against beauty.

we may have inherited the ineluctable responsibility for our own lives from existentialism, but this responsibility appears to have gotten out of hand over the last decade. there seems to be an increased focus on looks, and one has to constantly invest in them to get along. when one refuses to do so, one has to bear the consequences and suffer; "if we invest time, money and pain in the way we look, we cannot let you get away with being ugly and happy."

if you're ugly and miserable, it's your own fault - if you adapt, you'll get happy. the only way out of the deadlock is subjugation to the normative ideal. that's why we wear schmuck and makeup (as simmel noted, never for ourselves). only by giving in to the hegemonic values that formulate what is beautiful, normal, and what deserves the right to happiness, can one establish authority over these values. those that create the values, are the ones that subject to them (so revolution is not possible; revolution would only be desirable for the ugly hordes, who are, much like the modern proletariat, deprived of their symbolic substance and incapable of causing revolution). this gives rise to paradoxical urges to both rule over the dominant aesthetic ideology as well as to subjugate to it - or to fall within the range of subscription and intelligibility, while maintaining particularity and creativity. (this is called style, and it protrudes all aspects of society and art.)

(the larger and more general the social scene, the narrower the ideal - the intelligible spectrum is small, and style is relatively homogenous. this is why the aesthetic ideology (like all categorisation) is essentially repressive, and must be deconstructed by people that (defy categorisation and) have style in a broader sense - broader and broader, until the boundaries are gone. the grotesque body and the styleless freak threaten the repressive social order, and should resist proper symbolisation. in this sense, self-confident ugliness is a desirable social threat.)

we have to become average in order to become happy. the ideal is essentially democratic - but only those who fit within the boundaries of the normal can participate in this democracy. the ugly (voiceless) / beautiful (with voice) antagonism is of course an illusory binary that suggests there is only one way in which the voiceless can acquire a voice (become beautiful). it is impossible to deconstruct this binary by subscribing to its internal logic - new ways cannot be found here. the currency of acquired beauty is only valuable within the system that values beauty - and the voice of the newly beautiful will automatically reiterate this exclusive system, in which the ugly can never represent itself. therefore, striving for beauty is essentially repressive.

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=68
"ME: SWF, 23, YOU: non monogamous, interested in overthrowing the hetero-normative ownership paradigm. not ugly."

what this work tells us is that fucking someone ugly is in fact the most subversive act thinkable - even more subversive than the parodied self-proclaimed rebel is willing to commit. the hordes of the ugly can lawfully claim their place beside the criminals and the illegal immigrants in the ranks of the homini sacri. and they will not be noticed.