your perceived flaws or your perceived beauty is vanity.
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Both are vanity and it's a shallow, dull, miserable way to go through life.
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All this stuff about we're supposed to love our bodies.
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I mean, I guess we consider that healthy for people to go around talking about, I love my
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But if you've gone back, you know, if you go back a hundred years ago, 200 years ago,
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and you walk around telling someone, I love my body.
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It's kind of a weird, it's a weird thing to say, hey, I'm so, hey guys, I love this so
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No, that's not, that's not how we should go through life.
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And we say that everybody should think that they themselves are beautiful.
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First of all, there's a certain objective quality to physical beauty.
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If there isn't any, I know people say, no, there's no objective quality to beauty.
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It doesn't mean anything to say if everyone's beautiful, then beauty has no meaning to take
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It's like, you might as well feel good about the fact that you breathe.
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I tell you right now, you might as well look in the mirror and say, I am a breather.
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Because it's the same thing as looking in the mirror and just telling yourself you're
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You know, all we've done in that case is we have removed beauty from the people who
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actually have it and from the things that actually have it by trying to give it to everybody.
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The Sistine Chapel, okay, is a beautiful work of art.
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Now, we like to say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but not...
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Now, there are subjective qualities to it, how exactly it moves you, you know, what emotions,
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But if you walk into the Sistine Chapel and look up at the ceiling and say, yeah, I'm just
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If you look out at a serene, peaceful mountain lake and there's not a cloud in the sky, you
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know, it's 65 degrees, which is the objectively best temperature, by the way.
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And there's, you know, birds flying by and everything and there's trees all around.
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If you look at that and you say, yeah, you know, doesn't do anything for me.
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And then you go and you sit and you, you, you sit in front of a dumpster and stare at
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If that's, if that's your reaction, you're meant, you're something mentally wrong with
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Same holds true for physical beauty of, for people.
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There are some people who are just physically beautiful.
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And if it's something that has, if there's an objective quality to it, it means that some
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people can be physically beautiful and some people aren't.
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What about, um, it's the same thing as like, it's like, if I said, you know, statistically,
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not everybody can run, um, a mile in five minutes and 30 seconds.
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It's kind of a, it's a, it is rare to find someone who it's comparatively rare to find
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Someone who has that kind of speed and endurance, right?
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It's fine if you can't run a mile in five minutes and 30 seconds.
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It's true that beauty, the beauty of kindness, the beauty of virtue and generosity, uh, these
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are far more important, but not everyone has that beauty either.
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Some people are beautiful outside, ugly inside.
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We do these where we kind of think that, um, we assume that every ugly person must be
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What was that stupid movie that came out years ago?
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And all of a sudden he was able to see, you know, Tony Robbins gave him magical powers
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so that he could see the, the inner beauty of, of someone.
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And, um, in the movie, it's every, every physically ugly person he met was actually beautiful inside.
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Well, that's, I mean, it's nice to think that's the way it goes, but it, but it's not necessarily
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There are people who are beautiful outside, beautiful inside, but the last thing we should
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do is encourage people to spend time convincing themselves that they are beautiful outside
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And that is people who have beautiful, who, who are kind, generous, virtuous, and all of
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Um, those people, they would never go around saying it and they don't spend time thinking
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of it because there's, for anyone who really has virtue, there's an element of humility in
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all of their virtues in order for it to really be virtue.
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So the moment someone says, I am beautiful on the inside, well, then you know that they
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probably aren't, unless it's a child saying that.
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But if it's an adult who goes around saying something like that, they're probably not beautiful
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on the inside because lacking humility is ugly.
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Talking about your own positive features is ugly.
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Someone who's really beautiful on the inside, they just, they don't think about it.
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It's one of the things that makes them beautiful.
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Point being, we should try to forget as much as possible about ourselves.
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We should look at ourselves and within ourselves only as long as it takes to discover our flaws
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Looking out into the world, at our loved ones, at nature, up to God, not in the mirror all
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the time, not into our own emotions, obsessing over our feelings about ourselves.
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And this is how people live their lives now, where they're not only obsessed with their
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feelings, but they're obsessed with how they feel about themselves.
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And, you know, I think, I'm not saying that we should have no positive feelings about ourselves
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But I think rather than walking around with this sense of our own alleged beauty, I think
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we should, it's better rather to have a sense of our dignity.
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Maybe that's, maybe that's what some people mean when they say, everyone is beautiful,
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or we should all, you know, we should all think that we're beautiful.
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Maybe, if I want to give them a benefit of the doubt, maybe what they really are struggling
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And we should all be aware of our dignity, because that is definitely true.
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And human dignity is a phrase that seems to have been lost.
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Because if you focus on dignity instead of beauty, then I think you'll be spurred on to
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act with decency and self-respect and humility and virtue and all of that.
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Because a person can feel that they are physically beautiful and then go on to be a stripper or
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a prostitute, so their way of expressing their beauty is to defile it.
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That happens all the time in this culture, and people are encouraged to act that way.
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People are encouraged to express their physical beauty by desecrating it, and it's a terrible
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But if they have a sense of their dignity rather than their beauty, then they would never be
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And their beauty would be accentuated and highlighted and protected if they really have
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So maybe that, maybe we should get away from that.
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Rather than body positivity, everyone's beautiful, blah, blah, blah, self-esteem, self-love, just
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And that's what we should instill into our kids, that you are a human being.
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It is an immutable dignity that no one can take away from you.
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And you can choose to live according to it, and live in a way that defends and protects
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And if we do get sucked into a black hole sometime this weekend, then I guess I'll, well, you