The Modern-Day Molech Machine

We have a piece of equipment in the gym I work out at called a "Jacob's Ladder"  It's like a treadmill, except it is a continuous chain of ladder rungs that you climb.  It is exhausting, and you can pack in a serious cardio workout in a very few minutes.  On a good day, it turns me into a dishrag in 10 minutes.

This morning, it made me think about similar ladders in life, where the climb is constant, and will go on as long as you endure it, or tolerate it.  Because of a conversation I had with my daughter, I began to think about the pursuit of "beauty" as a Jacob's Ladder.

OK, bear with me here.  It's pretty well established that we (in our public media, advertising, etc., etc., ad nauseum) are teaching our girls and women a hideously distorted idea of beauty.  For that matter, we're teaching it to our boys and men, too.

It is equally well established that we are teaching our young people to continuously pin their self-worth to achieving a distorted, humanly impossible, unhealthy, physical standard.  (I refuse to call it an "ideal", because it is far from ideal.)

I think we need to take a step back and understand the "Why?"  Who benefits from this?

Think about this for a second.  Who benefits the most from a generation of people trained to pursue a goal of physical appearance that cannot be attained?  Who stands to gain the most from our young people expending themselves trying to rise higher on an eternal ladder of beauty, where every step just brings another higher step into view?

The fashion industry, the makeup industry, every business that makes its almighty dollars from keeping that ladder running.

And.

They.

Don't.

Care.

• They don't care that they are killing relationships, because none of us is ever going to achieve that goal, but we're coming to expect it in ourselves and others.
• They don't care that they are killing imagination by stamping out dreams. 
• They don't care that they are killing children who have given up hope of ever climbing "high enough."
• They don't care that they are killing the classmates of the children who have given in to the despair.
• They don't care that real beauty is extinguished, when "plastic beauty" is the goal.

Here's another view of the problem: If you think about it, a plastic surgeon is a Photoshop expert who works in living human flesh.  I don't intend to demean the profession, because there are some plastic surgeons who have dedicated their careers to curing actual deformity, healing, and improving life.  However, we've all seen the hideous and ridiculous excesses of plastic surgery that is increasingly becoming the norm in Hollywood.

Is this the future we all have to look forward to?  I hope not, for such is the theme of more than one dystopic Science-Fiction novel.

So how do we prevent that future?

Now I have a crazy idea here, if we want to stop off the flow of distorted beauty and body image that is becoming the "norm" in our culture, we need to do one thing:

Cut off the flow of money that feeds the machine.

• Teach our children to spot the BS, ignore it, and not buy in with either their minds, or their money.
• Teach our children to understand true beauty, and buy into that with their hearts and minds and dollars.
• Grab ourselves, as adults, by the scruff of our collective necks and refuse to purchase or consume any product that is sold via a distorted body image or view of beauty.

Whatever it is.  Magazines! Websites! Cars! Furniture! Clothes! Makeup! Perfume! Laundry detergent! Food, wine, beer!  Period.  Don't buy it.  Buy and use alternatives that are advertised based on reality, real beauty, real function, real quality, and let the manufacturer know why.

If we don't model the decision for our kids and young adults, they won't believe it.  Words are a start, passion is good, but they aren't enough.

Slay the dragon by starving it to death.  Stop feeding ourselves and our children to the machine.  Can we?  I, for one, will try.

Here I am, the son of an advertising executive, advocating telling most of the industry to stuff it.  Sorry, Dad, but this is your granddaughter and her friends we're talking about here.  I know you'd understand.